The working from home thread: tips and advice

the wallpaper helps some of the boredom up in the loft!

Glad it's not yellow.

That power strip is epic.

This setup is mad. Is that a Nest on top of the Stream Deck?

If so, y u no home.nest.com?

That keyboard is incredible, it looks like Bourneville on a chopping board. Well, two chopping boards.

What is it?

It is.

And it's in this room anyway, and the position on it around the desk gives it the best connection to the controller at the boiler at the other end of the house.

It's not on the stream deck but behind at the back of the desk.

I took was thinking the same. I was thinking about making something like this for underneath my desk so that there’s no overheating problem

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I'd like the same thing but annoyingly my laptop power button is on the inside so you have to open it up to turn it on.

Can I check minimum desk depth and height?
I'm guessing 70 deep and 70 high should give plenty of room?

It's an ergodox keyboard. Theyre pretty niche and usually used to relieve RSI (I think?) I've just been using one to improve my posture slightly. It's a lot nicer not having your shoulders caving in 8 hours a day!

IKEA might do a mesh tray on drawer slides that you can hack

The limiting factor for desk depth for me is the distance from my eyes to the screen(s), once that is set the I need my hands to be in a suitable position on the keyboard (with enough desk before the keyboard for my wrists to rest on).

Just checking current setup my eyes are 70cm from my screens (dual 23" monitors).

The monitors are mounted on an arm that clamps onto the desk, this puts them about 10-15cm onto the desk.

Here's what it looks like (this is a 70cm deep desk):-

https://www.greenbank.org/misc/newdesk5.jpg

I could probably lose 5cm from the desk and still just about be ok.

So, in theory, if I mounted the monitors flush with the edge of the back desk I could lose a further 5cm-10cm of desk depth. So a 50cm deep desk would really be the absolute limit.

But I'm going to be upgrading to a single 43" 4K monitor at some point (when they become available for under £450) so I need to have the 70cm of desk there in case I need all of it.

As for height, it's a sit/stand desk and I've been keeping an eye on where I end up with the height when I move it back down. It's almost always on 80cm (measured floor to top of desk surface) although this will mostly be a factor of the stool I use to sit on. With the stool at its lowest the desk needs to be 80cm for my forearms to be horizontal between elbows and wrist. With the stool like this my feet and nicely planted on the floor and my legs just angling down from bottom to knees (like all of the classic office ergonomics pictures). I'm 5'8".

With a lower seat I could probably get away with a lower desk but much lower and it might encourage me to straighten my legs (which leads to a slouchy back) rather than having my feet planted on the floor.

Flexispot EC1 goes down to 73.5cm (including 2.5cm worktop).

tl;dr I'd probably say 60cm deep and 75cm high would be my minimum.

Wake on LAN?

Can anyone recommend a monitor stand apart from Ikea Sigfinn (sold out at our store)?

Need to get my monitor up about 10-20cm. Don't think I can live with a monitor arm tbh...

It's on WiFi so I don't think that's an option. Need to have a nosy in the the bios to see what may work

Mine is 65 deep and 73 high.

Depth is OK, I've got a curved 34" UWQHD monitor and it's fine (eyes are 65cm from screen). I could possibly lose a few cm on the top if I stand mounted the monitor but wouldn't actually like to go any less than 65 as I like space for my legs to stretch.

73cm is too high for me (5'5"). Getting it at the correct height for my arms means my seat is a little high. 68cm would probably be best for me but I'm a shortarse.

I got one of the more expensive Flexispot standing desks for the same reason.
The 2 stage ones go down to 71cm, whereas the more expensive 3 stages go down to 58cm.

I've got my desktop at 67.5cm (65cm + 2.5cm desktop)

You can get Ikea adjustable legs that go down to 60cm, for a cheaper, less sit/stand solution.

I'm going for a long worktop, divided by a drawer unit so that my wife and I can sit in the same room (WHAT THE FUCK COULD GO WRONG WHEN I WORK WITH NUMBERS AND SHE DOES WORDS AND STRATEGY AND PHONECALLS). New sockets chased in. And maybe an Ivar unit or two on the other wall for additional storage. While building out the wardrobe area for the kids.

Dream is projector on ivar, apple tv to projector to white wall. So kids can sit/play on days we're not mad busy.

like this
https://maflingo.com/dining-room-to-den-ikea-hack-study-part1/

Headphones. Get headphones. Now.

I HAVE THEM AND I CAN STILL HEAR HER.
From downstairs.

Better than you both working with numbers - we're both accountants sat on the same dinning table. It is not ideal.

I hope you both have separate (ideally different colour) beans to count.

The tense silence. I can hear it from here.

WHAT THE FUCK COULD GO WRONG WHEN I WORK WITH NUMBERS AND SHE DOES WORDS AND STRATEGY AND PHONECALLS

IT and HR here. Headphones, two closed doors (we have no stairs sadly) and I can still hear her on some calls.

Speaking of which, is there a Windows app that monitors the microphone levels and shoves a pop up on the screen saying "You're shouting! You don't need to shout, the microphone is very sensitive!" whenever the levels are beyond a configurable limit (or even just pops that up every minute or so regardless of the volume levels)?

I've been told I'm an intense person to share space with. My silence punctuated by loud sighs/exhalations is worrying.

My other half loves a sigh and a loud exhale, giving her the nickname of "Puffin".

She thinks its just a reference to the cute little bird... but really its because she be huffing and puffing all the time.