Category: Computers

My Travel Setup

As we prepare to start our third year/season of splitting our time between Birmingham and the Isle of Wight, I thought it was about time I blogged about my current travel setup. In this context, “travel” mostly refers to what I use on the island, but also partly to what I use when I am somewhere that isn’t one of the usual paces I live or work.

Things I store here

Apart from the table and chair, I think I have had most of this stuff over a decade. But it still serves me well for 9 weeks of the year.

  • Desk riser – this is one of those adjustable ones that can convert any desk into a standing desk, but can also raise a laptop or monitor to the correct eye height
  • Folding table – slatted, so that it will break down into a small enough package that it can be easily stored
  • 24″ Monitor and cables – an old one that I’ve had over 10 years and that was replaced at home by something newer
  • Desk mat – because of the slats I need something to provide a surface that my laptop, keyboard and pointing device can sit on without moving around
  • Speakers – old Logitech ones that I used to use at home before I wired up my home computer with an amplifier and dedicated speakers
  • Extension lead – to power everything
  • Webcam – I do also travel with one, but if I am working here it’s really important to have one, and the webcam in my laptop is not good enough for work. This is a really old Microsoft one that we have quite a few of in various places
  • Folding chair – from B&M, and small enough to be storable. I used to use a patio chair, but I needed something that would be better for my posture
  • USB mouse – in case I forget my trackball
  • Amazon Basics USB hub, that I use to connect my keyboard, trackball and camera to whatever laptop I am using. It’s like a docking station, but cheap and old.

Things I carry with me

Thoughts about mobile computing

I’ve been thinking about mobile computing a lot recently. Now we are splitting our time between Birmingham and the Isle of Wight I have found myself using my laptop more and more (after it sitting largely idle during lockdown). I have also found myself starting to value portability much more, after a couple of years of building and optimising a powerful desktop computer connected to three large screens.

After our last trip to the island I bought this screen which is a great piece of kit that can be powered by my personal or work laptop, and can also be used as a main screen for a Raspberry Pi or my tiny-but-powerful MSI desktop that I use for hobby stuff or where I want a change of scene. Adding that to my setup adds more possibilities, and should make it absolutely possible to work from anywhere, providing the mobile signal is good enough to support tethering.

I also think I’ve settled on my other travelling peripherals, with my Planck going everywhere with me (and my typing speed being back to normal on it now), and a Kensington Orbit trackball that is quite light and a lot easier to use than a mouse when working on a very small desk.

Talking of which, I’ve been using my phone as a hotspot while I’ve been on the island, and the experience is surprisingly positive. There is free wifi in various places, but it’s easier just to tether and use my very generous data plan which I wasn’t really touching before I started travelling again. Eventually I’ll want a new phone to ensure that battery life doesn’t impact my ability to work on the move, but the basic concept has served me well so far.

Now I just need to work out if I can carry this setup around on a small bike, ready for my solo tour of the Isle of Wight in September.

Bank Holiday Projects

This weekend I finally got round to finishing off building my new keyboard (GMMK 60% with Gateron yellows and some generic black Glorious keycaps that are better than £18 keycaps have any right to be). This will almost certainly be my main keyboard eventually, because it’s so great to type on. I’m not sure it will be with these keycaps though. They look pretty when they are backlit, but they are very different to what I’m used to, so let’s see how long they last.

What will I do with the old keyboard? I think it will still be useful in certain situations (especially when travelling, as it’s much lighter), and whilst I want to try and get to the point where I’m using mainly ISO keyboards I don’t think the occasional ANSI will hurt.

I really recommend the GMMK keyboards. I’ve built two of them now (this 60% and a 100% for Steph), and I will probably get a third one at some point to use up some more switches and keycaps that I have lying around at home and to further explore what’s possible with macros. These boards are probably the easiest way to get a high quality keyboard at an affordable price; this one was £65, and I’m using sub-£20 switches and keycaps right now, so it comes out at about £100 for a really great keyboard.

