Earlier quoted context omitted.
monitor arms are _great_. you get your desk back, plus you can really just put your monitor away, or adjust it so that two people can see it, etc.
Unless you're as anal-retentive as me and are driven insane by the slightest hint of tilt to one side or the other.
Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
571–580 of 853 posts
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#572An upside-down metal drink tumbler, with an anti-static wrist strap around it, and clamped to the chassis of the computer. In the colder months, I touch it before touching parts of the computer, or my metal keyboard (which is not great for static). Before that, I hung up my system several times from static shocks on USB stuff.
A pile of random stuff with the right dimensions to put my webcam on in front of my monitor, so it looks like I'm actually looking at the person talking. This one doesn't work so well.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#573A Tidbyt: https://tidbyt.com/ It's next to my computer, and I use it for notifications and smaller dashboards: https://github.com/tidbyt/community
Is there anything like this but... not as nice? (and not as expensive) I wouldn't mind having something like this to mess around on but not for $180 USD
I have the speaker called Timebox Evo with a 16x16 display. They used to be around $35 or so, i think now they cost $50. Its sound quality is mediocre at best but the display is nice, the app is pretty slick and the builtin battery lasts long. The build quality is also good.
product homepage:
https://divoom.com/en-de/collections/smart-pixel-speaker/pro...
github: (unofficial)
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#574Gaming 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…
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#575I haven't used a second monitor since, and don't need to wear glasses at the computer anymore since the setup is a few inches closer to the face.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just checked on my own hand; I think I only use my pinky to hit Enter. Other keys: Esc - Left Middle Finger Tab - Left Ring Finger Space - Either thumb, but usually right thumb Backspace - Right ring finger Enter - Right Pinky I do use my left pinky for shift and caps lock though
Sure, but it's quite a reach to hit Esc where it is. You either need to move your hand, or to really stretch the fingers. With more thumb keys, it's much easier to have access to these keys with hands rested on home row.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#577Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using laptop mic’s fixes bluetooth issue and massively improves audio quality
Really depends on the laptop. On my work laptop, the microphone is located next to the fans (instead of for instance next to the webcam). You can imagine the audio quality.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like I could never get used to a keyboard like this. I use arrow keys all the goddamned time, along with home, insert, page up/down
The point is that this way arrow keys are right under your hand when you're typing.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wireless headphones. Because sometimes I really have to go and it's literally no problem to walk to the bathroom. Or to go make tea. Or to do whatever. Freedom to not be chained up is amazing. Try it. I too don't feel like I've had to mess with audio settings. I have some SteelSeries Actis Pro's I bought a long time ago. They have bluetooth, but there's also a nice usb-based head-unit I use with higher quality, lower…
I use wireless headphones because cords get in my way, but the “step away to make tea” seems like an unlikely use case to me. It isn’t as if you don’t have to see the screen anyway… more than half the time someone is sharing a window and saying things like, “what do we do about THIS?” while waving their pointer over something.
I just need to be sipping something.
Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?
#580 xinput set-prop "libinput Scroll Method Enabled" 0 0 1
xinput set-prop "libinput Button Scrolling Button" 8
Where you'd change 8 to a chosen mouse button and the mouse device id to its appropriate value from `xinput list`.What this does is make it so that as long as that button is being held, moving the cursors scrolls instead. It's hard to describe how much better of n experience it is vs. using the scroll wheel. It's much faster, much more precise, and less finger-tiring.
Here's a gist of the Python script I use to set it up - https://gist.github.com/pedrovhb/41e9d5b7b7b5c13fe2c94aa4cee...