There's a trend to share what equipment you use, mostly as a developer, collected at uses.tech. I find these pages a strange combination of fascinating and boring. Most of the pages are just a parade of new and expensive equipment, with no insight into why or how they appeared in the person's life.
Anything we use is a compromise of utility, availability and price. With time, most of what you end up using is just…what you somehow ended up with. You grow used to the items, having become used to their quirks, and that's true of hardware and software.
So what would a 'Uses' page I want to read look like? Hopefully something like this.
I'm going to stick to the uses.tech theme of mostly work and computer related items. No ones needs a complete inventory of all the junk that I've failed to throw out.
Personal
The place where you have both the most choice to use whatever you want, and the last as you're limited by budget and things you may already own and can't justify replacing.
Computers
Yes, multiple computers, because, reasons…
MacBook Pro 15" Retina (2013)
Apart from a small break, this has been my main computer since 2013. It's now stuck on MacOS Catalina and doesn't get any more updates, and I've moved to using non-Apple software for almost everything now, but it's still my main computer. The combination of UNIX like underpinnings, polish and integration, plus a useful number of ports, made it a good, if expensive, choice.
In 2018 it started to display a black screen on a regular basis, and it seemed to be suffering from a known issue, but sadly after the free repair programme ended. I managed to resurrect it temporarily to access all my files after baking the logic board in the oven a little (don't do this!), and then live off a Hackintosh X220 (see next). A few years later I saw a matching model with a different problem on the local listed ads, and bought that on a punt for 100€ for the parts. Luckily I could just switch the main board out, and now it runs again as a frankenmac.
The retina screen is still gorgeous, even if there's now regular ghosting. I'm disappointed that it doesn't look like such high-resolution displays have become more common on other brands.
Lenovo X220 (2012, bought 2018)
I bought this initially to turn into a Hackintosh to ensure I could recover all my files from the above MacBook Pro. While I had been backing up my files regularly, I couldn't access all the content them without another Mac, which we did't have, as a lot of it was locked into proprietary formats1.
It worked so well as a Hackintosh (apart from the occasional failure to come back from suspension) that I used it like that for two years, even though the screen is nowhere as nice. I couldn't bring myself to buy another Mac at the time, as all their laptops had barely any ports, and the ever increasing lock-in Apple pushes.
Since the Macbook Pro has been up and running with replacements parts, this has become more my project laptop, using it to develop hobby projects and playing around. I've run various Linux distributions on it and currently I'm using it to learn FreeBSD.
HP Stream 11 (2015, inherited 2017)
This was my mum's, but Windows had updated itself into a corner and it could barely boot. It's small, cheap and plastic, and that's why I tend to take it travelling if I think I need a laptop with me. I've had fun installing Linux and OpenBSD on it though, as it's interesting to see how they work on such a low spec machine.
Desk
This is a veneered piece of chipboard that my Dad turned into a desk by adding a raised edge around 3 sides, and some batons on the underside, so it would stay in place when laid across two Flötotto Profile containers. It was made in the early 90s, so I had this desk during school and sixth form - but it remained behind when I went to university and started working. When I moved into the current house, and my parents moved out of their old home, I got it and the containers back. In between I'd used whatever desks were in the flats I lived in, or a series of cheap IKEA desks that were more air and cardboard than anything else.
When I set it up here I wanted to place the monitor and cables on the other side of the back wall, so I bought a plank of wood, put a few cut outs in it, screwed some legs on it, and pinned it between the desk and the wall, with a cable cage hanging below. That way most cables and connectors live off the actual desk itself, and I can just pull over what I need.
This is what I use when working from home, or anything personal that needs a desk - computing, soldering, admin etc. That's how I've always used it; for everything. It's also why it has cuts from model making, paint splatters, burn marks and pen stains on it. Most of those battle scars are now hidden under a grey desk mat that prevents things sliding around, and adds a slight touch of professionalism.
The Flötotto drawers are excellent, huge, and can be completely removed and carried like storage boxes. They are filled with stationary, batteries, computers, electronic components etc. all roughly sorted away. It's also very wide, so I can pile unsorted and to-do things at the sides, and still have room to work in the middle. Don't let the photo fool you, it's mostly not this tidy.
