touch pads

i love the igesture pad, but i would advise buying it directly from fingerworks (http://www.fingerworks.com). maybe it was just my order, but amazon messed it up so bad. it advertises "1-2 business days" for shipping. 6 days later, it finally entered shipping. i check the next day, and it's back to "not shipped". it's been on "not shipped" every day until today, 13 days later, i check, and it's just gone completely. needless to say, it's worth the extra $30 to order it from fingerworks if they're "shipping" every pad like this

I have owned my iGesture pad for about a year now, and would like to share my observations with the Amazon community. Especially since the product page doesn't tell you anything about it!

This product is a mouse alternative. It's basically a flat, smooth surface; there are no moving parts. An embedded processor responds to the contact and motion of your finger(s) (which are referred to as "gestures") and translates that to common mouse commands or keyboard macros. It connects via USB; I've used mine on Windows (2KPro and XP).

I bought this for two reasons, one practical, one not.

Ergonomics: The traditional mouse was starting to cause me trouble in the hands -- I'd get pain after increasignly-shorter use periods. And, that pencil-eraser-like nubbin on my laptop keyboard is awful for my hand. The iGesture is a vast improvement -- no fatigue or pain after long periods of use. The required touch is extremely light, so there's no pressure on the muscles.

Cool factor: Ever see that movie "Minority Report" where they move stuff around this glass panel using their hands? It's kinda like that, and it really works! Granted, the pad is smaller, and your monitor doesn't change :) but the idea of the gestures works.

In its basic mode, there are certain groups of gestures that map to things like mouse movements, left- and right-click, double-click, and scroll. There are also keyboard substitutes, like cursor movements (the arrow keys), cut, paste, copy, undo/redo. There are also gestures for other common "super-mouse" functions like browser fwd/back, and zoom. You can even switch among apps (a la Windows ALT-TAB).

(There are also other modes, such as EMACs, Photoshop, and GAME modes, but I've never tried them.)

It took me a couple of days for these to become second nature, but the learning curve wasn't steep at all; it comes with a handy cheat-sheet to help you through those first few days. The gestures are pretty intuitive (for example, for the "cut" command, you make a motion like you're picking something up with your finger and thumb), which helps.

After a few days, I was using it to read my mail and maintain my inbox (MS Outlook) without touching the keyboard or using a pull-down menu. With one exception: there was no gesture for the "delete" key. But, from their website, you can download a utility which allows you to edit the built-in gesture-to-action mapping, so I just found an empty gesture (I could have overridden an existing gesture), and programmed it for the delete keystroke. Worked great.

As an added bonus, it's really slim (less than a half-inch think) so it slips into my laptop bag really easy, unlike a standard mouse.

All accompanying software (such as the gesture editor mentioned above, firmware updates, etc.) have all been stable.

If you have more questions, be sure to check their website (fingerworks.com) for details.

Disclaimer: I don't work for, know anyone who works for, nor am I otherwise compensated by FingerWorks. I just like this product!