My 2024 Work Setup and Tools

I have always enjoyed personalizing my space and consuming content dedicating to showcasing people’s setup. Since last year I have been working from my home office, and that gave me an excuse to spend some extra time and money to have a setup truly my own.

To get used to writing again and to journal my setup, I have decided to write a series of posts on my setup and workflow - what tools and how I use them. This, first post in the series, is a general outline of all the tools of my trade.

Furniture

1. IKEA TROTTEN Desk: A hand cranked sit-stand table. I like the fact that I can adjust the height of the table not only for standing purposes but also when I am sitting on a chair. However, in retrospect, I should have bought an electric desk to make it easier to combat laziness when it comes to standing.
2. IKEA Markus Chair: An unfortunate purchase, in my experience. The chair has started giving me lower back pain after about 8 months of use. Loosening the lumbar support helped a bit, but not completely. I now plan to completely remove it and see if that helps. Otherwise, I’ll look for an alternative.
3. IKEA Skadis Pegboard: Excellent way to put up some decorations and have accessible storage.
4. Woodcessories Duel Monitor Stand: I never thought I’ll use and like a shelf like this one because it seemed like a YouTube trend to have one, but I can’t deny how helpful the extra vertical space is.

Lightning

1. Xiaomi monitor bar: Saves space by not having to put a lamp on my desk.
2. Logitech Litra Glow: A must-have to assist improve my video calls during darker winter days.

Computers

1. Apple Mac Mini M2 with 24 BG RAM: My primary computer that handles everything that I throw at it; except gaming. Macs are horrible for gaming and have subsequently become worse over time.
2. Apple MacBook Pro M1 with 16 GB RAM: Provided by my employee, it has the Touch Bar, which I absolutely hate. Changing volume and brightness involves even more effort compared to the normal/ classical way. I am glad the TB is not a thing anymore.
3. Apple iPhone 15 Pro: My daily driver. Bought it for the camera and the relatively smaller screen.
4. Apple iPad Pro (11 inch): This 2020 model is still running strong and has been used for various different purposes through the years. Currently, I primarily use it as a secondary, vertical screen for my Mini and for travel.
5. Raspberry Pi 5 with 8 GB RAM: My self-hosted home server with 500 + 128 GB SSDs and a 64 GB SD Card. It’s wired into my router and I SSH/ VNC into it via my Mini or the iPad.
6. Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W: This is a backup Pi running another instance of Pi-hole so that my internet does not go down in case the primary Pi stops working.
7. Raspberry Pi 5 with 4 GB RAM: This is a remote server with a 500 GB SSD which I plan to place in my parent’s home in another continent.

Input Devices

1. Logitech MX Master Mouse: I love the mouse for its ergonomics and functionality but hate the material used for the palm rest. It is the white colored model, and within months it started yellowing. A known problem which baffles everyone as to why Logitech chose such a material.
2. Logitech MX Keys Mini: Well build and a pleasure to type on, with an impressive battery life. Unlike its white mouse counterpart, it shows no signs of yellowing.
3. Apple Magic Trackpad: Can’t beat the scroll and gestures support. Specially when using on the iPad in Universal Control mode. It also works flawlessly when I VNC into my RPi or any other PC unlike the MX Master, whose scroll just breaks.
4. Apple Pencil: Not used as much as I would want to, but comes in handy for filling up forms. Some day I’ll actually use it for the Procreate app I bought.
5. Logitech Combo Touch: Whenever I travel, I use this keyboard/ case combo for my iPad. It makes the iPad almost as heavy as a laptop, but you can’t beat the versatility.

Touch ID Module

I created a dedicated wireless Touch ID module by extracting the required hardware from a Magic Keyboard I bought from kleinanzeigen.de and putting in a 3D printed case. The whole assembly was not cheap, but was worth it. Now, I can easily and quickly unlock my Mac Mini just like the MacBook Pro.

Displays

1. Apple Studio Display (With VESA mount): Nothing comes close to it in terms of display, build and sound quality. However, the webcam is average, and the microphone is somehow unusable. Lack of ports is also a bummer. But hey! It works perfectly with my Mac Setup.
2. iPad Pro (11 inch): I have a vertically mounted iPad Pro that works as a second display for my Mini. I make this happen with the help of BetterDisplay and SideCar. It’s magnetically mounted, so I can easily unmount it and use it as a tablet whenever I wish to. The same iPad is also used as a temporary display for my RPi - with the help of a USB-C HDMI capture card and the Orion app.