Screen/Monitor
We were thinking about getting a larger 4k screen to watch films on, and then saw the BenQ EW3270U at a bargain price on a Prime week sale. So we use that for watching shows, when we get the chance, but mostly I use it as the main monitor when working from home. It has a conveniently large number of connections, so audio can go into the stereo, and there's video in for USB-C, 2 HDMI (one is occupied by Amazon Fire stick for whichever streaming serve we currently have) and Display Port.
Software
There's a lot of software I use occasionally, but the things that are guaranteed to be installed on any machine where I can:
- GNU Emacs - Used to anything vaguely text related; notes, programming, scripting, file management, git, writing this…. Once you're in, you're in.
- Fish - The friendly interactive shell. Excellent as interactive shell, and unlike Bash, different enough from a POSIX shell that I don't tend to mix up the syntax and capabilities between interactive and script use.
- Firefox - It works, and because having an independent browser is important. (Plus having plug-ins that work on the mobile version is also great.)
- Python - My go-to language for any programming problem. Comes with so much in the base install you often don't need more, and I use it with PySpark for large scale data transformation at work.
Chair
After 9 months of the pandemic and extended working from home, my wife's old IKEA desk chair was starting to make worrying creaking noises, and felt less and less comfortable. I was recommended the HÅG Capisco, by a friend with strong opinions on chairs; his being: "It's not worth the long term pain of buying a cheap chair", so I went against my usual instincts and spent a bit more. I got the version with the tall and heavy spring, as I'm tall and heavy. It's a sort-of saddle chair, and one that encourages you to not sit still for too long. So far I'm happy with it, if it's any good long term? Ask my spine in ten years.
Phone
Moto G8 Plus, bought 2020, the most recent in a series of Motorola entry level phones I've had. Runs stock Android, the Plus came with a super-large battery, and at the start could run two days without needing a recharge. It's starting to slow down, and the battery life is just at a day, but changing phones is always somewhat painful, and the performance is holding up better than most previous ones, where things became unbearably slow after about two and a half years, so its done well.
I'm not sure I could bring myself to buy an expensive phone. Something that you now carry with you everywhere, and has a high potential for getting lost, or broken, shouldn't cost more than a few hundred Euros.
Stereo
I still use the Sony CMT-CP11 'Micro HiFi Component System' I got for my sixteenth birthday. CD player, tape deck and radio with FM and AM! It also comes with a couple of auxiliary inputs that can be connected to a screen and laptop/phone as inputs. When I'm working from home I do still regularly put on a CD and listen that way. I've nearly replaced it with something 'better' a number of times, but it still sounds good enough for me, and don't think any upgrade would really be worth it for my needs.
About ten years ago the left speaker stopped working, and thanks to finding the service manual online, I could trace the path, and discover that the left power amplifier had a dry solder joint. One dab of a hot soldering iron, and it was back in stereo.
Work
This is pretty unexciting; work provides everything. There's not much choice, unless you have a specific accessibility or ergonomic need. Generally I think is a good thing, it enforces a healthy (and secure) separation between personal and private.
In our team we have the a nice routine of switching desks in the office every three months, so you get to sit next to someone else. All our desks are set up in the same way, so apart from taking our laptops, keyboard and mice, we don't have to change anything.
- 14" HP Elitbook of some kind running Windows 10. It's fine. Most things happen through Google Chrome anyhow, which is fine. As my role is a Data Scientist I get a pretty decent spec of laptop; but the downside is the battery doesn't last long.
- Samsung Android phone; pretty nondescript, but the Samsung UI is just different enough from stock Android to confuse me on a semi-regular basis.
- USB-C dock that connects everything, HP mouse and keyboard.
- Two 24" monitors.
- Pot plant with pink variegated leaves, probably a Aglaonema (often called a Chinese Evergreen). Inherited from a former colleague, who rescued it from their sunless basement flat. It's surviving on water and cold tea dregs, but doesn't seem too unhappy; in a re-potting it lost a shoot which was replanted into the old pot, and has carried on growing. I suspect it has more seniority than me.