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Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

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Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#111

Post by dingaling »

gcatalfamo wrote: post #102
draklor40 wrote: post #94

There exists a good solution. It is called a desktop. I turned my company provided laptop into an almost full desktop with external monitor, keyboard and mouse, speakers, a USB microphone, USB camera. At this point I am wondering why do I even have a wimpy ULV processor to write code 8 hrs a day. The sheer amount of time I could save by switching to even a basic 4 core 45-65w Desktop class CPU. Saving pennies on the…

Yes, in theory. But I end up not liking having to sit at the desk for "everything computer". Sometimes I just want to work while sitting comfortably on the couch.

> Sometimes I just want to work while sitting comfortably on the couch.

Grab some paper and a pencil and use it as non-screen time. Else you can find yourself spending too long on a poor posture on furniture that's designed for lean-back, not lean-in.

Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#112

Post by ojbyrne »

nonameiguess wrote: post #97
sandworm101 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> or at least a physical cover. I want a mechanical microphone switch too. Being seen can be embarrassing but being caught saying something can end your career instantly. See that school board that all had to resign after they were caught badmouthing parents.

Not sure what incident you're referring to, but school board is an elected position. Politicians, of all people, should not expect job security and need to be transparent and accountable to the voting public. They don't deserve privacy at all, at least not in their professional capacity. I like privacy, sure, but I achieve that by not running for public office.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/21/us/california-school-board-re...

Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#113

Post by WalterBright »

tokamak-teapot wrote: post #58
hc-taway wrote: post #3

1) physical kill switch for camera (as in, it breaks the power or data connection to it, physically) or at least a physical cover. 2) physical kill switch for the microphone These are very much not "nerd" concerns, either. I see a lot of non-techies with stickers over their laptop cameras. [EDIT] teachers in particular spread the "put a sticker over the camera" practice, in my experience, both before and during the p…

If you're on MacOS, open 'Audio MIDI Setup' and look at 'Built-in Microphone'. You can tick the 'Mute' box next to 'Master' and your microphone is now muted independently of Teams, WebEx, or whatever. It's not a physical switch, but it's a good second safeguard. Teams is even polite enough to tell remind you that you're muted because it can detect this. A slightly folded post-it note also works well as a camera cover…

Software switches are always hackable. Never ever rely on one.

Half of hacking exploits would go away if there was a physical write enable switch on device ROMs.

Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#114

Post by wombatmobile »

> In addition, research shows that the audio quality is just as important as video quality when judging the overall “quality” and “presence” of the conference experience

Audio transmits 80% of the intellectual content. That's why when your TV news crosses to an outside broadcast unit, and there's no sound but the vision is perfect, they give up and go back to the studio until they get audio.

Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#115

Post by dhosek »

plun9 wrote: post #109
gcatalfamo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in theory. But I end up not liking having to sit at the desk for "everything computer". Sometimes I just want to work while sitting comfortably on the couch.

You could get a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo and use a TV/projector as a display.

That doesn't really work for me with my fading vision in my senescence. My monitor that I work on is a super-wide screen monitor about 2 feet away. The optimum TV-watching distance is much further for me.

Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#116

Post by dhosek »

psidhu wrote: post #11
tpmx wrote: post #5

Having a built-in "ring"-light would be nice. Perhaps in the bezels? Or perhaps even done via detailed software-based control of the screen backlight via zones? Audio is already pretty great with a modern laptop, but it's tricky to arrange proper lighting for video conferencing.

Not necessarily good for people wearing glasses! I bought one and it glares off of mine a lot so I stopped using it. Other angles where the glare stops makes me look like a sociopath.

I imagine the flayed human corpses in the background don't help with the sociopath thing.

Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#117

Post by dhosek »

sidpatil wrote: post #57
thomascgalvin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an argument to be made for bulkier laptops now. The trend of the last two decades has been smaller form factors, which puts a hard limit on the battery, the hard drive, the number of ports you can support, and even how much thermal energy you can radiate. That was important largely because you were going to be lugging the thing around everywhere, and a pound or two could make a real difference. Now th…

These are known as mobile workstations . They can get quite bulky, quite heavy, and quite powerful.

I worked for a while at ISI. They let people choose their hardware for a desktop and laptop with a generous budget. One of the guys on the team had some monster gaming laptop as his laptop—I think it was a 20" screen or something on that beast.

Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#118

Post by dhosek »

geocrasher wrote: post #74

Forget laptops. Bring back the portable computer.

My first computer was a lunchbox portable. It had a monochrome plasma display and one or two open ISA slots inside (I remember I added a SCSI controller to it to drive an external CD-ROM drive). No battery power, but back in the 90s it wasn't that big of a deal to only use your computer somewhere you could plug it in.

Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#119

Post by llampx »

skrtskrt wrote: post #40
hc-taway wrote: post #3

1) physical kill switch for camera (as in, it breaks the power or data connection to it, physically) or at least a physical cover. 2) physical kill switch for the microphone These are very much not "nerd" concerns, either. I see a lot of non-techies with stickers over their laptop cameras. [EDIT] teachers in particular spread the "put a sticker over the camera" practice, in my experience, both before and during the p…

Lots of companies distribute their employees laptops with a little plastic slider to shutter the camera, so it's further than not-just-nerds - corporate IT decisionmakers are recognizing the need too.

I'm disappointed that Apple hasn't seen fit to put a physical camera cover on their webcams like recent Thinkpads.

Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

#120

Post by draklor40 »

gcatalfamo wrote: post #102
draklor40 wrote: post #94

There exists a good solution. It is called a desktop. I turned my company provided laptop into an almost full desktop with external monitor, keyboard and mouse, speakers, a USB microphone, USB camera. At this point I am wondering why do I even have a wimpy ULV processor to write code 8 hrs a day. The sheer amount of time I could save by switching to even a basic 4 core 45-65w Desktop class CPU. Saving pennies on the…

Yes, in theory. But I end up not liking having to sit at the desk for "everything computer". Sometimes I just want to work while sitting comfortably on the couch.

I never get work done at the couch. Youtube, surfing, browsing, yes. Work ? No.

I like a work desk. Keeps work and other stuff separate. Got a height adjustable desk. keeps my back from going bad before I hit 40.

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