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Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#91

Post by blotato »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #2

What kind of desk/table did you find that worked with that? I have a 5K grand leather livi by room chair my grandfather bought for me that I adore, but using it with a desk has been a significant challenge.

I have a standing desk but it isn't necessary, it's one item I had tried years ago. It was a cheap one from amazon. I guess it's nice to precisely adjust the height, but I'm shorter so I just set the height to the lowest setting. Having a monitor arm is key so that I can tilt my monitor towards me.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#92

Post by DamnInteresting »

francisofascii wrote: post #58

I use two mice. I have a trackball mouse for my left hand and also use a conventional mouse for my right hand. I switch back and forth throughout the day. I suffered CTS early in my career when getting a full time job. I could not work full time without this setup.

My setup is similar, but with an Elecom Huge trackball on the right, and a magic touchpad on the left for quick gestures such as swapping desktops. It's excellent.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#93

Post by S_Bear »

- A logitech MX vertical mouse. I rarely have carpal tunnel issues using it all day. I wish it was a bit more responsive and I'd use it for gaming because it's so comfortable

- A decent backpack with space for a) a whole set of USB cords b) a small hand tools kit and c) a small cutlery set. Having dedicated cords and tools for just my backpack is nice, and a nice cutlery set is good for meetings and out in the field when I don't want to waste single-use plastic.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#94

Post by heliodor »

A big desk. A bunch deeper and longer than the bare minimum. And L-shaped so that I can rest my hand on it.

Having an external monitor behind my laptop screen allows me to change the focal distance of my eyes back and forth, so that's probably good for the eyes.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#95

Post by zeagle »

blotato wrote: post #84
zeagle wrote: post #73

Standing desk with same USB C dock + jabra headset + ergonomic microsoft sculpt keyboard + similar dual monitors in my home and work office. It's been very convenient as I can grab and go to plug in my personal laptop, work laptop, or usb c the peripherals to to the gaming desktop pretty easily. Dragon medical dictation and now dragon one dictation. I don't agree with their frankly predatory end of life discontinuati…

I just replied this to another comment: Kinesis ergonomic keyboard or Moonlander split keyboard. I personally prefer Kinesis but needed a split keyboard for my recliner. Using the kinesis would've had my arms too high up.

Thanks! Can you press a button to do Fn+1/2/3 on these?

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#96

Post by absoluteunit1 »

solardev wrote: post #67

OK, cheating a bit here, but: My Jetbrains IDEs. It's a huge productivity boost for me over VSCode, with batteries included out of the box (great diff engine, gitlens like visual git, built in postman like client, SQL query editor and table browser, amazing indexed searched, awesome refactoring). I've paid for an individual sub for a decade and will probably keep doing it for life. Really great product that's useful…

I’ve become very dependent on it too and slowly transitioning to nvim for everything. Want to avoid having to pay the subscription

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#97

Post by neilyio »

Hifiman Ananda wired headphones. They are the lightest and clearest headphones I've ever used. I was fed up with the unreliable connection and dying battery in my Airpods Max. Listening to music is now effortless, and I'm listening more closely than ever to all genres.

I keep them on a wooden stand on my desk, plugged into an Apogee Duet 3 interface.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#98

Post by kresa »

S_Bear wrote: post #93

- A logitech MX vertical mouse. I rarely have carpal tunnel issues using it all day. I wish it was a bit more responsive and I'd use it for gaming because it's so comfortable - A decent backpack with space for a) a whole set of USB cords b) a small hand tools kit and c) a small cutlery set. Having dedicated cords and tools for just my backpack is nice, and a nice cutlery set is good for meetings and out in the field…

Is the scroll wheel on your MX vertical working as expected for you? I find it really hard to press.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#99

Post by solardev »

absoluteunit1 wrote: post #96
solardev wrote: post #67

OK, cheating a bit here, but: My Jetbrains IDEs. It's a huge productivity boost for me over VSCode, with batteries included out of the box (great diff engine, gitlens like visual git, built in postman like client, SQL query editor and table browser, amazing indexed searched, awesome refactoring). I've paid for an individual sub for a decade and will probably keep doing it for life. Really great product that's useful…

I’ve become very dependent on it too and slowly transitioning to nvim for everything. Want to avoid having to pay the subscription

I understand trying to save money, but the individual licenses are really fairly priced. For a single IDE (like Webstorm) it's $69/year for the first year, then $41/year from year 3 and on. That's For the price of a coffee (and maybe a bagel) once a month, you get access to something that can save you hours a week. And if you ever stop subscribing, you can keep using the last licensed version you have, just without further upgrades. I don't think there is a better value anywhere in the software world. It costs even less (and gives way more) than MS Office.

If you need more than one IDE, it's more expensive, but still not bad at all. They also give free licenses to FOSS maintainers, along with significant discounts for startups, education, nonprofits, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What work/office purchase transformed your life?

#100

Post by absoluteunit1 »

Hardware / furniture

- Kinesis Advantage 2 keyboard (with QMK Stapleberg mod via Teensy microcontroller). This way I get the advantage of the extremely ergonomic keyboard + plus the benefit of it being highly configurable/programmable via C (QMK)

- adjustable desk

- ergonomic chair (got it second hand from a furniture store that buys from businesses that are closing down offices; essentially an 1.5k chair for $200 in good condition)

Software-wise

- learning vim/nvim (long term commitment but after a few years it starts bearing fruit and I’m more productive on it than any other tools I’ve used

- raycast (powerful, highly configurable Mac OS launcher)

- using a clipboard (I use the Raycast built in one; have a dedicated key for it)

- vimium (vim motions in browser)

- benefits of vim and vimium is that I don’t use mouse much and so my shoulder doesn’t hurt (from moving back and from from keyboard and mouse) and I don’t use the mouse scroller (biggest killer for hand pain for me)

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