Syntax Desk Setups

You're listening to Syntax, the podcast with the tastiest web development treats out there. Strap yourself in and get Here is Scott Talinski and Wes Bos. Welcome to Syntax. We got the desk boys with you today.

We've got an entire entire show on our desk setup.

Ours has changed a little bit here and there, rid. And there's nothing I love more than talking about hardware and setups and mice and Keyboards and desks and roller blade wheels, all that good stuff. So we're gonna we're gonna go through our setups both as coders as well as re Video and tutorial producers and go through all the gear that we use and and why we use it. We are sponsored by rid. Three awesome companies today. 1st 1 is Sanity structure content CMS. 2nd 1 is LogRocket JavaScript session replay.

And third one is Hasura,

instant GraphQL API for your data. We'll talk about all of them partway through the episode. How you doing today, Scott? Yeah. I'm doing good. Yeah. I'm doing good. I just got my my course out yesterday on Cypress, so that feels good. It always feels good to wake up the next morning after the you get a course out because for me, I do it every month. So I'm like, yes. Okay. Some breathing room. And This next course I have planned, I already have it completely planned and scripted and ready to go, so I'm gonna knock it out very early this month and then just have a ton of time rid For planning and coding and working on the LevelUp platform, which, man, I am just so excited about where the LevelUp tutorials coding platform is right now. Like, The code base feels

so nice to work in, so I'm just feeling good. How are you doing? It's good. Good. I'm doing great. We are read. Just about to release my new advanced React and GraphQL rerecord that's been, like, over a year in the making. This thing has had so many moving parts to it because it's such a big course. There's been so many moving parts that have needed to just stop and wait for this thing to to come out, and it's finally ready to go live. So I'm pretty stoked to get that thing out. Rid. Cool. Yeah. I'm stoked for you. There's so many updates in that in that world. Yeah. I know. It's, it's for the better, though, man. I was just, like, looking at it versus when I first recorded it. Was like, man, this whole GraphQL, React ecosystem has gotten, like, a 1000 times better since I first recorded it. I'm so happy about it. Yeah. Have you dove into CodeGen at all? I know. Sorry. We're getting off topic here. No. It's The Coding Show.

Cogent. What what is CodeGen? Rid. Oh, GraphQL Cogen? Oh, boy.

I might have just added some videos to your your series here.

GraphQL Cogen We'll take your GraphQL schema even just by looking at it from a URL or by giving it its dot GraphQL files Yeah. And it will spit out Every single React hook for your entire site, and then you just import them as use the query's name, and then you don't have to write any more React hooks. Rid. I haven't written a single React hook for our Apollo client in a long time because they're all generated for us automatically. It's very nice. It's very cool. But rid. You still have to write the, like, queries and everything? We write the query schema, and it generates a typed hook, ready. And it generates all of the types for the resolvers in the API as well.

Oh, yeah. All of that is what Keystone gives for you, so we don't have to write any of that either. It just does that. And also gives you all the TypeScript types as well, which is so handy because it all just auto complete super nicely. Well, you can use it just to get you those hooks. Rid It's pretty dope. That's awesome. Alright. Let's get into the gear. We're gonna start with the desk, and we'll go through all the different things. And we're gonna go back and forth and Say what we got and explain why we have it. So what is your desk? My desk is a

IKEA Karl Bee countertop. It's an rid Karlby is the the one that there is. I got the dark brown. It looks kind of like butcher block, but it's really just a veneer on what I would assume is like a big particle board piece. It looks really nice. It looks much fancier than it is. It was really cheap for what it is, and it's huge. I think mine's, like, 72 inches wide.

It's just like it takes up almost my entire office. So I bought this this giant slab of countertop, which was, like I said, way, way cheaper and way nicer than It should be. And then I got some Jarvis standing desk legs, which have the automated buttons. So it has the buttons where you can push to to go up rid down, but it also has the presets because I kinda have my presets. I got 4 presets, 1 for sitting, 1 for standing, 1 for horse stance, And one for a deep lunge.

I could pee in a lunge while I'm at my desk.

I use a IKEA countertop as well. I've had this rid for 10 years now, and it's an 8 foot IKEA, butcher block countertop. It's solid all the way through. Oh, so you went fancy. Yeah. Well, they didn't. I'm just looking on the website, and I don't see the this on their website anymore on IKEA.

Uh-huh. So maybe IKEA got less fancy. Rid It is. It's all veneer on their website right now. Yeah. That that's what mine is. Yeah. I wonder if just because of the pandemic, the price of wood has just rid skyrocketed, so maybe they temporarily don't have them.

But, anyways, mine's super heavy. I like that because I hate when my desk wiggles rid and jiggles on it. So this is really good. I have it on 4 IKEA legs. I bought mine a long time ago, so I think the the legs are a little bit more rid Cheap nowadays. Mine are super heavy ones, and then it's 8 foot. We initially bought it from my wife and I to work on it together so you could have 2 stations. Oh, cool. Yeah. But it was a little bit too close together for 8 foot.

And I also just don't my wife doesn't like sitting beside me when we work. So I have the entire thing to myself now, And it's awesome because I have, like, my entire setup. It takes maybe maybe 5 feet. And then the rest of it, I have for just either throwing junk on rid. Or what I like to like to think is I put all my, like, screwdrivers and soldering iron and all of the, like, actual, like, physical project rid Stuff goes on there as well. And having a space for that is is really nice to because I can also just, like I have a roller chair, and I can just roll over to it. And I can Also, if I just have a good laptop, like, if I I've got a Windows laptop as well, and sometimes I just put that there. And if I need to roll over to it, I can.

For me, I I'm really it's funny because, like, my desk, the status of there's a couple things in my life You can tell how far along I am in my flow of recording a tutorial series. So for those of you who don't know, I record a tutorial series every month. Rid Okay. And this been I've been doing it now for many years, 4 years at least, and and the status of my desk rid. And the status of my beard are directly correlated with how in the weeds I am. My beard is looking good right now because I'm done. And, like, I finished that course, I just shave it all off. I clear up clear off my desk and and get myself back to day 1. And then by the 30th or 28th rolls around, my desk is just piled high with papers and, you know, a lot of people have an expired batteries drawer or something, or, like, a little baggie of expired batteries that they do before they recycle them. Yeah. My Fire batteries are just sitting free form all over my desk right now. I probably have, like, 40 double a batteries just hanging out here. Just Holy.

Like, why? Why are they here? How did they get here? Why? Well, like, I don't know, but I'm not gonna figure it out until today. Today is gonna be my day to clean this desk off. Beautiful. I I should also say I have a little cottage office at our cottage. And up there, my setup is almost exactly the same, and that's intentional so that I can rid. Just move from one place to another without it disrupting my flow or audio or anything like that. I got this maple slab on marketplace, rid. And it's super heavy as well. It's a live edge maple slab, and it has hairpin legs on it. And that thing has been been really nice as well. The only thing I don't like about it is the Live Edge doesn't go straight up against the wall because it's irregular. Oh, a Live Edge. Yeah. Yeah. So I had to put, like, a little piece of foam behind it so that it wouldn't rid. Wouldn't wobble when I'm typing on it. Where where'd you get them legs from? The legs came with with the desk. Oh, okay. So it's like a yeah. Rid. The guy I bought it from had it made by, like, a local, woodworker, but you can buy those hairpin legs on Amazon. I've bought them previously for other projects, rid And they were super easy. Just screw them right in, and then you if you ever find, like, a nice piece of wood rid Somewhere, you can just buy these hairpin legs, and it looks sick. It's easy to put on. Just toss some legs on that boy. The Jarvis legs were like that too. I mean, the the

rid Standing desk ones, it was really like 1, 2, 3, 4, maybe like 8 screws total. Really not a big deal. And I always have because people would be like, oh, I didn't know you could do that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The desks rid that they have at Jarvis or whoever does any sort of standing desks, they're gonna be marked up. And you can get this countertop for way cheaper, and it's gonna be rid Bigger, heftier, cooler looking, more Instagram y. Totally.

