I use a Thinkpad keyboard with a track point mouse. So nice to not have to move my hands off the keyboard to move the mouse.
Except for their damnable placement of Fn where Ctrl should be.
You can change that in the bios.
Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
351–360 of 853 posts
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#352I use a Kinesis advantage keyboard. It's expensive and ugly but comfortable. I would not go back to another keyboard ever again. Have a look at this review https://www.anandtech.com/show/7125/kinesis-advantage-review...
I came from using two Microsoft Natural keyboards at once, as my "split" keyboard. I eventually upgraded to a Kinesis FreeStyle 2. I've tried some ortholinear keyboards but hated hated hated every minute of it. I'm back on the FreeStyle 2 at work and a newer FreeStyle Edge at home.
it makes me very sad that I can't get a microsoft natural ergo keyboard in mechanical switches
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#353Gaming wireless headphones, not for gaming but for videoconferencing. Bluetooth headphones are universally terrible for videoconferencing because the Bluetooth standard sucks and requires downgrading to telephone audio quality whenever the mic is enabled. Plus terrible latency. Gaming wireless headphones that come with their own dongle completely fix these issues and are perfect for videoconferencing. Someday the Blu…
I use wired. No hassle with charging or dongles. It's not as if I am going anywhere in these since the mic arm is quite awkward looking (but provides unbeatable sound quality).
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#354I have USB footpedals. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/01/review-usb-foot-pedals-fs3_... I joke that I have them programmed for select all, copy, and paste. But, really, it is for microphone mute, camera toggle, and boss key. Takes up a small amount of under desk space, but worth it.
What pray tell does the "boss key" do?
This is old school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_key
I think Wolfenstein had one.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#355A large format (A1 or A0) roll plotter, pencils, compass, protractor and set squares. Obviously highly dependant on what you do. After being heavily screen only for most of my professional life, having the ability to print off a table sized drawing of an engineering diagram, review it, mark it up, and work with others in that process is really nice. It’s definitely more efficient in pure IO terms to work solely in th…
can I ask in what field you work ?
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#356A Big Knob Passive (not powered), which can toggle audio independently between two inputs (laptop and pc), and two outputs (speakers, and bluetooth transmitter) using tactile toggle buttons with immediate response, and it also has a big volume knob, and a button to turn stereo into mono which has turned out useful for some badly encoded videos having audio in only one channel.
The Bluetooth transmitter is used with sony WH-1000XM3 using the aptx standard and latency this way is good enough for gaming (I know what bad Bluetooth latency is like, and this setup does not have it)
The fact that pc and laptop output to audio jack and don't know I use wireless headphones (or which input or output I use at all) is a feature, not a bug, since I actually don't want the headphones to be able to change state of music players or volume on the pc as it's buggy and annoying if it does that.
The only thing the big knob passive lacks imho is an ability to mix both input sources together passively.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s essentially no lag in a dedicated wireless receiver mouse - the additional latency is dwarfed by the baseline latency of the hardware and software. https://www.rtings.com/mouse/tests/control/latency Yes connectivity issues can be a problem in certain environments but luckily this has usually not been a problem with receivers not in close proximity to interference, including USB3. Battery wise I have had cheap…
No question about it, wireless is the GOAT.
What's the etiquette here or are we just being trolled?
Parent has edited all their comments now making the rest of the comment tree less useful. Essentially they were arguing that wireless signals themselves couldn't be faster than a wired/optical signal despite physics disagreeing.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#358Gaming wireless headphones, not for gaming but for videoconferencing. Bluetooth headphones are universally terrible for videoconferencing because the Bluetooth standard sucks and requires downgrading to telephone audio quality whenever the mic is enabled. Plus terrible latency. Gaming wireless headphones that come with their own dongle completely fix these issues and are perfect for videoconferencing. Someday the Blu…
I use wired. No hassle with charging or dongles. It's not as if I am going anywhere in these since the mic arm is quite awkward looking (but provides unbeatable sound quality).
No dongle? The whole thing is a giant dongle hanging off your computer. Headphone cables are far more annoying than mouse cables IMO, and they even affect the sound because it's quite audible when they hit or rub on stuff. Plus I find it surprisingly useful to be able to get out of my chair to grab something while still listening and/or talking. I can even go to another room.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#359After working for almost 3 years with a barebones work-from-home setup (standup desk + laptop), I finally invested recently in some equipment to improve upon my crappy laptop camera and a room with little natural light. The difference in my video call quality is night and day. This is what I got: - A key light (Godox ES45) to throw a bunch of bright, natural white light at my face. Attached to the desk and positioned…
Can you provide some more details about what you needed to do to set up your RX100 III? I have the same camera and would love to do the same.
Sure thing. Here are the specific items I ended up with:
- Cam link 4K card: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09XXBTBYB
- Dummy battery kit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B078PDCF7D
- Micro HDMI cable: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08C2QMT4R
After that just plug it in and it's recognized as a USB camera. One other thing I ran into was the camera kept losing settings after being turned off. Turns out there is an internal battery that got discharged after years of non-use. I think I used a micro USB cable with a running camera to get it juiced up.
Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#360A Shure SM-58 microphone, with a XLR soundcard to go with it. I always wanted to get a good microphone for voice calls, thankfully a friend of mine had more than a dozen of them, of all styles: dynamic, condenser, long range, cheap, expensive, etc... We spent a couple of hours trying them. First thing: condenser microphones are great... in a studio. You are probably not in a studio, so if you use one of them, people…
I use the same Behringer UMC204HD interface but I paired it with a SM-58 "clone": the Behringer XM8500 [1]. I think its performance is unbeatable considering the price. I love the combination.