I also bought a switch tester, because there are so many switches I’ve not tried yet, and also because I’m on a quest to find an even clickier set of switches for Steph. What I’ve currently got in it is:

Clicky

  • Kailh Speed Bronze
  • Kailh Box White
  • Kailh Box Jade
  • Cherry MX White
  • Cherry MX Green
  • Gateron Green

Linear

  • Cherry MX Silent Black
  • Cherry MX Silent Red
  • Cherry MX Speed Silver
  • Gateron Clear

Tactile

  • Kailh Pro Purple
  • Kailh Speed Copper

Of the clicky switches I think I’d go with the Box Jades if I wanted a really satisfying clicky sound, or the Kailh Bronzes if I wanted pure speed. I really liked the Silent Reds – the were totally silent and may be the future of using a mechanical keyboard at work if I ever have to work in an open plan office again, although I also like the Gateron Clears (but maybe they are a little too similar to the yellows I’m using right now). Both of the tactile ones I tried are great; and I would happily type with either on a day to day basis (and might at some point soon, as I’m slightly missing the tactile bump since I moved from browns).

Of course now I’m getting links to this in my email. That is more switches than the keyboard I’m typing this on and may be a little overkill (even for me).

Reddit, IT support, and home offices

I used Reddit quite a bit around a decade ago. Mostly for keeping up to date with Linux and other computer-related things, but also to understand the kind of things people were generally interested in and talking about (became small talk is a thing, and I’m terrible at it). I drifted away a few year ago, but since the first lockdown started I’ve found it a useful source of information about things I’m interested in.

This started when I was researching computer parts for my new desktop PC. I’ve not built a desktop for a long time, so I wanted to see what other people were doing, and how the parts shortage was going to affect the choices I made. I have my PC now, and I’m very pleased with it, but I also didn’t stop using Reddit at that point; I just stopped caring about PC hardware and tapped into the community expertise around my other current hobbies (customising the i3 window manager, Linux in general, mechanical keyboards, cycling, music). It’s interesting to see how other people are customising their computers and their keyboards, and it gives me ideas for changes I want to make to my own setup.

The time I’ve spent on Reddit has also reminded me of how much it’s used as a general support forum for all sorts of things. I try not to get too involved in that side of it, but I am very interested in the way people ask for help with their IT issues and it gives me some useful data to reflect on when I’m thinking about these things as part of my day job.

I’m in no way surprised that people are generally quite bad at describing the issues they are having, and also that they are very bad at choosing the right place to ask for help. I do have vague intentions to write up long answers to things that people seem to struggle with, probably starting with my insights on how people switching to Linux invariably start off with doing something really hard as part of their initial switch (dual-boot, Nvidia drivers, getting Windows software to work in the same way it does on Windows) and give up soon afterwards, not realising that everything else they will ever do isn’t going to be that hard to set up. That’s an essay for another day, but this is definitely a statement of intent.

I’m also starting to get quite interested in the way people have their home offices set up. After 18 months of mostly remote working, I’ll be returning part-time to the office next week, but am still very interested in seeing how other people set their home offices up for maximum productivity. I’ve made a lot of changes since the start of last year, and I suspect many other people have as well. I have intentions to make a long list of people who have inspired me with their setups, but that’s also a job for another day.

Mechanical Keyboards

I’ve been using mechanical keyboards for a while now, but the fact that I’m working in more than one place now has required me either carrying a keyboard everywhere I go or having more than one keyboard. I have of course chosen the latter, and it seems that customising keyboards has become a new hobby.

I’ve tried out a number of different models and layouts, but always seem to keep coming back to a 61 key ANSI layout keyboard (my current favourite is an Epomaker SK61); partly because I love the form factor but also because it’s easier to buy keycaps for them. I’ve now got a keyboard on each of my desks, and I’m happy enough with how they work and with the aesthetics of the keys. I have also now got a perspex box full of the black keycaps that many keyboards come with, but that don’t work for me unless they are backlit (and even then…). What I generally prefer is something lighter; with black or grey lettering on a white, grey or beige background. All of my keyboards have some variation on this, with slightly darker keys down the side and different coloured escape and enter keys (which most keycap sets seem to have and which I’ve just got used to).

My one ISO keyboard broadly follows this aesthetic as well, but has a few more keys and sits on my desk in the office just in case anyone else might need to use it. It’s the only keyboard I have where what is printed on the key represents exactly what each key is mapped to; it’s much easier for me to not have to change the way I type when I switch between layouts, and I have been using ISO configured computers with ANSI keyboards for years now anyway so I just type the same way on each keyboard without really looking at what is printed on the keys.

I think I’ll be writing about this subject again. In the meantime if I know any other secret mechanical keyboard enthusiasts then please get in touch.