Yeah. Okay. Let's get into chair. Now this is gonna be fun for me because I'm sitting in a brand new Share. It is eggplant colored, and it's it's eggplant purple, and it's actually like a really deep it's more almost like a plum, a little bit more. Less Less purply, more like dark, and then the back is gray. I I got a steel case gesture too. I just got it. Those of you who have listened to the show for a long time know that I fractured my tailbone, like, 3 years ago, so, like, sitting on things are really not good for me. Rid. I was sitting in a Herman Miller Aeron chair with the mesh bottom for my entire dev career. I bought it on refurbished for, like, $200. It's it's rid Awesome chair. I mean, it's like a very expensive chair I bought for, like, $200 refurbished, and it's like Wicked deal. Wicked deal. And it's in perfect shape, and I've had it forever.

But I did some googling because my that chair in particular is the least comfortable chair for my tailbone injury. It was never bad before I had my injury. Afterwards, I, like, I can't sit in it. So I was like, okay. This is something I sit in every day. I'm gonna have to invest, so I googled about fractured tailbone chairs.

And this article popped up, and I was like, get the Steelcase gesture. It's the best one for this type of comfort. Okay. Perfect. And they said, here are the list of chairs to not buy. Number 1, Herman Miller Aeron chair with mesh bottom. And the caption says, you're better off sitting on a rock. Not because the chair is bad, but because of how the mesh goes up, like, and pushes against your your tailbone. So I'm just like, oh, oh, okay. So I gotta get rid of this thing. So I just got this new chair, And the cool thing about it is the arms move wherever you want them. They have these little buttons, and the arms can go up, down, whatever, and that allows me to actually get a lot closer to my desk than I could with the Herman Miller. My arms would always get in the way, and then I have to move my desk up or down, and then you're suffering on ergonomics there. So this one, I can Keep my arms wherever, and my arms actually get to rest on something now. It's really neat.

And, the chair overall is great. It's fantastic. Looks really super modern, rid And it's purple and gray. Really matched my brand's colors. Love it. It looks like a sick one. I have the polished aluminum Herman Miller Aeron,

the one that rid. Can't use? I love it. I have the same one at the cottage as well. I bought a a broken one, And I found out that it's very easy to go to a Herman Miller dealer and order parts that are very reasonable. So I I think I bought it for, Like, a 150 Canadian. I put, like, $100 into it, and then I had, like, up and running. The polished aluminum air on is is really, really nice. I run the Run the arms all the way down, and then I just, like, scooch myself under the desk. And then my arms go a 100% on the desk. So I I don't I could probably even take the arms off of it because I I literally never use them unless I'm, like, turning and talking to somebody or or just, like, leaning back and thinking. This has been really good because my elbows can be on the armrest, and it, like, props my arms up to, like, perfect height, like, almost, like Oh, yeah. Yeah. Ergonomic. Yeah. You know, the one I had before, the refurbished one, was basically the cheapest model. So, like, the arms didn't even go up or down. They were just fixed. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do you have mesh bottom, mesh back? Ready. Yeah. Mesh everything with the, the the polished aluminum one has their new new, and it's it's a couple years old. But they have this new, like, lumbar support, which is really, really nice. I like it better than the lumbar piece of foam that the older ones have, but they're both really, really nice. Mine doesn't have any lumbar support. Yeah. The Herman Miller Aeron, either people love it and they're absolutely crazy about it or rid. People hate it or people are like, I sat in 1 once at my friend's house, and I didn't get it. And it's because, like, you have to really tweak it rid to your body and adjust all the little knobs. Like, you can't just go sit in somebody's and be like, wow. This is nice. You have to, like, really give it a go. That's what I've been doing. I've been doing that for the past 10 years, just changing it up. And then on it, I ready. Run roller blade wheels on mine, and that was a only about, like, 6, 8 months ago, I I moved over to roller blade wheels. And it's amazing because rid. If you wanna move around You just do it. Yeah. You just do it. And it's like I feel like it's more comfortable chair because the chair has these little micro movements rid. As you shift your weight around and you don't roll around a lot of people, like, don't isn't that, like, really quick? And doesn't it, like, roll away from you? And rid If you are coating on a hill, it's gonna roll away from you. They're coating in a half pipe. Yes. Yeah. Actually, I used to work at a, company when I was in in school.

Rid I took, like, a old exploded ball

that was, like, rubber, and I came and I taped it to the things because I was sitting on an Aeron, But we are, like, in this, like, hipster loft, and it was so old that I was actually sitting on a an angle, And I would just, like, constantly be rolling away. Oh, that's funny. There's just something about, like, trying to constantly, like, just adjust how you're sitting. Rid It's awful. But the roller blade wheels, I would say the best thing that came out of 2020 was putting those on on the chair. Are you putting them on your new one? This is actually not a joke. Before I sat in it, I put them on. I

I brought it in the house. Rid. I rolled it into my office. I flipped it over. I put the roller blade wheels on, and then I tried it. It was, you know, that's how much of a priority they are in my life. It was not Not going to happen without them. Man, it's hilarious. Like, the roller blade wheels is a movement. Like, probably once a day, somebody sends me a photo of,

of them running roller blades on their chair. I couldn't believe it. It we should say right now, if you have an IKEA chair, get the 10 millimeter ones. Otherwise, get the 11 millimeter ones. Otherwise, you're gonna have a bad day. Yeah. Yeah. Be careful about that. You're also gonna be wanna be careful about your code. Otherwise, you're gonna run into errors and exceptions.

Man, you know what? You're gonna need a service for that, rid A good service for that is LogRocket.

Now LogRocket is one of our sponsors today. They allow you to see how your errors and exceptions happen in your website in a visual re Interface. That's right. You actually get to see them happen. Your user was able to produce a pineapple out of the logo in your website. I don't know how they did that, but they clicked on it. And now you get to see that happen because you get a scrubbable video replay and network requests and all sorts of really neat information, the types rid The stuff that you would need to know when debugging your application. So you're gonna head over to logrocket.comforward/ syntax. Sign up today. Get 14 days for free. Give it a try. This is one of those visual tools that really, really, really will take your debugging to the next level because it turns out rid. Debugging things is way easier when you can see the problem happening. I think that's a fact.

So, thanks so much to LogRocket for sponsoring.

Alright. Let's get into displays.

What are you running right now? 38 inches? Yeah.

