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Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#151

Post by absoluteunit1 »

solardev wrote: post #99
absoluteunit1 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve become very dependent on it too and slowly transitioning to nvim for everything. Want to avoid having to pay the subscription

I understand trying to save money, but the individual licenses are really fairly priced. For a single IDE (like Webstorm) it's $69/year for the first year, then $41/year from year 3 and on. That's For the price of a coffee (and maybe a bagel) once a month, you get access to something that can save you hours a week. And if you ever stop subscribing, you can keep using the last licensed version you have, just without f…

You make a good point and I agree 100%; itinerant very reasonably priced. I realize that my comment only highlighted the price being the only factor in my decision to move to other editor. It’s really more like 10% of the reason. My main reason is not having my development experience tied to a single non-open source product. Jetsbrains + ideavim lead to a very highly customizable experience (things like quick lists, triggering ide menu options from ideavim bindings, etc) however it’s still not as configurable as the open source alternatives. Plus I get the benefit of not leaving the shell. This, the price and several other reasons led me to commit to it (another big reason is that it’s just plain fun; the things you can build\come up with to speed your development experience is honestly more of a hobby at this point. So it’s not even about the speed to get things done but something that’s just very enjoyable)

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#152

Post by runjake »

I don't know if they transformed my life, but the following things substantially improved it.

- OK, except the MacBook Pro. That transformed my life. Portable, powerful, long battery life, super-usable.

- OK, and Raycast (https://www.raycast.com/), too. Raycast has transformed my life. I resisted Raycast for a long time, because I already owned Alfred and I thought that Raycast was hipster junk for people unaware of Alfred. I was so wrong.

All my common statements and actions are now down to quick launch and hotkeys with a lot of GPT integration thrown in (eg. "Check spelling and grammar", "Improve writing", "Summarize text", etc).

I've been trying to stick with cross-platform apps as much as possible so that I can eventually move back to Linux, but Raycast is that exception. I pay for the Pro license. And yes, I've played with Albert and (I think) KRunner on Linux.

I could do most of this with Alfred, Albert, or KRunner, but Raycast is so much more polished and has so much less friction when extending it.

- Standing desk: https://www.amazon.com/Flexispot-Standing-Adjustable-Electri...

- Electric Kettle: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DEQDEZA/

- Light therapy lamp: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075H39NDL/

- AA battery flashlight: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G75P1SC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b... I use this thing all the time.

I was nervous going from a USB-charging, albeit larger flashlight to something that takes AA batteries, but this is way easier. When the thing is dead, it's not useless for 2 hours until it's charged up enough. I go to the office battery drawer, retrieve another AA, pop it in and I'm good immediately. In actuality, I keep a spare AA battery in my daily backpack and rotate it out.

- TNF Surge 2023 backpack: https://www.amazon.com/NORTH-FACE-Commuter-Laptop-Backpack/ I moved to this from a Goruck GR1 (which I still use outside of work). The Surge backpacks change all the time. I have a couple from past years -- they aren't that great.

It has a lot of pockets to stash things, the bottle holders aren't stupid. It's ergonomic. The chest strap has a whistle which I use all the time to get people's attention. It holds a 16" MBP and an iPad easily. It's light. The fabric on this particular color is quite rain resistant. Don't watch the YouTube reviews for the 2023, most of them are reviewing a substantially inferior 2023 prototype model before they improved a bunch of things.

- Foam rollers. Doesn't matter which, just buy one with decent ratings.

- Balance board. Nice little core workout and kinda fun when you're noodling on a problem. I bought the crappy plastic one that was on Shark Tank. Don't buy that one. Instead, buy one of these from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=balance+board

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#153

Post by blotato »

joegahona wrote: post #145
blotato wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the stressless recliner, standing desk, single large monitor, monitor arm to tilt my monitor towards me since I'm reclined, ergo split keyboard which I rest on the arms of the recliner, and a small table right next to my recliner where I put my trackball mouse, phone, and water. The standing desk isn't necessary, it's just what I've had all these years, but it's nice to precisely adjust the height of the desk…

Are you willing to share a link to the specific chair you have? "Stressless" appears to be both a brand name and a type of recliner, which makes it difficult to search for.

