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

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171–180 of 221 posts

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

#171

I don't drive, so getting to and from work is often more work than the actual work, plus, a lot of what I do isn't desk work. I spend a lot more on on-the-go gear than office stuff. * Tile Trackers * Vacuum insulated water bottles, food jars, and a coffee mug * A decent phone * A MOLLE backpack(SOG Ninja) and accessories. * A headlamp (Sofirn HS10, it's tiny and USB-C rechargeable) * Zero drop barefoot shoes * An ult…

Shoe recs? My Feiyues are crucial to me but they look kinda junky.

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agreed, Jetbrain IDEs are great buys, but some people refuse to make the leap. I'm currently running into formatting issues/PR conflicts because of other devs refusing to switch over and the default formatting rules between Code and Jetbrains is wide.

Oh, yeah, we had that issue too and solved it pretty successfully with `.editorconfig` (shareable between VScode and IntelliJ, https://editorconfig.org/ ) combined with `prettier`. Each IDE is configured to: - Not reformat code on its own - Ignore whitespace - Run `prettier` as a pre-commit hook Those settings are saved to `.editorconfig` where possible, or to each IDE's repo-specific folder (e.g. `.idea`). Then in t…

I've suggested that twice now, but it's a couple of the more senior members on the team being resistant, so the feet dragging continues.

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

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten the Winix ones from Costco and they work great. I really notice a difference now that it's getting cold and my windows are shut most of the time.

The problem with shutting windows is CO2 quickly gets up to unhealthy levels. Takes about 2 hours in my office. A good quality CO2 monitor (e.g Aranet) is a worthwhile investment.

That probably explains the weird sensations in my chest, especially when turning on the stove to cook something.

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

#174
post #40

My Remarkable 2 E-Ink notebook for sure. I'm a pen and paper notes taker - R2 has been extremely useful in freeing me up from the pen and paper books. And my notes are searchable and tagged!

How close does it feel to pen and paper?

I loathe the idea of paying a subscription for a device I am already paying money for but I find pen and paper way more liberating than a computer. I am very tempted by e-ink notebooks as they feel somewhere in between the two

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

#175
post #122

Top is maybe my old Dell 27" 4K Ultrasharp. Still nice and bright but lacks USB-C/Thunderbolt. Plenty of pixels for me and a good height range. I tried lots of USB-C docks/dongles and finally gave in and got a decent lower-end Thunderbolt dock from Anker. No more juggling multiple cables to get 4K60. Single cable solution to dock my MacBook Pro and run pretty much anything. It isn't currently in my office, but a chea…

Second on a NICE sizable monitor -- and high pixel density too. I have a Dell and one USB-C cable does the trick. No dock needed, it has enough USB-A (webcam, keyboard).

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

#176

I'll second what others said about chairs and nice keyboards. If you're going to spend a lot of time using it, it might as well be a good one. Some other things that helped me with a mainly work from home life: - A very large desk with a ton of space to tinker with things. I got an corner desk, with one wing holding an electronics workbench, and the other kept clean for working on my 3d printer or camera or taxes, et…

Yes to the large desk! I have a dining table with the leaves taken out. I can't believe how tiny home desks are. No one would tolerate a 28" depth at work -- why do we just accept this in the home?

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

#177

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 finally switched to using Jetbrains IDEs after using vim for so many decades.

I am curious how you went about learning all the features. There just seems to be so many and it can be a bit overwhelming.

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

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten the Winix ones from Costco and they work great. I really notice a difference now that it's getting cold and my windows are shut most of the time.

The problem with shutting windows is CO2 quickly gets up to unhealthy levels. Takes about 2 hours in my office. A good quality CO2 monitor (e.g Aranet) is a worthwhile investment.

What levels are you seeing?
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