38 inches, man. That actually could probably be sampled there. Rid Okay. 38 inches. I've run an LG curved ultra wide. It's 38 inches in, and it's, like, right here on the side. So it's my secondary desktop. I don't use that as my main monitor. Oh, really? My main monitor, I just use the MacBook Pro. So I use my MacBook Pro's, 15 inch, And it sits directly in front of me on a 12 south stand. The reason being is that my camera that does my webcam can sit directly above that lay, but it wouldn't necessarily work as well above the ultra wide. Not to mention, I actually record my tutorials on the MacBook Pro screen because The pixel density is higher and it's closer to 16 by 9. It's a little bit easier for me to get it exactly perfect. Where on the ultra wide, what I do is I just fill it with rid. My example code, the documentation, my notes, and that's all the stuff I need. I can just move the ultra wide wherever I want, and I have that on a a Vivo mount, rid. And it's like one of those pneumatic spring ones.

Wherever you move it, it goes. It's not like one of those crappy ones, but it's very cheap. So I'll post a link to it on Amazon. They're they're really, really super cheap for what they are. And so I have that, and then I have the same one for my microphone stand Just right there and there. So I rock that. And then just yesterday, I got a package in the mail from a company. This was sent to me. So Is this SponCon? What does that mean?

Spon sponsored content.

Oh, yeah. This is SponCon. No. They're not paying for my rid. Opinions on this because I don't know if I have strong opinions on the X. I just got it. Although it is really cool. It's this the Sellez monitor.

It's a 15 inch rid. Monitor, it's basically an external monitor that's the same size as your MacBook Pro screen that is, like, paper thin and is only powered in it by 1 cable. So I just plug a USB C into my computer. That's it, and it just turns on. And the thing's in, like, a re Fully okay. So it, like, flips back like an iPad. And so it's just resting here next to my computer. I have some shots of it on Instagram. You should check it out rid. That s telensky on Instagram, I also have photos of it, but it's really, really interesting. You know what? It it has a touchscreen features as well, but those don't exist in Mac, really? So at least for this one, there's a third party drivers that somebody made that I installed yesterday, but have not had a chance to restart my computer yet. That's what it's waiting on before I know if it worked. So that'd be kinda cool if this thing had touchscreen. You could just have a browser or your email open on it. Right now, I have my rid My terminal on it, so I have all of my console windows over here, and so I can see the status of my applications right here. I could keep my browser in the main one and then any sort of Code on the the ultrawide because you could get, like, 4 or 5 panels of code on that ultrawide.

That's gonna be the dream. I'm really excited to test this thing out in, like, a normal workflow. Rid That's wicked.

I'm running, as my main display, a 32 inch 4 k. It's LG. I'll put the links. I'm not gonna rattle off the The name of it? The LG XQMD 4 Yeah. 0. Like yeah. It's awesome. I love it so much because I rid. Previously ran the 28 inch as my main four k, and moving up to 32 is great because it's physically bigger, meaning that you can run a smaller Resolution, I kinda go back between, like, 3,000 by 1692 and 2560 by 1440.

I kinda go in between the it's almost a little bit too small. I I I kinda wish there was, like, a 35 inch rid So that I could run that smaller resolution, but I love it. It's just, like, at first, I was like, hokey, dude. All this thing is massive. Like, I have no idea If I'm gonna be able to get used to, like, having a TV in front of me all day. But I got used to it, and I'd like I think, like, this is rid. One of the best monitors you can probably buy for coding because of there's just so much space, so much room for activities. So much. So it's, like, super crisp and clear. Rid. To my right, I run my Dell 28 inch 4 k. It is an ultra HD.

That's probably the best monitor rid. Clarity I've ever seen. Like, the LG one is good, and you can't I can't really tell the difference now that I've been working on it. But when I switched to it, I was like, oh, man. Rid. That Dell one is so good. And the 32 inch version of the Dell one that I got was, like, $1200 or something like that. Like, the rid. The colors and the the clarity was just so good on it, so I really like that. I run it in portrait mode Interesting. Just because, like, I can't run these rid Both of these monitors like, I I always want 1 big one straight in front of me, and then I want 1 off to the side. And for that, I put my terminal on it, and I put my chat on rid and my music and sort of just everything, all that little stuff. And then when I'm recording, I also have all my notes and example code to the right of me. Mhmm. Ready. And the 28 inch in portrait mode is, like, really tall.

Like, it literally resting on my desk, rid. And it goes all the way up past the 32 inch one. So there's probably the lower third of the screen is not used for anything just because it's way too tall.

That's kinda wasted space. But I had it, and I put it on there, and I'm really happy with the width of it. And I do every now and then need it when I'm I'm doing my notes and whatnot, But I really like that. And then to my left of me, I run my MacBook Pro just on a rain m stand.

And for that, I I put rid Chat and other stuff on that as well. So lots and lots of room for coding and and running the different stuff that I need. Even, like, when I'm recording this podcast right now, rid Like, my audio monitor

and the recording stuff, all that goes on a side monitor so that I have room for a video of Scott, read. The show notes and a browser so I can see all 3 things at once. I have, like, 4 or 5 videos of Wes open, some YouTube stuff of Wes. In that way, I can have a lot of videos of Wes In front of me now. No. I it's funny because while we talk, I feel like I always feel, like, very funny because, like, right now, if Wes Wes was looking at the webcam. It would look like I'm looking far to my side, and that's because I've moved the Zoom window all the way over to the furthest possible spot of my white ultrawide.

But I'll I'll move it, like, several times over the course while we're recording an episode because I, like, can't pick what I wanna I get, like, I get, hyperactive about what I wanna look at. So I'm like, oh, I'll just move West over here. And then I'll be like, actually, no. I want the Notion right here. And then I had swapped things around, like, 8 or 9 times. That's one problem I have is that I my camera

rid is a little bit higher than I would like it.

I would like it like Scott has it, like, eye level. Mindset. Eye level. Yeah. And I just can't make it work because I either would have to put the camera off, and then I would not be looking at it. That's the worst one. When you're talking to somebody and you're not looking at the camera Mhmm. I'm pretty I'm okay happy with it. I had to lower my the display just a little bit, but it didn't hurt my neck or anything like that, so no sweat. Yeah. I I like having mine right above

Right in front. But, yeah, I I it would be nice to use this ultra wide a little more. That's a good set. I never I've never heard anybody using an ultra wide as their secondary monitor.

That's a good setup. It's fantastic.

Yeah. The cool thing I mean, you can put it wherever you want, so I can adjust the setup. This Vivo Arm is pretty crazy good.

Headphones. You have gone here for headphones. I use these let me even take them off for a second. I have these headphones I've had for a really long time. They're pretty expensive. When I got them, they're The Ultrason.

They're these Ultrason headphones. They're they're studio, headphones. I have had them for a very long time, and I like them very much.

I have tried many other headphones in in my time, and they have such a good surround image that I like. I I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there are nice headphones, rid. These things are are so good. Yeah. I have a pair of Audio Technica,

like, monitors, and I never use them. They're in my, rid on the shelf right now just because I hate having it on. So I just run the Bose QC 30 fives all the time, and it's not rid. An issue with editing, there's, like, a 200 millisecond delay because it's Bluetooth.

And if that's really an issue, then I just run them wired. You just plug in the cable and whatnot, but I love them. They're super comfortable. I've had them for probably 5 years. I run them for 8 hours a day, and the battery on them is still I still get, like, 2 days worth of battery out of them. So I'm preparing myself to replace the battery on them, but it just hasn't happened yet. Yeah.

I I can't get over the latency, and I do a lot of editing. So, like, I can't do that editing with the latency, although you said you wired them. I don't even know where my card is. I could start rid find 1.

