My setup
This is the hardware, comforts and technologies that I use.
My desk setup at the moment is very much in flux as we work through our shipment of belongings from the UK, so I will try to detail what I have and what I am planning. To start with here is a photo (opens in a new tab) showing the setup I used before leaving the UK.
The majority of my physical setup is as follows;
- Desk — LOWE's Leadvision Acacia Finger Jointed Countertop (opens in a new tab)
- I recently switched to this desktop after having used the IKEA TROTTEN sit/stand desk (opens in a new tab) for a few years
- I have a monitor and speakers on the desktop so the length is great to ensure things aren't too cramped
- I have placed the countertop on two IKEA MITTBACK trestles (opens in a new tab)
- Chair — Refurbished Herman Miller Celle Chair (opens in a new tab)
- This chair is fantastic for my lower back, picked it up from a refurbished reseller
- Upgraded the wheels to these Lifelong rubber chair casters (opens in a new tab). Now I can glide across any surface, so fun
- Lighting — Philips Hue play light bar (opens in a new tab)
- Picked up a 2-pack of these smart lights and mounted them to the back of the monitor to provide some balanced light
- Monitor — Dell UltraSharp 32 4K Monitor – U3219Q (opens in a new tab)
- Provides USB-C and DisplayPort which lets me connect it to my work laptop and my PC
- Includes a built-in USB hub which means when I switch between the USB-C/DisplayPort inputs then the Keyboard, Mouse, Webcam and Microphone all switch over too
- The physical size is nice because the older I get the larger I need the text to appear
- Speakers — Edifier R1280DB (opens in a new tab)
- These were larger than I expected as I was looking for something low-profile
- The speakers have good quality audio and multiple input sources which work great for switching between laptop and PC
- Thinking about switching to Audioengine A2+ (opens in a new tab) or something similarly sized
- Webcam — Logitech C922 Pro (opens in a new tab)
- Nothing too special here, I don't use the built-in mic
- I do have a privacy shutter attached
- Microphone — fifine K669 (opens in a new tab)
- Picked this up as a pretty cheap upgrade from the built-in microphone of my MacBook
- Paired with the InnoGear microphone stand with pop filter (opens in a new tab)
- Mouse surface — Aukey extended XXL mouse mat (opens in a new tab)
- Again a cheap upgrade to cover a large portion of the desk as I tend to move the mouse and keyboard around a lot
- Keyboard — Razor BlackWidow V3 Pro (opens in a new tab)
- This is a recent upgrade, so not pictured above
- My previous mechanical keyboard was smaller and didn't have a Numpad, which I quickly began to miss
- Mouse — Razer Viper Ultimate (opens in a new tab)
- This is a recent upgrade, so not pictured above
- A great mouse which is surprisingly light to use. It's also wireless with a charging dock
- Physical macro bindings — Stream Deck MK.2 (opens in a new tab)
- This was definitely an indulgent purchase as I do not stream or really have a huge amount of use for it
- I do have it set-up to control my media playback and Hue lighting
- Desktop — Custom build (opens in a new tab)
- I recently completed a new PC build, so different from the one pictured
- Specs; 3.7GHz Ryzen 9, RX 6950 XT, 32GB RAM, 2TB M.2 SSD
- Miscellaneous items
- Google Home smart speaker
- Eero WiFi mesh network
- Various decorations and trinkets
These are the programs and tools I regularly use while working on both my Mac and PC.
Tech/Dev
- Chrome (opens in a new tab)
- My primary browser for development needs
- Firefox (opens in a new tab)
- My primary browser for my non-development needs
- GitKraken (opens in a new tab)
- A great UI for Git interactions
- I only really use it if there is something a little more involved with conflict resolutions or I've forgotten the name of a branch
- Photoshop (opens in a new tab)
- Mostly used for simple image editing, resizing, etc
- Postman (opens in a new tab)
- This is a great app for working with REST APIs
- You can save specific requests to re-run
- Spotify (opens in a new tab)
- Everyone needs music in their lives, I chose this one after Google play music died a fiery death
- Fun story; When Google Play Music was being fazed out for YouTube music, there was a bug where songs released after the new year wouldn't play
- Visual Studio Code (opens in a new tab)
- This is my go-to for most coding activities
- I also use it for taking notes in Markdown
- Doesn't play well with Unity (opens in a new tab) anymore
- Zoom (opens in a new tab)
- Pretty much the standard for video calls now
Fun
- Discord (opens in a new tab)
- Chat and video calls
- OBS (opens in a new tab)
- Sometimes I like to record myself playing games and then decide it's not worth putting on YouTube
- Unity (opens in a new tab)
- I'll never make games as a living, but I love doing it as a hobby
- I used to be adamant that I would stick with XNA/MonoGame and that Unity was "cheating", how opinions change in a decade
- Steam (opens in a new tab)
- Games, 'nuff said
Misc
- Lychee Slicer (opens in a new tab)
- I got my wife a 3D printer as an engagement gift, this program is a nice and simple way of making sure the 3D files are suitable for our printer
Some of the services and other resources I make use of that are not strictly software packages.
- Gandi (opens in a new tab)
- Domain registration and associated email accounts
- Google Mail (opens in a new tab)
- Personal and work mail
- Cronitor (opens in a new tab)
- Provides lightweight website analytics
- Much more privacy and security-focused
- No cookies, they don't track beyond the site it's used on, etc.
- Proton (opens in a new tab)
- Proton Mail and VPN are privacy-focused alternatives and have served me well
- I have this idea in my head of moving away from Google for personal, it's a process
This was inspired by the person who made nownownow (opens in a new tab), see Derek Sivers page (opens in a new tab).