How do you work from home? (if applicable)

[atrilahiji]

Work from home is definitely the new normal, especially in IT related fields I find. I'm always trying to optimize and clean up my setup to make working from home more pleasant, and am really curious what others here do.

I'll share mine as well since I'm asking for other people's setups:

EDIT: And yes the sticker-bombed computer in the corner is my Cloudron server lol

[marcusquinn]

@atrilahiji Very nice! Lighting is important

My setup is a crazy hot-mess, as the real action happens in the computer.

Most important things is decent speakers though! (KRK Rokit 6s)

I'm liking this site too for sharing Kit Lists:

https://kit.co/marcusquinn

Although, yet to add my audio bits to it yet. Studied sound production at Uni and still meaning to get around to more time offline and making music again

[plusone-nick]

@atrilahiji Niiice! GG +1 How do you like the triple monitors? what about 2 or 4?
I am currently half at home/office but my best upgrade at home has to be the Husky workbench aka standing desk lol

Not running 4 monitors anymore, went down to 2 but am putting the 3rd back Also I have moved the rig off the desk - it was originally for gaming and have replaced it with a lil lenovo thinclient as my daily driver. Lastly its not this clean anymore...

[atrilahiji]

@plusone-nick Triple monitors is good and bad. Good because I have so much screen real-estate and bad because anytime I have to work on a laptop away from home I it just sucks.

Definitely liking that standing desk you have there

Very useful for extended time at the computer.

[atrilahiji]

@marcusquinn I am unreasonably obsessed with RGB lighting... its a problem...

[plusone-nick]

@atrilahiji Agree its hard to use less than 2 its not automatic but its still nice. Yeah it does extend time for better or worse
Was going to originally comment I don't have any RGB! Note to self: step game up and get some lol

[atrilahiji]

@plusone-nick I mean for me its weirdly better for focusing. But not cheap and definitely not practical lol.

[plusone-nick]

@atrilahiji What is the triangular LED on the wall? I've seen various types of those and been wanting to get a few

[atrilahiji]

@plusone-nick oh those are by Nanoleaf. Specifically the Nanoleaf Shapes Mini Triangles starter kit

[murgero]

@atrilahiji That's a nice setup - Is that Wallpaper Engine or just a static wallpaper?

[atrilahiji]

@murgero oh that’s just a static wallpaper from MIBHDs collection. I’m sure it’s from someone else but this is where I found it https://mobile.twitter.com/MKBHD/status/200002096706240512

[murgero]

@atrilahiji You should consider wallpaper engine

[atrilahiji]

@murgero I have it actually I just haven’t used it. Guess I’ll give it a shot

[girish]

You two have set two high a bar for the rest of us :)! My desk is a dumping ground for my son's stuff, I tried to clean it up a bit for my photo but usually it's not even this clean

But the most important things for me are:

• I moved my desk to be near the balcony. I love looking outside frequently. There's this tree outside with a lot of squirrels. They are all hyper active like hammy in Over the hedge.
• I moved it also near the heater hee hee. We don't have central heating, so nice to keep the feet warm!
• I took a step backward and switched from Wayland to X. My dual monitor setup is now more stable. Also upgraded Ubuntu 20 a month or so ago.
• That machine behind the laptop is my main Cloudron. I really appreciate how noiseless it is (thinkcenter).
• The same cannot be said about the black tower below. It is a source of noise, a power hog and extra house heating It wasn't a problem before the pandemic but these days it's on all the time.. Atleast, I don't work on C++ stuff anymore! No more long compiles.. While it compiles super fast, it's also very power hungry and the fan is noisy. Which reminds me that I probably need to clean the fan, it's become more prone to dust clog after I moved near the balcony.
• Ultimately, I cannot wait to get back to my co-working space! Sadly, they shutdown because of the pandemic, so I have to find a new one when things get back to normal.

[marcusquinn]

@girish Talking of fanless - I wonder how long before the AppleTV gets the M1 chip and could be a Raspberry Pii alternative

[atrilahiji]

@girish Nice! Thats still a really clean setup. Simple and to the point

And the balcony view is definitely a nice bonus. I'm in the basement. Also doesn't help that its below -40C right now lol

[plusone-nick]

@girish my memory is spotty - what coworking space was that again? they had one on E Santa Clara in SJ right? I recall seeing you guys on their site when I first found out about Cloudron

[girish]

@plusone-nick https://foundersfloor.com/ . The site is there but the office is closed now.