Yeah. The latency is not a I don't know why or not, but the latency is not a issue for me. I'm hypersensitive to it. Yeah. Maybe I don't even notice it, but I also edit based on waveforms, so I visually see where the where the, like, audio or the umms or the ahs are. Rid Same here. Yeah. I also have a, like, a NFL broadcaster mic where it It's Britney? Britney mic? Yeah. Rid. Yeah. But it has, like, a, like, a really nice microphone on the headphones, and I just have never got those to sound as good as rid My main microphone here because I would love to just, like, get rid of this big thing and just be able to move around a little bit more when I'm recording, but I haven't got it to sound good enough yet. I need to after COVID, I'm gonna bring in some someone who knows what they're doing and say, make this sound good.

Help me.

Rid. Let's go into keyboard and mouse. Mouse, I use the magic trackpad. I love it. I have it on my left side, which apparently I didn't know was a weird thing. People are like, wait. Are you left handed? Yeah. I I use this thing on my left hand. I've always done it that way no matter what. Left I didn't realize it was a lefty thing. I thought everybody used the trackpad with their left hand.

So that that's where mine's cooking over here. I just greatly prefer the trackpad to the mouse. You got gesture support. The Mac one's really nice. It takes, rid Like, very little effort, and I've had repetitive stress injuries in the past and it Yeah. Using the external one like, using the external one has never been a problem rid me with repetitive stress injuries using the laptop one. Yeah. Maybe sometimes, but this has been really good for me for a long time. And I just got a new keyboard. I am using the Key rid. Kron k 3 with an optical switches. So it's a mechanical keyboard without a clicky switch, which means that it's really nice for recording. In the past, I've been using the Keychron k one, I think, and that one actually had a mechanical switch, which was less clicky than my code keyboard, which rid like Browns, which are very clicky, and so I've been getting quieter and quieter with my clickies in the recording. In this latest iteration, I'm still getting used to typing this thing, but this is fantastic. It's set up for, like, Mac. It's the same size as the MacBook Pro keyboard on the laptop, So that means I can move really quickly from the MacBook Pro to this thing, and the typing experience feels just about the same. I mean, the key travels more, rid. But they're really flat, low profile keys like the MacBook Pro. Kinda feel? Same kinda feel. And and as bad as the, like, the longevity of the butterfly ready. These were I still really like the way that little flat key feels for some reason. I've never been a big fan of those, like, really narrow, tall keys rid. That I have on my code keyboard. So this thing has been doing really good for me, and it has a lot of RGB goodness. That means it's gonna it's gonna photograph really well for the Instagram stories. I just like this keyboard a lot. It's very it's very good, and it's Mac focused, so it has all the Mac keys that you could possibly want. It's actually like a Mac compatible and Mac first. Rid That's awesome. I use the Apple extended keyboard in space gray. People always ask me, like, what is that? I'm like, it's literally just like the normie Apple keyboard.

Rid But it has the it's extended, so it has the arrow keys are not part of the keyboard part. They're to the to the right, and I like wrecked. That because I can I feel a bit little bit more relaxed with a wider keyboard, rather than trying to to tuck in and and get on the tiny little thing? Rid. Myself, I've never liked the mechanical keyboard, both because I can't record with it, and people are always like, why don't you switch between mechanical and the run? And I Yeah. Can't do that. I don't ever wanna switch between a computer or a a keyboard or anything when I'm recording because I just want my recording flow to just be like, Turn it on and start doing the thing. And have it feel like how you normally type. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, you're messing up. I know. And that's actually been a little bit of a learning experience for me with I did notice my typing even though it is, like, different or it's not that that much different. I did notice my typing take a hit, rid And I had to be much more cognizant of what I was typing. I also run a Logitech MX 2 mouse. I ran the rid. Magic Mouse for probably 10 years, and I switched over to MX 2 about 2 years ago, and I love it. I've mapped the keys to do my audio.

Rid So up, down, play. I love the scroll. I turned off all the, like, feedback, like, the clicky scrolling and all that, so it just just flies.

I kinda wanna try Trackpad again now that you've been talking about it. I love it. Just because, like, I'm scared that one day I'm I'm gonna get, rid Like, RSI. Like, I had a little flare up of it a couple months ago Mhmm. But I got rid of it. And you know what I got it from? It was I was saving Receipts.

And I had to do file like, I had to click so many links and open a new tab.

And rid After I did that the next day for, like, a week and a half, my arm was just on fire. And I was like, that's because Oh my gosh. Like, I usually, I'm coding, rid And that's all keyboard based, but this was so much mouse stuff that my arm was on fire after it. Yeah. No. Thanks. So, rid Yeah. I really like the fact that you do it with your left hand because, like, what a superpower that is to be able to switch hands. I'm a lefty primarily, But I am I'm in fairly ambidextrous, I would say. Like, I throw with my right hand. I don't throw well, but I throw with my right hand.

Like, I do I do I'm, like, half and half, but rid Primarily left handed laptop. We're both running the 16 inch MacBook Pros right now, so not not a whole ton there. Mine's a little bit beefier than yours, but now I'm wishing I woulda rid Saved the money, and they've gotten the M one when it came out. What I'm gonna do here was my strategy for future MacBook Pro. I'm gonna get the The mini cheese grater cube thing that they're coming out with, it's a Mac Pro. That's a actual Mac Pro. It's running whatever the next version of the m one processor is gonna be, rid. And it looks like the Mac G4 Cube, apparently.

So I'm gonna get that. I'm gonna have it be my desktop setup. And then you know what? I'll also probably end up getting you know, if they have a I've heard they might be doing a 15 inch MacBook Air. If they did that, I would get a 15 inch MacBook Air and that desktop computer, and I would just figure out the best syncing solution between them. I know that sucks and it it like, syncing software or files between those 2 systems sounds like it sucks, rid Actually, I want that. I want that powerhouse. That's what I want. Yeah.

That's the always the trade off for me is that I don't want 2 computers, rid. And I don't wanna have to think about where are my video files, like, for, like, code. Yeah. Obviously, just use Git. Right? But, like, for me, like, I run screencasting as of for a living. Right? So I need to have my files everywhere and syncing them, and the Internet is not very good at at the of cottage. So if I wanna record up there, I need to make sure what I have. So I also like, right now, during lockdown is a good chunk of my day. I have to go downstairs and rid Watch the kids while my wife is doing stuff. Yep. And I can't bring a desktop down there and keep working, so luckily, I have a laptop where I can Keep editing or doing whatever I'm doing. You could lug an Imac around.

Yeah.

I'm stoked for the new the rumors are with the new MacBook Pros is that they're gonna have All the ports back, hopefully, a u a USB a as well, and they're gonna be fast as heck. I really, really hope because even, yeah, like, Even with the juiced out MacBook Pro that I have right now, the export times are I sometimes really wish I had a desktop just for exporting. I exported

rid. 22 videos last night and they took me, I would say, like, 3 3 hours maybe of solid just, rid You know, set it up and let it go, and I was just like, man, this is your computer's incapacitated for that whole time. It's not like you can use it for anything else. It's like, I feel like this is such a huge burden on me. Of course, you know, I used to render video for literally days in the past. Yeah. So I'm not, you know,

Run the 1 tiny After Effects thing, and it would take an hour. Yeah. It's gotten a lot better, but still, it's it's really slow. Like, what I do is at the end of a day of editing rid. At 5 o'clock, I'll throw on the exports, and then I'll have to, like, come up sometime at, like, 8 PM and then start the upload because I also have rid Crappy upload speed. And it's just this, like, this thing I have to, like, babysit of exporting, and then, okay, now it's exporting. Now that everything is four k, it's rid. Gotten way worse too. Oh, yeah. It used to be, like, not too bad with the 10 80 p, but now everything is 4 k. It's gotten 4 times longer rid for the whole process.

