Uses This

I really enjoy to read posts about the tools/setup/workplace from other people like on usesthis.com. So here is mine.

Links to others I found interesting

• Scott Hanselmann’s Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows
• Michael Staperberg’s uses this: my 2020 desk setup
• Håkon Wium Lie on usesthis.com
• Stephen Wolfram’s Seeking the Productive Life: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure
• Luke Smith’s Programs I use and recommend

Hardware

Home

• Google Pixel 4a as my smartphone.
• Lenovo ThinkCentre M93p Tiny Intel i3-4130T, 4GB RAM, 320 GB HDD as home server. It use 11 Watt per hour. - Mac Mini Late 2009 as my desktop machine with 4GB RAM. It has two external hard drives for data and Time Machine backups. The last available Mac OS X version is 10.11.6 (El Capitan) and I’m okay with it. Recently I had to switch my mail client because Apple Mail can’t handle TLS 1.2 in this version Now I’m using a Lenovo Tower with a Intel Core i5 4460S as my desktop machine. I got a used from a local clothing company during a garage sale for 70 Euros. I run Debian testing with IceWM on it.
• Dell P2415Q 4K Monitor connected via Displayport in 4K resolution HDMI with 1080p and it’s okay. I use this monitor also when working from home in 4k resolution and a USB-C Displayport connector.
• As input devices I use a cheap vertical mouse from Anker, like Anker A7852 but with a cable. After both of my Evoluent Vertical mice stopped working. The Evoluent it’s too expensive and feels like having the same quality as the one from Anker and Vortex New 75 (Race 3) Model VTG-8200 with Cherry MX Brown switches as my keyboard. I like the form factor without a numpad so the movement to the mouse isn’t to much and also the possibility to program it so I can remap the Caps Lock and Control keys without changing any settings in my operating system. This was my previous work keyboard and I tooked it home during the massive work from home phase.~Apple Magic Mouse or a Evoluent Vertical Mouse 4, Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2 or a BTC 5100C. The HHKB Lite is about 10 years old and was before in use at work and it doesn’t fill any good to type on it anymore. Now mostly I use the BTC 5100C and I really like it.
• Switched to the old Kindle Paperwhite third generation from 2015 from my wife with KOReader which really rocks also for PDFs. iPad Air Wi-Fi still in iOS 12 but I only used it for reading and connecting to my home server via SSH with a Logitech K380 keyboard.
• Internet connection got a upgrade to Fiber in March 2021. I’m on a 75/25 Mbit/s plan currently. The fiber installation is based on AON and I’m using a MikroTik CSR106-1C-5S with a BiDi SFP 1310nm-TX/1490nm-RX from fs.com which connects to the provider switch down the street. It’s sync with 1 Gbit/s downstream and upstream. The switch to the fiber connection reduced my first hop latency by around 20ms compared to the previous VDSL based connection. I pass the port on the MikroTik to my home server which host a KVM based OpenWRT instance which LAN interface is connected to my home network. Internet connection is a VDSL 50/10 Mbit/s. I connect to it with a Daytrek Vigor 130 in pass through mode to a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite. In a few month the new fiber optical connection will be available at my home and I can remove the VDSL modem. I hope I can also replace the ONT from the provider with the right GPON SFP directly in my router.
• The home network consist of one additional Mikrotik RB2600GSP (CSS106-1G-4P-1S) switches which is connected to the MikroTik CSR-106-1C-5S via Single Mode fiber and SFP BiDi modules. It’s much thinner cable and for me much easier to lay. I got inspired by Michael Stapelberg’s “Adding a fiber link to my home network” and FS.com is a great shop. I have also one Access Point Mirkotik cAP ac and one Mirkotik cAP lite.

Work

• I switched my employer and got a Lenovo Thinkpad T480 from 2018. It was somehow slow with all the preinstalled software from company base Windows 10 image and almost unusable while in a Microsoft Teams meeting. I had a call with someone from the internal MS Teams support and he directed me to (https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht513000-microsoft-teams-performance-on-laptops) which most important part is the last paragraph about dual-channel memory mode. If you add a second memory module into some Thinkpad models you can improve MS Teams performance a lot while running in dual-channel memory mode. Now I have a quite okay work device. 😀 Some recent 14 inch DELL Laptop
• Jabra Evolve 75 headset in home office and in work office a Poly Voyager Focus UC with dedicated USB dongle because Bluetooth was to unstable for me. Maybe I had to upgrade the firmware of the headset and/or Thinkpad to get better Bluetooth.
• Mistel Q75 Bunny because also programmable without installed software (switch Caps Lock and Left Control key) and similar layout to Vortex New 75 (Race 3). Again with Cherry MX Brown switches. First I wanted to buy a second Vortex but it’s hard to find one for a reasonable price. The Mistel is fine, too. Except that I have to switch to may layer after every disconnection of my computer. Vortex New 75 (Race 3) Model VTG-8200 with Cherry MX Brown switches as my keyboard. I like the form factor without a numpad so the movement to the mouse isn’t to much and also the possibility to program it so I can remap the Caps Lock and Control keys without changing any settings in my operating system.
• Also a Anker Vertical Mouse with cable connection Evoluent Vertical Mouse 4.