[murgero]

I don't wanna take a picture cause my desk is filthy but -

• Single Monitor (1080p)
• Dell Precision T7610
• 128GB RAM
• Dual-CPU (2x Intel Xeon E5-2670's @ 10 cores each with Hyperthreading for a total of 40 logical cores)
• 4TB SSD in two separate RAID configurations
• And because I'm wild and like gaming I have put an RX 580 Series Radeon card in this server cause why not!

Yes, this is server, enterprise hardware, no it is NOT being used as such. I use it for heavy gaming and as my personal computer.

[atrilahiji]

@murgero Oh wow 40 logical cores O_O

[murgero]

@atrilahiji haha yeah! It used to be a server for my fathers old company. Now it's my personal computer. Gaming, VM's, programming.

I have 3 VMs running on it right now (vpn, macOS, and a Linux VM) and it plays cod all at the same time with plenty of resource to spare LMAO

[robi]

@atrilahiji said in How do you work from home? (if applicable):

@murgero Oh wow 40 logical cores O_O

look at the RAM too..

[d19dotca]

Great topic! It's always fun to peek into people's offices. haha. Here's my home office setup for the moment. Been changing it slowly over the past year. Recently got a new chair I find much more comfortable than my previous one. haha.

[marcusquinn]

@d19dotca Nice! My Dog's bed is right by my desk too

[atrilahiji]

@d19dotca very clean! Also that chair looks incredibly comfortable

[nebulon]

Very different setups everyone. Mine is rather simplistic in this regard I guess, don't even have a desktop PC, only the Cloudron server attached to the router and laptop and no fancy office chair. Well that is homeoffice, I have a good one in the office.

[girish]

@nebulon is your office open these days?

[nebulon]

@girish it would be open, but generally everyone possible should work from home, so I don't want to make an exception for myself since I can work from home.

[atrilahiji]

@nebulon simple but clean and distraction free. I do like the idea of using a laptop. You’ve got the same environment at home and when you’re out.

[marcusquinn]

Might have to delete this one later then

Spot the dog

At first with the standing desk it was hard work for more than an hour.

Now I stand all day and most of the evening and it feels weird sitting to work. Much better for the brain work too as a your lung capacity is higher when standing for oxygen needs.

It's 2m wide by 1m deep - I already think I need another one for all the stuff to play with and make it a proper home-studio for music, video etc.

[murgero]

@marcusquinn Standing desks are amazing

[d19dotca]

@murgero Yeah mine is a standing desk too and I love it. Sure I sit most of it, haha, but still stand for a few hours each day while I'm working.

[plusone-nick]

@marcusquinn i don't see anything wrong - that's more how mine looks now lol

[marcusquinn]

@plusone-nick thankfully my computer desktop is a lot neater

For interest, the big painting it a Hed Kandi album cover.

Most other things are on my kit.co list: kit.co/marcusquinn

[scooke]

@marcusquinn Now that's a name I haven't heard in a loong time - Hed Kandi. I'm off to YT to see what gems might be there. In the meantime, here's my workstation. Just a 2015 MBPr running Windows, external monitor, nice headphones, handy masks in case I need to mask myself quickly, extra tablets and devices laying around for prototyping. I would like a second external monitor, tried to suggest to my wife that that would be a super Valentine's Day gift, but no luck.

Holy moly, looking up Hed Kandi on YT brought back a surge of memories, with Ministry of Sound being featured on that page, which then reminded me of deephousenetwork.com - 19 years ago I had been traveling to HK a few times a year for a project, and I'd found this internet cafe (going to google maps to look it up...) near Jordan and Nathan, and I'd groove out while working all night. Ah, I miss HK. Haven't been there now in about 7 years, and I fear it won't be like I remember whenever I do get back.

[marcusquinn]

@scooke I find good use of Mission Control, App Tamer for auto-hide and 3008*1692 resolution on 4k gets me all the advantages of multiple monitors on a single screen. More room for speakers too Ahh, HK, know it well!

[atrilahiji]

Updated it:

I moved my Ryzen 1700X to my server and got a Ryzen 3600 for my desktop. Turns out my server case only fits mATX... So I moved my server to my old case and got a new one because I needed an excuse for more RGB.

Only frustration: I cant have my case on my desk without putting one monitor in portrait.

On the note of my server, it is so satifying to see idle usage with 3 minecraft servers and client stuff go from 33% to 1%...

[luckow]

If I work from home, it looks like this. Normally I do smart home things at my workplace

[atrilahiji]

@luckow I gotta get my hands on some test equipment for electronics projects I want to work on. Nice!