Yeah. It's tough, but you know what's not tough? What? Having a back end for your code with Sanity.

Yes. Rid. Sanity dot I o is the structured content CMS for your next app or for your next website or for your company.

They build a really, really slick CMS. It's all hosted for you.

Although, let me explain how the hosted part works is rid. Sanity itself is hosted. The API is hosted, but you, the developer, still get to write regular code to be able to create rid The inputs and the schemas and the relationships. And if you wanna create any custom inputs in their sanity studio, you rid can because it's your code. You can run it wherever you want. You just have to make a custom React component to be able to do that. So, Yeah. Sanity is just so awesome because I know I say this a lot, but, like, from a developer's point of view, it's a really awesome CMS for your project. But then from, like, a Like a user's point of view, someone that's just gonna be using this thing day to day, they've really put in the time into making this a really polished Editing experience between everyone. So check it out for your next project, sanity.ioforward/ syntax.

It's gonna get you double the free usage tier that you would normally get

rid On the free plan, thanks so much to Sanity for sponsoring.

Alright. Let's get into the next docs. Yeah. Now We both use the same dock. The t s three plus, mine went kaput somehow, and it just stopped working at some point. And luckily, even though it was out of the warranty, I was a little bummed out about this because at first they were like, we're not gonna do anything. It's out of the warranty. And then I said, well, what the heck? It's, like, 1 week out of warranty, and this thing just stopped working randomly.

So they said, oh, yeah. You're yeah. Yeah. That makes sense, then they sent me another one. So I have, like, the latest version. It's in space gray. So when I first ordered mine, I couldn't get in space gray. So rid So I had the space gray one. It's the lightest one, and it's, for the most part, really nice. I found it doesn't really charge my computer at like, I know they pushed a firmware update

rid To make it charge at the same rate as the new MacBook Pro should, but I found that it it still doesn't really charge

that great compared to The built in MacBook Pro charger, I also noticed that, like, my Ethernet speeds are not like what they should be with it. Rid. This probably because I'm driving a monitor from it, and I'm driving my audio from it. Like, I'm driving a lot of stuff from it. Yeah. And because of that, my Ethernet speeds end up being closer to, like, And this is where it's gonna sound ridiculous.

They end up being, like, 300 megabits per second rather than a1000. Right? So, like, here I am because it's a gigabit Ethernet port. Yeah. Yeah. So here I am complaining about the speeds, but they're still really fast. But I I'm I'm paying for faster, and I'm wired via Ethernet. So So that that kinda bugs me. If I really want extra speed, I'll actually take a the Satechi.

Satechi.

Satechi. Yeah. Satechi rid USB dongle, and I'll plug my Ethernet just into that, and I'll I'll get my my megabits or gigabit speeds from doing that. So if I move my Ethernet off of the CalDigit, it will give me those proper speeds. CalDigit says it can do the gigabit Ethernet, but it I've never gotten those speeds out of

rid Yeah. There's something about doing everything on one port. I've not had any issues because I don't have to worry about having 300 megabits rid Because, like, even when I, like, move stuff to my NAS, like, I'm limited by the right the right of the actual hard drive itself and not the the network. But, Yeah. There's something about putting it all over 1 like, the charging alone, I plugged mine in at 9 AM, and now it is 1 PM. Rid That's 4 hours later, and I'm at 92% battery. So because I'm driving the entire setup on it, it does definitely charge slower, But it's not an issue because I leave this thing plugged in All day. All the time. Yeah. All day long. Unless you need to go downstairs, you unplug it, and you go ahead and use it. And then you've got I got chargers under the under the couch that you can grab 1 and plug it in.

Got chargers coming out of everywhere. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's talk about my rack. I have an under the desk rack. There's only a two two u rack. It's basically just a normal rack that was actually rid to be for server rooms, and they would say, oh, just it's not even meant to be upside down the way I have it. It's meant to be sideways. So you get a sideways rack. I don't know why you'd want that, but Maybe for saving space and tight closets. And so I got this thing, and I screwed it into the underside of my desk. And I was wondering, like, if this isn't gonna be too heavy for these rid Up down arms that I have for this desk, and it's been totally good. What I did is I put my DBX 286 on here, which is our our compressor audio unit. Rid. And then also, I have my a to d audio to digital converter, and then I have my CalDigit. They're all in that rack. And then so you can hide all those cables, nothing on the counter. Re My USB cable is connected to my monitor arm. You just pull it around, plug it in, bingo bango. And it's nice being on the rack. The only problem is is it per puts it at the exact perfect height 12 year old and 3 year old to be like, oh, yeah. Let me just let me play with all these knobs because my kids rid Just obsessively are changing my my compressor dials and just liberating my audio setup. So when I'm I'm done at the end of every day of work, I have to rid Bring my desk up to a high spot so that they they can't get to it.

That's great. Yeah. So I I personally mentioned I'm running the t s three plus. Rid. That's the dock. I love it. I've got 2 of them. The when they first announced it, that's the one I got. And then I got the newer one, rid Which just had more USB ports because you can never have enough USB ports. I run everything on it. There's 2 four k monitor. I've had rid. Six webcams running all at the same time through it.

Two hard drives, my microphone input, my Elgato cam link running through it, and rid. It has been rock solid for me. The only thing is that sometimes I have to turn one of my monitors off and on to get it to recognize it rid When I come back from sleep, but not a huge, huge deal. I've been really happy with the fact that I can just run everything through it And just have a nice single cable. The downside is that the freaking dock is so expensive, and the cable to hook it up like, I needed a 6 foot cable. Re It comes with, like, a 3 inch cable.

You have to have it. It comes with

the world's smallest cable. Like, rid The the cable Cable for ants. It is the biggest cable for ants in the entire world. This thing is seriously

if you did, like, thumb to pinky, it's probably the length of rid. Thumb to pinky if you did, like, the hang ten sign. Like, that's how long this cable is. It is impossible to attach. I think it's, like, 1 foot or 2 foot or something like that. Oh my god. I bought the six rid put 1, and it was, like, 80 or $90. And then anytime I say that, people are like, well, look at this model price one I got at the dollar store. And they're special because they have to be able to run, like, enough power to power the laptop as well as all of your all of your other things. It's a beefy cable. Yeah. Yeah. And there's just something about the fact that there's chips in both sides of the cable.

The whole thunderbolt and USB c thing is such a mess. Rid. Everything's very expensive, and it's not like CalDigit is charging you a whole bunch. It's just that,

between the tech that's needed to run these docs And the cables and everything is just a very expensive thing, which is kind of a bummer, but I've reached my dream of having a single cable hookup, and it all just works. Rid Yeah. I can't get away with a single cable because I use my we'll get into this. When we talk about the camera, I use my actually, that might be a good rid. Lead into camera. I know you wanna talk about your rack. Hold on. I got more here. Yeah. Let's move. We gotta talk about your rack still. Alright. My rack, I built a,

lac rack, which is 2 IKEA lac coffee tables. I took 1 coffee table and put it together, and then I took the top from another one and put on the bottom. And these coffee tables are the exact width of a a rack mounted thing. And inside the rack, I have rid My audio compressor, audio equalizer, a rack mounted power strip, and a rack mounted Dream Machine Pro, which rid. You throw a, a hard drive in. It can run cameras and things like that, and it's so cool. It's on wheels, and you can wheel it around. I can't wheel it around because the freaking Cables are so short on everything I own. So it's on wheels, but you can't roll it around because everything will become unplugged.

