The working from home thread: tips and advice

Yeah I'm three weeks out from a double lumbar microdiscetomy with complications which is about as fun as it sounds!

Currently using a Park Tools stool, but I think I need more support than just a stool so not sure the LIDKULLEN would ultimately be much better.

Have you spoken to someone professional about it? Sounds like it might be worth investing a bit of time in what would be the best solution?

No - it's the sort of thing I'd expect a physio to advise on, surgeon recommended someone and he's happy for me to start physio this week but she didn't have an appointment until 23rd September (and this is private!) so I'm waiting on an alternative physio suggestion.

Problem is I'm back at work this week so I need something ASAP really. I stand a lot so maybe I'll just try and stand more for the moment.

Why not get the ikea stool as a stop gap? Their returns policy seems quite generous

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/customer-service/returns-claims/return-policy/

23 of sept is just two weeks away. If you and your back can wait, I think it could be a good idea to wait for a proffesional opinion

Hey, we've got those Celle chairs in the office. Built like a tank, big dull looking plastic grey units. They seem a bit divisive, half the team find comfortable including myself the other half add cushions/blankets.

I bought a Humanscale Diffrient World Chair for £100 on eBay to WFH. Not as well built but I find pretty comfortable. Very different feel being mesh. More compact too.

I could I suppose, but I'm a bit reticient, as I brought a changing colour bulb for son's bedroom to use in a night light, and it didn't last very long, or work very well.
I'm going to see how expensive bulbs from ziko get on, and if they upset me, look for another solution.

Also, have an external monitor that does the change in colour thing and it just irritates me as it goes a soft orange and I've no idea why until the switch goes over in my head and then all I notice is the colour change, rather than what I'm working on..

Couldn't wait that long for a physio appointment so I've got one on Friday now! Will ask then.

For the moment I have swapped to an Eames Eiffel chair* which is better. That'll do for now.

To be fair my surgeon did say pain and discomfort in the spine was par for the course.

*Not a real one, before anyone pastes that ^ into the golf club thread.

I brought a changing colour bulb for son's bedroom to use in a night light, and it didn't last very long, or work very well.

What brand? Hue are great in my experience, although the colour ones are pricey.

a small e14 one off amazon, direct from china I'm assuming, cost about £10 if I remember

I know this is kind of the opposite of WFH but people here seem to have good equipment suggestions...

I'm going back in the building in a couple of weeks. This will involve speaking to 80ish people in a room instead of on zoom. I used to do this all the time, but now I want to be able to record the presentation (like I've got used to on zoom).

I won't be standing behind a laptop all the time though, I tend to move about a bit. I don't need video of me. I'm thinking audio plus recording the screen or presentation. Ideally both at the same time so I don't have to try and put them together.

The audio I get from the mic on some cheap earphones is totally fine, but the lead isn't very long and I'd be concerned about it rustling as a I move, so I'm thinking of a bluetooth lapel mic. Does anyone do this kind of thing?

Can you recommend me a cheap wireless lapel mic? Or some other solution? Would a lapel mic be better than just sitting a webcam on the lectern and pointing it in my general direction? (There's usually a fair amount of background noise). Is it a problem to have a near mic pick up voice while projecting into a room unamplified?

What software do you use for recording? Powerpoint (which I use for presenting) does record audio and timed presentations, but it's done slide by slide and I can see there being issues with audio gaps over transitions etc. Win10 comes with some xbox recording software but I find it a little hard to navigate (atm can't work out how to record desktop instead of a single app window).

Not exactly what you're asking, but I've got a little zoom h1n audio recorder that would do an excellent job of recording you/the room. You'd be welcome to borrow it if you wanted to try that out as an option. I think i picked it up for £30 on FB marketplace recently...

Wireless earbuds and just run a zoom call on your laptop and record from there?

wow that looks wild. I'd have to put the audio and the presentation together later though, right?

Yep, it will just give you a (relatively) high quality audio file in either .mp3 or .wav. I use it to record band practices and it's great - far better than phone mics which are my main point of comparison.

Yeah zoom might be the simplest. I was wondering if wireless earbuds would stay in place (without being in my ears), also looking at lapel mics they usually come with a 6m wire which is enough for my pacing about. Slightly concerned about the audio quality from earphones/lapel mic if I'm actually talking to the back of the room, but just needs testing I guess.

What I should really do is dig out all my existing bits and pieces and try them out. Maybe just pointing a webcam mic in my general direction will be good enough.

Sounds likely to add a significant amount of post-processing time to every lecture, which I'd like to avoid. Although just adding a custom soundtrack on Win video editor shouldn't be a big deal...

Yep, I can't imagine it would be the simplest solution. Still, welcome to borrow and try if you'd like to!

My office flooring is the creaky pine floorboards that the previous owners pulled back to and painted

what flooring do people use in home office? is the home of my hifi so i’m looking for something where i can at least add some underlay to reduce the sound that travels down through the floor

but also carpet and office chairs seemed like a PITA

Ta. Yeah when I started looking I realised that 6m cable is probably good enough for me!

@hoefla ..as suggested above I think the easiest would be to have a zoom call running (recording), and use a wireless mic - I've used these RODE wireless Go ones, they're great:
https://www.thomann.de/gb/rode_wireless_go.htm?ref=intl&shp=eyJjb3VudHJ5IjoiZ2IiLCJjdXJyZW5jeSI6NCwibGFuZ3VhZ2UiOiJlbiJ9

Honestly I'd just get a Hue one, they're great. Not cheap but if you shop around/look for special offers they're not so bad. Just not sure if they do E14...

is flexispot still the go-to standing desk of choice?

Yes I think so. We just bought the 3 piece leg one on Amazon because it was able to go lower in comparison to the 2 piece leg options. Seems grand as far as my girlfriend has said.

Humanscale are the other brand if you've got more money to spend.

Still blissfully happy with my Flexispot though.

Does anyone have any recommendations of screen recording software, ideally free, have been tasked to record how a product works. Is captive still a thing?