I got the Stressless Reno https://shop.stressless.com/en/c/recliners/reno I visited a local furniture store that's a certified retailer of Stressless and got to try a bunch of models out. I brought my keyboard with me to simulate how it'd feel. The thing to look for - your body should be so relaxed you almost start napping in 10-15 mins. There should be zero tension in your shoulders or your neck (i.e. chair should not push your neck forward or else you'll get headaches).

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#154

Post by blotato »

runjake wrote: post #152

I don't know if they transformed my life, but the following things substantially improved it. - OK, except the MacBook Pro. That transformed my life. Portable, powerful, long battery life, super-usable. - OK, and Raycast ( https://www.raycast.com/ ), too. Raycast has transformed my life. I resisted Raycast for a long time, because I already owned Alfred and I thought that Raycast was hipster junk for people unaware o…

havent heard of raycast, looks neat! What are the main workflows or automations you use it for?

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#155

Post by leros »

solardev wrote: post #67

OK, cheating a bit here, but: My Jetbrains IDEs. It's a huge productivity boost for me over VSCode, with batteries included out of the box (great diff engine, gitlens like visual git, built in postman like client, SQL query editor and table browser, amazing indexed searched, awesome refactoring). I've paid for an individual sub for a decade and will probably keep doing it for life. Really great product that's useful…

I currently have 5 different JetBrains products open. I am very happy to pay my annual license for their products :)

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#156

Post by skydhash »

charlie0 wrote: post #144
solardev wrote: post #67

OK, cheating a bit here, but: My Jetbrains IDEs. It's a huge productivity boost for me over VSCode, with batteries included out of the box (great diff engine, gitlens like visual git, built in postman like client, SQL query editor and table browser, amazing indexed searched, awesome refactoring). I've paid for an individual sub for a decade and will probably keep doing it for life. Really great product that's useful…

100% agreed, Jetbrain IDEs are great buys, but some people refuse to make the leap. I'm currently running into formatting issues/PR conflicts because of other devs refusing to switch over and the default formatting rules between Code and Jetbrains is wide.

I think the best solution is to settle for a third party formatter.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#157

Post by runjake »

blotato wrote: post #154
runjake wrote: post #152

I don't know if they transformed my life, but the following things substantially improved it. - OK, except the MacBook Pro. That transformed my life. Portable, powerful, long battery life, super-usable. - OK, and Raycast ( https://www.raycast.com/ ), too. Raycast has transformed my life. I resisted Raycast for a long time, because I already owned Alfred and I thought that Raycast was hipster junk for people unaware o…

havent heard of raycast, looks neat! What are the main workflows or automations you use it for?

I am on mobile but I will do my best. I use the Snippets, Script Commands, and AI Commands the most. And Dynamic Placeholders.

https://manual.raycast.com/

I use them for everything from code, config, and script generation to completing trouble tickets (open ticket, get problem and have AI summarize it and make it readable because people can’t English anymore, make a determination/guess on the fix (eg. firewall or other system update), generate the fix commands snippet and ask me if I want to apply them or cancel. Most of these steps is a Python/Ruby/Shell script that takes input from the script in the previous step. I try to keep the scripts small and atomic.

I have a semi-secret obsession with automating nearly all the routine parts of my job and eliminating cognitive load so I can focus on more productive and creative tasks.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#158

Post by tra3 »

tomcam wrote: post #149
mnky9800n wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming your work is something you can do in two minute increments

I have a chaotic home life, so I have always optimized for it. You can do things like write some CSS, debug a problem with a webpage, optimize a query or at least think about it, send a useful text, etc.

how do you not lose context? sometimes when I come back to my desk I have no clue what I was working on or what the problem is.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#160

Post by jbverschoor »

cbovis wrote: post #15
jbverschoor wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which polycom device ?

https://www.poly.com/us/en/products/phones/calisto/calisto-7...

Ahh. So it’s really good? Does it play mine with voice isolation on Mac/iPhone?

I’m kind of addicted to that.

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