My dream would be to have rid. A MacBook Pro in a soundproof rack or a sound dampened rack with all of my stuff and then, like, lock it with a ready. And then put it in my closet and have, like, a couple cables to a couple monitors. That's what my my buddy who's a sound engineer does. It's like all of his stuff is, like, nowhere near him so that the audio environment is pristine as possible, and it's it's so cool. I saw,

they're may coming up with a 100 foot Thunderbolt 3 cable, and it was something like $900 or something like that.

Yeah. But, yeah, maybe one day. And that that's rid. That's always the dream, but then what happens is it it all works, and then something breaks. And you have to go under the desk and unplug and plug things in and rid Reboot in. It's it's never as easy as it seems. Yeah. Cool. Do you wanna talk about the camera setup now? Yes. So here's an actual issue with my CalDigit 2. Re You cannot run the

monitor, and I use my camera, which is a Sony a 7 mark 3. It's an insanely good rid Mirrorless Sony camera, like, seriously, easily the best camera I've ever touched in my entire life, and I use it as a webcam via the Elgato Cam Link, And I cannot plug that into the CalDigit either, or else it won't won't produce video. I actually have to use my Satechi rid dongle to do that. And not only that, I think it's an issue with the MacBook because I have to plug it in on the opposite side of my computer. Yeah. You can't plug in even in the same side. And that actually kinda stinks because if you've got 2 cables plugged in, I kinda want them both to be on the same side, not to stick out on each side. Like, hey. It is what it is. Especially because these, like,

Thunderbolt cables are so massive Yeah. With the the part that you plug in. I run rid. A Sony RX Mark 3, which is just a I literally found it in a basket of my wife's old gear, and it's it's a nice it's a little mirrorless camera. I think it's a mirrorless camera. I don't think it is. Maybe not.

Compact digital camera. No. It's not mirrorless at all. My wife has the Sony a 7. I think it's one level under what you have. She has that now, and I hooked that up. And that looks sick. But I couldn't justify rid Spending that much on a on a webcam, so I'm just running this old one, and it looks good. Honestly, it was entirely light based for me for making it look Much better than it was. That's such a big part of it. I do run the Elgato capture through my dock, and it works great. Never had any issues. Rid. Yeah. But the only thing is I run it through a powered USB hub because I run hard drives and everything.

There's literally not enough ports in there, And, also, they need power. So I run a Amazon 40 port USB hub or something like that, and it has, like, a good rid. Power supply? That's interesting. But the other thing is I don't think my camera is is 4 k, and I don't know if that has anything to do with the Cam Link sending 4 k Or not? I don't know either, but it works great. I was I was really happy because I hate having to plug in multiple things when I dock the thing. Rid Man, I gotta figure that out. That's gotta be a thing I gotta work on. Yeah. Try a powered hub. And, like, also, there's, like, some hubs are not the same. So, like, get, like, a good rid. I have the Amazon Basics one, and it's been rock solid. I have an Anker

one here that is is really super nice. Those are great. Yeah. So I'll give that a try. Ready. Microphone, I use a ElectroVoice RE 20 microphone. It is my rid. Pride and joy, I love this thing. It's a classic radio mic. Anytime that any newscaster not newscaster. Usually, it's like sports people or people on ESPN or something that have this microphone or podcasters.

And in Amazon TV, I'll always point out, that's my microphone. Courtney will be like, yes. I know that's your microphone. I can identify it. And I use the Scarlett 2i 2 to get the microphone into the computer.

I use a Vivo Pneumatic mic arm. So and then I have a cloud lifter, which is basically a preamp that boosts the signal. It's pretty required for this microphone. Rid Not required for most mics, but this mic, it definitely needs that little bit of boost. Otherwise, you're gonna be jacking the gain up to crazy amounts of noise.

Rid So I use the Cloudlifter. It really is super nice. I just got this recently,

this Audient Nero monitor controller. I used to use this little monitor controller made by Samsung that was like a $70 one, and it was really pretty nice. It was like a little miniature mixer that allow you to control several different outputs, several different inputs, rid Change turn a subwoofer on or off and then change headphone volume, and it died sadly enough. And there isn't, like, a ton on the market that rid. This is the exact same product. And so this Nero thing is exactly what I wanted to do. It was way too expensive for what it is. But to be honest, my audio setup is, like, pretty complex in here, and now I get several different audio input sources. I can choose to output through rid. Headphones, I can choose to turn my sub on or off. If I wanna play a record on my record player, I just change the input source on that little rid Oh, okay. I was wondering what this is point of this was. That's cool. Yeah. It's typically used in a studio environment. You can have several different outputs from different Speaker sets to maybe, hear a mix on multiple speaker sets of which I don't have, by the way, just 1 monitor set. You can turn it to mono really quickly or Flip the polarization, little things like that, maybe like a little dim button and make it little quiet really quick. There's some talk back features if I ever have a studio, which I won't. Rid. It's really pretty neat. I use M Audio DX

8 studio monitors to listen to all of my mixes and all my stuff, my audio. I like them. They're they're good. They're not, like, the highest end speakers, but they're they're powered, and they're big, and they sound nice. I rid Run almost the same setup. Heil PR 40, which is not the mic you have. Sorry. That that's the mic I have. I bought it in black and gold rid About a year 2 years ago, and I recently switched my gray one that I had here with the gold one I had at the cottage. And, man, I love the look of rid Of it. It's so cool with the gold on it.

Although, I I did a Instagram poll, and more people said they like the gray one better. So interesting. Rid. Shock mount, boom arm, pop filter, all that good stuff. Scarlett 2 I 2. So the microphone goes into the DBX 286 s that does all of the processing on a re Hardware level, then it goes into Scarlett 2 I two that makes it into USB that I plug into my computer, and that's how you're listening to me right now. Rid. I do have a EQ 351.

It's not hooked up right now. I'm waiting for COVID to be over so I can get that thing dialed in by Somebody who knows more about audio than I do.

We also both paid way too much for pop filters, but, like, man, the pop filter world is like you either This Pop filter is amazing. What's so amazing. I've never raved about a pop filter to anybody, but this pop filter, like, I'm embarrassed every time anybody asks how much it rid Cost. But at the same time, I'm like, okay. 1, it's it's the barrier between my voice and the microphone, which is literally all I do. So spending money on it, it's gotta happen if you want the best results. And what is it? Rid It's, like, $60.

It's called the re three twenty pop. It's a custom one made by BSW Broadcast rid. Apply worldwide. That's where I got all my gear, actually.

And it's like a super low profile, tiny little pop filter, whereas every other pop filter is like a rid Knit one of those, like, knitting hoops with pantyhose on it and this massive, like, Benzie black arm on it, and it just looks awful. Rid Takes up your entire view. Yeah, man. I I remember I bought it. It's $60 US, and then I had to pay to ship it to Canada, And I had to pay duty and import on it. It was, like, a 120 Canadian, and I was like, this is, like, more than you spend on a decent microphone.