Software

Home

• I have created a chat bot with C and libstrophe Python and slixmpp which send me every morning the outside temperature, can dim my Hue lights, track my expense and more.
• I replaced grep with rg and ls with exa and love it.
• Backups are made with restic to Backblaze B2
• For bank stuff I use the fantastic MoneyMoney on the MacBook Air M1 of my wife (one of the reasons I still use the old Mac Mini). It can connect also to PayPal and import transaction from csv files which I fill with my chat bot.
• My text editor of choice is Vim. I don’t use any plugins and very basic config. Most used features are Macros for massive one shot manipulation of text data for preparation to import into Excel.
• I use Syncthing to sync my document folder between my home pc, home server and smartphone.
• On my home server I run RSS reader Miniflux with rss-bridge to integrate some Twitter and Facebook accounts and for our local newspaper which just doesn’t provide a rss feed. I just make a bookmark in my Firefox browser to save website which I might want to read later. With Firefox Sync I have it on my desktop as well. The old system with dotepub and Calibre-Web was just to much work. I save interesting links to things posted on webpages as text file and review it later, if it worth reading for me. If I would like to read it, I make a PDF or epub (with dotepub) of the link and import it to my calibre database. With Calibre-Web I can access my calibre database from my devices easily.
• After TLS 1.2 only switch of my mail provider mailbox.org I have switched to mutt with offlineimap, fdm for POP3-Accounts, notmuch for searching and khard and vdirsyncer for addresses. This all runs on my home server which I can access via SSH. Setup with the great documentation from the Arch Linux Wiki.
• tmux as my terminal multiplexer.
• My printer is a Epson ET-2650 with ink tanks.
• My browser since years is Mozilla Firefox also on my smartphone with Firefox Sync service.
• On my smartphone I use K9-Mail, Opentasks, Etar, KeePassDX, Total Commander, Conversation, WhatsApp, Spotify, built-in Google Weather app meteoblue, Firefox, Book Read, PocketBook Reader for DRM protected ebooks from local online library, Corona-Warn, ICSx5 and DAVx5, Markor, Syncthing, built-in Google PDF reader because support searching MuPDF Mini, Signal Telegram, Breathly - Just Breathe for short breathing to relax, filmfried to watch videos from local library, WarnWetter, WiFiAnalyzer and a bunch of other apps on demand.
• I also use Focus mode to reduce distraction during work day.
• My preferred font in terminal sessions is Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.

Work

• Windows 10 with Office 365 and a lot of Excel (e.g. my to do list).
• SecureCRT as SSH and since 9.0 RDP client which a tone of handy features.
• Total Commander for all file system stuff.
• Built-in search of Total Commander rg for searching through big log files.
• My browser is Microsoft Edge.
• Ditto as clipboard manager and Claiver+ as text expander much improved my efficiency. Never think again, if I can copy this to the clipboard and lost the previous content or be annoyed by typing again my email address (40 characters!).
• Greenshot for screenshots and quick image manipulations.
• Simple self-written PowerShell script due to the more restricted company policies Tomighty for breaks and more structure.
• Python to parse Excel files and make new output or examine the data and to automate task.
• Windows Terminal with Cascadia Code Font as my quick use terminal and to run Python scripts.
• To print out calendar templates for easy planning I rely on Kalenderpedia.
• I prefer a Leuchtturm 1917 paper notebook classic in A5 dotted and Oxford Collegeblock A5 dotted both for the good paper feeling. I love the mechanical pencil from uni-ball Kuru Toga Elite.

Future Ideas

• Replace XMPP chat bot from C to LSIP.
• Replace keycaps with Matt3o MT3 Susuwatari Custom Keycap but maybe not worse the money. really like to have a treadmill setup like Stephen Wolfram.

Contact

If you want to make a comment or have a question just write me an email jummo(at)mailbox.org.

– Updated: July 2022 Inital: January 2021

Date: October 20, 2022