I think I have a confession to make. If you read a few of my posts here you might get the impression that I am kind of nerdy, like to tinker and maybe, just maybe, you realize how right you are. But its not all half assed solutions that I try to create. Especially if it influences how I work.

I like stuff that just works and therefore I try a lot of things. Operating Systems, Editors, Languages, Workmodes. And I think I have found my “Endgame” and if people like me say “Endgame” we either are about to nerd out on a movie by Marvel or we will say things that we are feeling good with the things that we currently use.

I think its the latter for me, albeit I could ramble a lot about some super-heroes :D

But let me give you a quick tour on what changed and what I currently use. As you might now (or not) I moved into my garden shed. There is a post about it on this blog, read it if you like to know more why I chose it. And I started to create my office space in there. With a table that I can change its height to work standing or sitting, a new chair to sometime replace my yoga ball if my needs a rest and I also put in my 3d printer as well as my AI rig that I build (and recently upgraded! more on that in another post). I got a couch to relax on, put up a bit of decoration and organized a nice assortement of snacks and drinks for after-work and weekends.

Its almost perfect for me. I can work in my own little bubble with the only disturbance being a cat that scratches the door and wants in from time to time.

As this is all nice and cozy in here, there was something that bothered me. Actualy there were 2 things:

  1. its getting cold and the blow heater I used is expensive if it runs the whole time
  2. I can relax and work here but now my software stack annoyed me

For problem #1 there was an easy solution. I bought an infrared heater that only runs if I am in the room and it does not crush my bills if I leave it running over night (which I usually dont do)

Problem #2 took a bit more effort. And by a bit I mean A LOT! It was a casual Tuesday evening as I realized: “My workflow is trash” I was excited over this mental accomplishment and told my wife! But she just shrugged and didn’t understand what I meant. And I am very glad for that.

But why do I get excited if I realize something is trash? Did I mention that I love to tinker? :) I LOVE to tinker and experiment and try out. And every time I get a feeling that the current state is not what I want. I try to change it and in the best case optimize it. I wont lie, this does not work all the time. But it worked enough times in the past to still get me excited.

But what did I do? At first: Question everything! My workflow does not start with the editor I use or the efficiency of my time tracking. It starts offline. It starts with my Hardware. So the natural first look went to my laptop and the question arised: are you enough? Short specs: Ryzen 7 8845HS (8/16 cores), 32GB RAM, 2TB disk space, 19:10 3k display… I think this is enough. For a 14 inch form factor. This piece of aluminum and plastic packs a punch. Peripherals: As mouse I use a Logitex MX Master 3 and my keyboard of choice is a Keychron K3 Pro. I am more than happy with this combo as it is light and reliable enough to get me through my day without any issues. My monitor is an slightly older LG 32UD59 which is a 32" 4k display which provides me enough screen real estate to have multiple windows side by side if needed and enough color accuracy to distinguish between red and blue. Next up would be my audio setup which consists of a Behringer U-Phoria UMC204HD interface with a pair of Bayerdynamic DT-770Pro Headphones and a Rode NT1-A. Some might say this is overkill for some videoconferences but I like stuff that works and therefore I invested some money into this so I can be sure that my audio will never be an issue.

This is it for the Hardware that I use. I have to say that I am happy with my current build and how everthing works in this regard. If you know me you also know that I am a software guy. I write software in various languages with varying complexity and it is my day job to create software solutions. BUT this post is already getting pretty long so I decided to write about my software stack in another post. What I had before, what I changed, what I needed to adjust and why I would want that. Glimpses of that are already scattered around this blog but I will write a post about it where I will list all the software I use, how it is connected to each other and what purpose it fulfills. Now that I think about it.. that post might be even longer than this one so stay tuned for that.