It's absurd to spend that on a pop culture. And let me tell you, I would do it over and over and over again. Totally. Yeah. It's funny. Like, sometimes rid. I cringe at how much this stuff costs, but then, like, I talk to my friends who are, like, in the trades, and they spend way more money on, like, rid Drills and batteries and hammers and all this stuff. Like, they spend way more money on the gear than than we do because this stuff lasts for rid Forever. Well, not forever, but you should have be able to have a lot of this stuff for 6, 7, 8 years and then still be able to sell it. Our overhead's

Ultimately pretty low. Yeah. Lighting. What what do you do use for lighting? I use 3 studio lamps, 2 of which I don't think they make anymore. One of which is the rid. Same one that you use, which is the newer one, and these are all LED lamps. They are all 3 of them are just rid Extremely bright, verging on way too bright. My room has giant windows on both sides of me, and everybody's like, wow. Your your room has such great lighting. It must be really great for you to Recording here. No. It sucks because I have glasses.

And when you have uncontrolled light with glasses, you just get reflection.

So if I wanted to use my natural light, you would not even see my eyes ever. It would just be reflection.

So I have to position my lights. I do a 3 point light setup. I do a backlight. I do a a key and a fill, and then I use one of the on the newer one, it allows you to do, like, a little bit orange y light or white light. And I use the orangeier light on the side just to give me a little bit more multiple color. And if I wanna add some more color to the mix, you know, I got a a Phillips Hue right above me. I can change or tweak the color, just, you know, add a little pop in there or something, but, usually, I don't. I usually keep it pretty, just bright, and then change the color in post if I want to do any of that Of which I do in DaVinci Resolve. Yeah. And once you mentioned that 480

LED newer light because I was just using, like, a Logitech rid. Not enough light was getting into it that it was, like, jittery and jet and, like, laggy.

And then so I got this, like, super bright light that you recommended, and I bounced it rid off of the the ceiling, and it made my video look a 100 times better.

I couldn't believe it, honestly. And then I also have these backfill LED lights rid that have a remote on them that are different colors, and I've been playing with those. It's it's just like a little bit of backlighting. It looks makes it look pretty slick. Ready. I have the BenQ screen bar.

Yeah. And it's like this, like, nice little monitor light that goes on the very top of your monitor and, like, lights up your keyboard and whatnot. And I had to take it off of my main monitor because I don't have enough room between my camera and the top of the monitor. Like, it's rid Like, millimeters. Like, if I pull my monitor forward, like, an inch, you can see the monitor in the shot. So I had to move it to my side monitor, rid But it's really slick because it's got this nice little desktop button. You hit the button, and you can put it between cold and warm light, especially if you're working In the dark, which starts at 4 o'clock right now in Canada,

you can just turn this thing on, and it just gives a bit of a a better vibe. Yeah. I do I do pretty warm lights All around in the evening and throughout the whole house. So, like, something being able to give me a warm light like that is is very nice for me. Now one thing I didn't mention, I know we're running late on time here, rid I have just about everything rigged up to my desk. Like, my desk, because it's a sit stand desk, I basically have, like, 1 or 2 cables going up the leg of my desk, And then I have my rack, like I said, underneath my desk. I have my monitor arms on my desk, my microphone arm on my desk, and I even bought, Man, the the there's a a company who makes really good tripods. I bought a basically a clamp from them, which is like a expensive clamp and then a a nice arm rig So that my webcam camera is hooked up to the back of it, and it's like a little tripod camera that I have. So I I have, like, my entire setup hooked up to my desk with the exception of the Studio lights. I thought about doing the studio lights on it. I was just like, you know what? That might be a little too absurd, so I'm I'm gonna leave it at this. But right now, everything's connected to the desk. Yeah. That's really important if you have a a sit stand. How often do you stand now that you have that new new,

chair? Frequently.

Rid I sit stand alternate. So like I said, I have my my 4 presets, and I will alternate before those 4 presets,

like, over and over. Ready. I'll stand. I'll kneel. I'll do a lunge. I will stand in horse stance. I'll get to the stretch again. I'll put my leg up on the desk. Re Like, I am constantly moving. In fact, the only reason I'm not constantly moving right now as we record these episodes It's because Adam, our audio editor, did not like how much I was bumping the table in my So I I've had to calm it down. Today's episode of Syntax is sponsored by Hasura. Now I'm so glad that Hasura is sponsoring Syntax because this is a service I've used for a little bit myself And especially for some fun projects when you just wanna get up and running with a GraphQL API. But fear not, it's not one of those rid Prototyping services. This is the real deal where you can get up and running insanely fast with a GraphQL API and a Postgres database.

Rid And for the most part, you don't even have to think too much about the entire code of things. You don't need to hand write your server endpoints or anything like that. Hasura is really, really pretty smart and really gives you the tools to build something very advanced Very quickly, it even has a granular authorization baked in with complex rules down to the individual row and column level, And this thing is very, very configurable.

With Hasura, users typically save more than half rid The time they would take to build a GraphQL server according, to Hasura. And and that's, like, very, very evident when you start to use it, especially if you've hand rolled your own GraphQL re server in the past. There's also Hester Cloud, which is a managed service, and it gives you things like auto scaling. Right? Rid. Nobody wants to deal with scaling. I don't wanna deal with that. And if you sign up for the free tier, it only takes a moment, and you have an instant GraphQL and REST server. So So head on over to hasura.info forward slash free trial and use the coupon code tryhasura, re t r y h a s u r a, and you're gonna get 3 months of Hasura cloud for free.

Rid And this is one of these offers you're gonna have to act fast on. Only the first 100 listeners get this kind of crazy deal. So head on over to hasura, hasura, dot info forward slash free trial. Use the coupon code rid Try Hasura, h a s u r a, and get 3 months of Hasura cloud for free. Very, very cool. So thank you so much for Hasura for sponsoring.

Alright. Next up, we have, storage backup home server. We have an entire show on NAS, NAS's network attached storage. Rid. Scott and I both run Synologies.

Go and listen to that show because, like, yeah, you can back up your stuff to something, but it's unreal rid. How much fun stuff you can run on a home server that has all this all the space in it. It's very good. Yeah. Go ahead and listen to that, Joe. We both basically run Same. Yeah. Same setup. I think mine's, like, 8 terabytes or something. Mine is 16 terabytes, and I'm using, like, 1a half. Like, I was looking at it the other day. I was like, this is probably too much ready. Space for free. Oh, I'm probably using most of mine because, I have a lot of duplicate files. Like, when I got it, I I did a lot of just, like, dumping everything possible because, You know, I've been doing videos for so long. I didn't wanna lose any of my videos. I have, like, maybe, like, 3,000 tutorial videos. Oh, yeah. I didn't wanna lose any of that. So it's like end up getting duplicates of it. I'll have to run a bunch of dedupe software and stuff to figure out because I am approaching my limit. I'm like, okay. One, there's no way I have this many actual files, rid. But, you know, in the same regard, the space is getting filled up. I also run a I was just talking on Twitter to Brad Frost about this this morning rid For Time Machine, so I run backup.

