My setup

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