511–520 of 853 posts
Ikea Kolon - a floor protector. It's not strictly a computer hardware but I have it for 2 main desktops. Otherwise wooden floor gets damaged when you roll your chair in-place for hours each day.
My one nit to pick is that they don’t have multiple connections, so for convenience, I just have two at my desk, one that stays connected to my personal system, and one that connects to the work laptop.
I also have an UPS under the desk, keeping up the wifi hub in all circumstances; it has a couple of USB charging ports on the front, so I use those with most random things that need charging. For some things I recently started using elbow USB-C connectors, or ones that can bend either way, to tidy up some corners and reduce strain on connectors.
The rest is about ergonomics - screen at the right level, good chair (Aeron, although tbh I miss my previous Mirrah) to avoid back pain, good split keyboard (Kinesis, although I wish i could afford an ergodox) to take away wrist pain (massive difference), that sort of thing.
After experimenting for many years with many kinds of mice, trackballs, touchpads, trackpoints etc. in the search for the most comfortable graphic pointing device, I have settled to use, instead of a mouse, a small Wacom Intuos graphic tablet (usually with Linux), configured in its "mouse" mode, i.e. with relative coordinates, not with its default absolute coordinates. At least for me, using a stylus has proven to be…
I was thinking about something like this for some time as well... care to elaborate? do you pick up the pen every time you switch from keyboard to "mouse" or do you have some type of ring holder?
However, the pen is very light and I can retain it between the fingers without it limiting much the movements of the fingers. Because of that, if I have to type only a few words between some pointing actions I do not bother to drop the pen, but I touch type with the pen still between the fingers of my right hand. If I have to type more than one sentence, I drop the pen on the tablet and I pick it up again after finishing typing.
This actually makes on average the switching of the right hand between typing and pointing less distracting than with a mouse, because the heavier mouse must be released and grabbed after that, even when typing a single letter, which takes more time than moving the hand holding the pen between tablet and keyboard (especially now, after I have recently switched to a narrower ergonomic keyboard, without numeric pad, where the movement of the right hand is minimized).
The left mouse click is done by touching the tablet with the pen. The pen has 2 buttons for the thumb, which can be mapped to various events. I map one button to be the right mouse click and the other to be the double left mouse click.
An Elgato Stream Deck but for general purposes https://www.elgato.com/en/stream-deck-mk2 Basically imagine having 15 physical buttons to use with any kind of actions, shortcuts, macros etc. but you have a visual feedback too. It’s pretty great! I know there are alternatives like the Adafruit RP2040 https://www.adafruit.com/product/5128 but the visual knobs make the Stream Deck much better imo.
Complex operations that used to take three people can be done by a single person.
For a basic example:
Audio operator fades out background music and brings up video playback audio channels Lighting operator puts lighting into video state Video operator switches from holding slide input on screen to video playback input
Is now one button. Same equipment, same production value. One button. Boop. Go.
Admittedly it takes some additional configuration time, but for something like a roadshow where it is the same sequence of actions every day it ends up being a great time saver.
Solar wireless keyboards. I use both Mac and Windows versions of the Logitech K750. Even indoor lighting is enough to keep them charged if you don’t cover them up, but I typically want a window nearby anyway, which means never worrying about charging them. My one nit to pick is that they don’t have multiple connections, so for convenience, I just have two at my desk, one that stays connected to my personal system, an…
A review by Linus of Linus Tech Tips from 2012:
An Elgato Stream Deck but for general purposes https://www.elgato.com/en/stream-deck-mk2 Basically imagine having 15 physical buttons to use with any kind of actions, shortcuts, macros etc. but you have a visual feedback too. It’s pretty great! I know there are alternatives like the Adafruit RP2040 https://www.adafruit.com/product/5128 but the visual knobs make the Stream Deck much better imo.
I recently ditched my external monitor and I’m finding myself less distracted. 16 inch MacBook Pro screen is all I really need. Anyone else prefer working with minimal peripherals?
This is much worse for posture though. I much prefer having a monitor that is elevated so that when I sit up straight it is directly in front of me
I removed armrests because my wrists are resting at the side of the touchpad. I never touched the armrest unless I was standing up or sitting down.
People will love you much more if you use a real microphone. I have a travel-sized one from RØDE; the difference it made, in how people perceive my voice, is massive - I sound like a professional speaker rather than a geek in the basement. This brought significant reputational advantages. I also have an UPS under the desk, keeping up the wifi hub in all circumstances; it has a couple of USB charging ports on the fron…
I use a logitech brio 4k webcam (only 4k at certain resolutions) with a JLAB Talk Pro Omnidirectional microphone.
I also started recording programming tutorial videos to justify the cost of the microphone
After experimenting for many years with many kinds of mice, trackballs, touchpads, trackpoints etc. in the search for the most comfortable graphic pointing device, I have settled to use, instead of a mouse, a small Wacom Intuos graphic tablet (usually with Linux), configured in its "mouse" mode, i.e. with relative coordinates, not with its default absolute coordinates. At least for me, using a stylus has proven to be…
Can you switch to and from the keyboard just as fast or even faster than with a mouse?
For short typing sequences I retain the pen between the thumb and the palm while touch typing and the switching between keyboard and pointer is faster than with a mouse or trackball.
Before typing a long text, I drop the pen on the tablet and I pick it up later, which takes about the same time as releasing then grabbing again a mouse or a trackball.