We have a whole show on on running backups, but I just run these little LaCie rid. Rugged or, Western Digital Passport, these little USB drives, and I use that for my, rid. My time machine, just because time machine is great. It will if you ever have to move computers or if you accidentally delete a file or if you need to roll something back, like, I've probably 6 times in my career, I've had to move a new to a new laptop either because I bought a new one or because mine was being repaired. And rid. And I was like, I just need to get up and running with everything, software licenses, everything, all my settings right now because I need to get back to work. And having a time machine for that is Has been awesome. So just I've tried the network time machine many times, and it always screws up so much that I don't trust it anymore. So now I just run Hard drives on all our computers in our house for Time Machine. Word.

Yeah. I should do that because, yeah, Time Machine any other way is, like, no go. Like, time machine on the NAS? No. Awful. It just, like, works for, like, 2 months, and then it's like, can't figure it out. Have to wipe it. And then you're like, no. Don't wipe it. Like Like, what happens if something happens? It's like, we have to start over.

And when you start over, it's gonna take, like, 2 weeks to finish, and then yeah. I know. It's Totally brutal.

Here's a new device that's not quite on my desk just yet, but it has been ordered for my birthday is coming up, and rid. One of the gifts that Courtney is gonna be getting me, I know this because I I lobbied for this gift, and this is a remarkable 2 tablet. You ever heard of this thing? Because I haven't until recently, and I am very into this thing, very into it. Rid So it's an E Ink tablet. It's supposedly the thinnest tablet on the market as in it's just paper thin, and it's supposed to feel Exactly like paper because of the next to known latency and then the texture. Yeah. And the battery lasts for 2 weeks, Meaning that anytime you want to to have a piece of paper handy and jot some notes down, it's going to be charged. You're not gonna have to worry about charging it. But it's E Ink too, so it does handwriting to text conversion so you can write notes. But I'm I greatly miss having a notebook paper right here, And I'm definitely easily distractible. And so anytime I thought about, let well, let's have, like, a code app or Notion to take notes or Maybe even iPad or something like that if I wanna do a handwritten notes. None of that stuff works for me. I get off track so much.

Because this thing's e ink, you're not gonna have to worry about a backlight goofing up your eyes. It's gonna be easier to to read long term or just take notes or just pop it out. Yeah. Scribble down some notes really quickly, do some drawings, do some diagrams, work out some stuff, and I really miss that about notepad on my desk 247, I used to live by the notebook.

So I'm I'm really, really excited about this, and I'm very I'm very keen to see how well it works. That looks really cool. I

run a Moleskin.

Usually, for me, it's when I need to sketch out layouts for my my websites. Rid That's when I go for a pen and paper. I used to do it for just ideas for courses, but now I've moved entirely over to Mindnode, which is a mind mapping software. So So I find myself using the Moleskin less and less these days, but, like, my wife is a she's a fiend for those types of things. She does, ready. Yeah. Just loves Jot, and she's just carrying it around all day. It goes through 1, like, in a month. She uses the dotted ones where it's just dots inside.

Pretty cool. Yep. Yep. Hot to jot right there. I got the last little section here, which is just a wish list for things that I wanna check out. One thing I was really happy to start seeing is they're called 5 k two k, which is basically I've been wanting the curved display, But I'm not willing to give up the pixel density of the 4 k display, and now they are finally LG is rolling out a rid. Five k, 2 k curved display, which is a 40 inch one. So it's, like, big enough that you can rid Do it, and you can still run a nice high pixel density on it.

So expensive still, though, but I can't wait to try those out because, like, rid. I want the pixel density, but I also want the curved display. So just instead of having 2, it's just 1. I think I would really like that. I don't know because I haven't tried it, But that's what I'm holding out for. I am a sucker for that Apple display, and I want it, but I cannot justify it since I do not own one. Rid I can't I can't justify it. I would love 1, though. So if anybody wants to just send me 1, I'll take it. The 32 inch 6 k? Yeah, please. Yeah, man. That rid That looks pretty sick. Yeah. How much is it? Oh my gosh.

$75100 Canadian.

Yeah. No way. No way.

No way. No way. Especially, like, just writing code most of the day.

Yeah.

What else? I've been looking at the Stream Deck quite a bit mostly because, BetterTouchTool rid Just rolled out support for the Stream Deck.

And I was thinking, like, how awesome would it be? Like, my lights that I have here, I have them on a yse plug, rid. And then I can turn them on and off at at 9 and 5 o'clock. But I was like, how sick would it be if I had a button that I could hit that is more than just keyboard shortcuts, rid But, like, actual buttons on the keyboard to do things like lighting and shortcuts and whatnot. I have a question. Is that possible to do?

Like, can you trigger smart home events with that? Because I looked into it, like, maybe I wanna say, like, a year ago, and it wasn't possible. With the Stream Deck? Yeah. Well, the way I'm thinking about it is

there's gotta be an API for either Google Home, hopefully. I think Or yeah. Just send a post message or something. That it better touch tool now supports it, you could do anything with better touch tool because all you have to do is hook up rid A keyboard shortcut to that key, and then the sky's the limit. You could run shell scripts or you can run JavaScript when you hit something or or AppleScript or anything you want at that point. And also just my editing workflow. Like, would it be better to have physical buttons to do common things? Maybe

I do. Like, I've done so much remapping. So for me, hyper a normalizes all my audio. Hyper n Creates a new playlist with the selected clip. I have open bracket trims, close bracket trims, c, just the c button cuts. Like, I use my keyboard like a rid. A Maestro clicking around here. Yeah. Me too. I have, like, hundreds of keyboard shortcuts set. I don't know a 100, but, like, dozens of keyboard shortcuts set up. And then I also use better touch tool to

automate things. Like, one thing for me is putting in the bumpers. I had 70 videos, and I had a 2 second bumper. I needed to add every single one. The thing was for that is you have to open the file command a select at all, hit the keyboard shortcut twice to bump it over 2 seconds.

It. Hit the shift arrow to bring it to the front and then paste in the bumper, save it, and close the thing. And I I recorded that all into a butter touch tool like macro.

And then I just have hyper b, and it does the entire thing.

Oh. And I was like, oh, how cool would it be to have a button to do that. You know? Like, obviously, keyboard shortcuts are cool, but buttons, man.

Dedicated button. I know. I'm into that automation, so that yeah. I gotta look into that. Cool. Well, that was, yeah, that was a long episode. Fantastic stuff. These are our desk setups. You can now be just like us on Instagram, take some photos, Upload it, get 1,000 likes, get a bunch of new followers. That's how it works. Alright. We are gonna skip the sick pics because this was kind of a entire sick pic rid Sick episode,

but we'll move into shameless plugs. I'm gonna shamelessly plug my advanced react course at advanced react.com.

Re Totally updated. All totally rerecorded.

Available with the latest in React Hooks and Apollo 3 And Keystone JS, which is a new GraphQL, CMS, all kinds of awesome stuff. So check it out. Advanced react.com.

Use the coupon code syntax

re For $10 off. Sick. I'm gonna shamelessly plug my latest course, which is called testing with Cypress, And it teaches you the ins and outs of getting comfortable with Cypress. We use it both in local. We also use it headless mode. We also use it rid Via GitHub actions in the continuous integration. So I know that's a huge pain point, but we we show you how to get, Cypress running and passing all of your tests with GitHub actions, rid Mocking and intercepting and ENV variables and all of that fun stuff. So level up tutorials.comforward/prosignuptoday

and save 25%. Alright. Thank you so much for tuning in. We will catch you on Monday.

Peace. Peace.

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