The working from home thread: tips and advice

It's already powered through a usb dock

back again tomorrow after what seems like months

I agree! I moved just before you too and it feels like this break has been long!

New set up with desk etc but would still like a USB C hub so I can switch between personal and work laptop. Also a stand for dual monitors.

My stand is the <£20 one from vonhaus, clamped to a Uber cheap chipboard IKEA top and no issues so far.

With a button? My Dell laptop has an option in the BIOS (which I believe is enabled by default) to power on when the dock button is pressed.

Stupid laptop gets far too hot though and then throttles. Apparently it benefits from a metal mesh to sit on which allows better airflow and conducts a bit of heat away.

No button, no. It's a startec dock, work issue. Mine heats up too, hence the jaunty angle as the back edge is raised up because of course you'd put the vents for something that sits flat on a table on the bottom....

What are you using as a "mesh"? Tried to find something about half an inch thick, but could only find those powered fan pads. Would prefer passive.

I haven't got one yet but some people are getting good results from a mesh magazine file on its side

I have one of these which I rate.

Laptop remains accessible and saves some desk space.

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Just ordered some adhesive rubber feet from eBay. Will stick those to the desk under where the laptop rubber feet are and it will give me 6mm air gap. If I don't like it, it was only £3 for 10.

I just want to lift the lid, power up, close lid. I might end up making some kind of suspended shelf under the desk on that side. But all my tools are pretty inaccessible right now.

Ooooh, maybe even a sliding shelf so I can slide out, lift lid, power up, close, slide back.

On second thoughts, I ordered a vertical stand too, to see what I prefer.

Who uses zoom video recordings? I've seen them where you get the shared screen and then just the presenter's face to one side, either top right or middle right. I did it today (desktop client, save locally) and I've got a whole gallery strip of people's faces covering the right hand edge of the slides. What settings do I need so it's just me? Is the problem that I should have saved to cloud? Or had the zoom window as fullscreen?

While I'm here, I now need to edit out the other people from the video... blackout blocks is fine.
I have access to Adobe AfterEffects - will that do it? Any ipad app good for it? (AE looks good for it)

Do any of the Flexispot buyers on here have a referal code to share? I'm about to pull the trigger on the L-shaped desk

Link here for a referral code from me:

http://flexispotuk.refr.cc/cliffl

£15 off.

Noice. Thanks very much!

Any first-hand recommendations for a flipchart easel that's not too expensive, durable and can be raised fairly tall? I need one for some online workshops I'm running next week, but on putting up the one I bought, one of the legs tore out of the (melamine-faced) chipboard. Looking at the reviews on Amazon/eBay it seems to be a bit of a crapshoot as to what you get. As I'm only going to use it occasionally I'm not going to spend £hundreds on a posh one, and there doesn't seem to be any obvious quality difference between the £40 unbranded ones and anything under under £90 or so.

Record to cloud (there are also some settings in the recording panel in your zoom account that allow you to select which streams get recorded: presenter, slides, etc...). The cloud recording then auto-muxes your choice, but you can also get the individual bits and put them together after the fact.

will try that tomorrow, thanks!

On the whole WFH expenses thing
https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

Is there just an obvious section in the SA to do this? And am I right that for 19/20 we'd just be talking about £4 p/w for March 2020? Or has anyone worked out their exact extra cost for increased heating, tea bags, toilet paper, etc.

Cheers.

Our Dec 2020 gas & electric cost was 6p more than the same month in 2019, consumption has increased but the tariff has reduced. Breakfast & lunch at home saves about £5 a day and no travel card saves £1,444 a year.

Dec 2020 info is irrelevant right now. The SA tax returns due now only cover the period up to April 5th 2020.

@hugo7

For me that only covers about 3 weeks of being forced to work from home, but I'll still claim the tax relief on £6/week for it because there's no real reason not to. WFH probably has cost me a little more than going into the office would have, especially if I factor in the WFH setup changes I made. I cycle commuted or ran in so had no real travel costs. Lockdown has saved me quite a bit but that's mostly because my social life and eating out has disappeared, but that's separate to WFH.

Haven't actually started my SA tax return yet, was planning on doing it this weekend. It's pretty simple for me as I'm just employed in a single PAYE job with only a small bit of bank interest to enter and no other income. But I have to do it because I need to pay back some/all of the Child Benefit that we claim.

From what I've read claiming the relief on £6/week is pretty trivial when doing the SA.

it's only £6pw from 6 Apr 2020, prior years it's £4pw

Thanks, I look forward to my tax bill to be lowered by...

3 * £4 * 0.4 = £4.80

Ha, huge savings. I submitted my online form for the refund yesterday, very simple if you're on PAYE (sounds like you're not)

I am PAYE but I have to do a SA tax return each year as I claim Child Benefit and earn more than £50k so I have to pay some/all of it back(*). So it's just a case of clicking a few more buttons on my SA tax form when I get around to submitting it.

* We still claim it so that Mrs GB (who freelances) has her NI contributions guaranteed. Not that there's going to be a recognisable state pension by the time we get to 143 (or whatever the state pension age will be by then).

Can someone recommend me a webcam? Budget from work is around £35. I want to mount it on the underside of a shelf that is above my monitor. It needs to have a built-in microphone.

There's loads of options available and none look persuasive.

The use case is remote working delivery of seminars, so decent image quality is a target, but by no means essential as the actual content would be in the form of screensharing.