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Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

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Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

#621

Post by pronik »

pedrovhb wrote: post #580

Oh boy, I found/invented a tweak that I can't live without anymore. I use an MX Ergo trackball, not sure how it'd fare on a mouse, but here are the magic runes: 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…

If I understand you correctly, this is exactly how Trackpoints have been scrolling for decades -- hold the middle button and move the pointer.

Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

#623

Post by eddieroger »

modeless wrote: post #237

Gaming 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…

This is a real MVP of the work from home life. Some of them, like the Arctis I have, will present two devices to the computer, so you can have music playing quietly under a meeting, but still have voice for calls at a good quality and controlled independently.

Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

#624

Post by ja27 »

bierjunge wrote: post #462
theshrike79 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wanted one for gaming on the go with the Switch and Steam Deck, but couldn't really justify the purchase. ...but if I can pretend I use it as a second monitor for work, then it's OK! :D

I've got a Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 ( https://www.amazon.de/Lenovo-2160x1350-WideView-Tablet-PC-Sn... ) for "development" purposes. It's a nice tablet with 2k screen and enough power for pretty much everything, Android 13 and the killer feature for me: a micro-HDMI input. It works like a charm with MacOs/Linux as a second screen, but you can also connect a Switch or SteamDeck, grab a controller and you can play everywhere…

Nice.

The iPad and Mac have Sidecar which lets you use the iPad wired/wirelessly as an additional display for the Mac but it's so damn flaky that I gave up and got the portable monitor.

I do carry a cheap HDMI->USB adapter (Elgato Cam Link knock-off) which lets me use my Macbook as a monitor for things like Raspberry Pi's but not sure what the capture rate is.

Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

#625

Post by WorldPeas »

wtk wrote: post #619

(not all are computer peripherals, but other comments seem wider than initial criteria) * whiteboard placed on a painting easel next to my desk (when I don't use whiteboard, I can use the easel it to paint acrylic) - about 90x120 cm. I put my tasks for work, but also pick exercises with checkbox to do during the day. * AKAI mpk mini - when tired of work, can jump over to Ableton like software and relax * MX Master 3S…

wait I thought that blue light at night was bad for your sleep? Are you using it as some sort of sleep suppressant?

Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

#626

Post by bornon5 »

adrian_b wrote: post #451

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…

Nice to see this here. I’ve using a tablet for cursor movement since around 2010, and I find it amazing except for one small issue I’ve never been able to solve: tapping with the pen in order to click is finicky, because if I even drag a few pixels during the tap, it turns into a drag gesture.

Right now I’m using a Huion tablet, which does not appear to allow customizing the drag-to-disable-click distance. Is there any Mac utility that would work for this?

Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

#627

Post by eddieroger »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #405
cal85 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought one of these a couple of years ago with plans to use it for macros, shortcuts etc, but gave up using it because I found the system for writing your own plugins and generally configuring it was beyond awful, it felt like a designed-by-committee horror show. The complexity to just just set the button image and make it run a bash script when pressed was insane. But I really wanted it to work, I can think of ton…

Are you using a mac? If so then the perfect combo is streamdeck + keyboard maestro. There are several great plugins for streamdeck that makes it easy to run keyboard maestro automations

Also honorable mention for the Mac, Hammerspoon. It has a native interface for Stream Deck and can do a considerable amount by itself for the price of a taskbar executable. My favorite is its ability to send keystrokes directly to specific apps. so I can have global a/v mute for Zoom.

Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

#628

Post by stevenjgarner »

Slightly off-topic, but a "lesser known accessory I use(d)" back in the 1970's was the Microwriter [1], a chording keyboard that provided for a typing speed not possible with normal keyboards. I am a proficient (Pitman) touch typist, but after a clumsy learning curve, the Microwriter more than doubled my input speed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwriter

Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

#629

Post by Aardwolf »

rationalist wrote: post #49

I was going to joke and say a cup holder (one company actually made a legitimate cup holder that fit in a 5.25" bay back in the '90s or so), but when researching for this comment, I discovered there are actual modern cup holder products that either clamp or magnetically attach to desks or other surfaces now.

I remember long ago a file "cupholder.exe" for windows, which when executed would open the CD ROM tray

Re: Ask HN: What lesser-known accessories do you use with your computer?

#630

Post by farco12 »

elric wrote: post #567
dgunay wrote: post #4

I use a small USB switcher box to let me control my personal machine and my work machine at the same desk. I also use a keyboard that lets me flip a switch to change between Mac/Windows layouts. It has been very helpful to let me cleanly separate work from leisure, without having to give up the ergonomics of my desk setup. The friction to switch is low enough that I don't feel tempted to keep work related stuff on my…

I wish there were Thunderbolt 4 "KVMs". I have my laptop connected to my TB4 ThinkPad dock, which takes care of charging the laptop, attaches an external display over DisplayPort, has keyboard & mouse, external speakers, and has wired ethernet. When I switch to my desktop, I have to unplug the laptop from the dock and attach the desktop to the dock. It's a minor inconvenience, but it is an inconvenience, and it messe…

A tb4 kvm would be nice. I use a dock with my 2 laptops primarily to split video and USB to use with a kvm I share with my desktop so I don't have to switch out mouse, keyboard, and headset between everything.

I will say my favorite accessory has been my particular KVM that allows me to switch between my dock and desktop with a special keyboard command. Beats fiddling directly with the many buttons I had to press on my monitor to switch video inputs previously.

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