My Setup – April 2021

My Setup

I’ve been maintaining an up to date list of what hardware and software I use since I discovered Uses This a few years ago. It used to live as a page in my blog, but I like to maintain an up to date version so I can keep track of exactly what I’m using and how it changes over time. Every couple of years I post a snapshot as a blog post to track the passage of time. This is one of those snapshots.

The hardware I use

Home – I’ve just bought a new desktop computer that mostly consists of components that are fairly new (this is a first for me). Everything feels snappy and fast, and I love it. I also have three monitors (now identical in both size and resolution which pleases me), a mechanical keyboard, a hand-me-down gaming mouse, and all the docks, cables and switches to connect everything together. My personal laptops are both Thinkpads – an x260 for travel and couch-surfing, and an x230 which largely gets used for digitising vinyl and testing software I plan on using on one of my main computers. I also have a variety of Raspberry Pis that fulfil various server and media functions, and a Synology NAS for backups. I’m trying to phase out a lot of my older computers and only use newer machines with SSDs and lots of memory, but it’s hard to let go sometimes.

Work from home – As home, but with a Thinkpad L13 doing the driving. All it requires is a couple of cable switches and toggling the input on two of my monitors. I’d love to do this without crawling under my desk, but that’s a problem for another day.

Work – I’ve not been in my office for a while, but I think I still have something largely similar to my home setup, but with one less screen. I think I’ll be taking my very quiet solar-powered keyboard in as I’ll be sharing an office soon and mechanical keyboards are not conducive to good working relationships.

Travel – I don’t travel right now, but which I did it would be some combination of a Thinkpad, Raspberry Pi Zero, Kindle and phone. I also carry bootable USB versions of Ubuntu and Tails everywhere I go (even places I don’t take a computer). Increasingly my travel hardware also includes a bike and related tools.

The software I use

At work I’m running Windows 10. It largely does the job, but I would like to be able to live without it. Most of my day is spent doing video calls using either Teams or Zoom, but apart from those I tend to use largely the same suite of applications as I do for everything else.

At home (and whilst travelling) It’s mostly Ubuntu with a side order of LibreElec and Raspbian for my Raspberry Pis. I’ve been using the i3 window manager for Ubuntu since early 2020, although I do have Gnome installed on most of my computers as well. The script I use for installing my computers is available on Github and is regularly updated so it generally represents the software I am currently using.

Firefox has always been my main browser, and it surprises me that more people don’t use it. I have a container running with various versions of all the main browsers so that I can test things, but otherwise it’s Firefox all the way.

Other software I use that I feel is somewhat noteworthy includes:

WordPress – All my blogs run on WordPress. I currently maintain a WordPress multisite installation and several stand alone sites.

Atom – A text editor that handles Markdown well, integrates nicely with GitHub, and can preview and export to PDF. I also use Pandoc to convert to PDF, HTML, and/or .docx if required (I try not to use office software until the point I have to share what I’m working on with someone else), and have also started experimenting with using Pandoc to generate slides and ebooks.

Trello – I use this for my to do list, and it’s a good way to visualise the planning and execution of any task based work. It also reminds me when I have forgotten to do something.

Dropbox – Cloud storage and syncing software to ensure I can access everything everywhere.

IFTTT and Buffer – To automate as much as possible. Between them they handle a lot of the seemingly clever things in my digital life, and explain why I seem to be able to post to social media sites at times when I appear to be elsewhere.

Virtualbox and Multipass – Because no-one needs as many physical computers as I had before virtualisation was a thing. Multipass is what I use the most at the moment, and it’s really transformed the way I use containers for anything volatile or requiring increased privacy or security. There are generally at least a couple of containers running on my computer which I can switch to if I need to use a different desktop environment or browser to test something.

Spotify for discovering new music, and Rhythmbox for playing the music I already own. I have 162 days of digital music on my computer, and that’s before we get to all the records and CDs I’ve not got round to digitising yet.

Github for collecting together code that I’ve written and making the way my computers are set up available to other people in case it’s useful. I’ve also increasingly started using private repositories to version control writing and the notes I take at work.

My dream setup

Maybe I’m already living the dream, but the one thing I’d really like is to go back to doing everything on one computer. I also long for reasonably priced mechanical keyboards that are designed for people who just like to type, rather than gamers. Give me RGB and I will activate it, but sometimes I think something a bit more stylish might be more in keeping with the rest of my setup.

Using the i3 window manager

i3 is a window manager for Linux that I’ve been using for the last few weeks. It’s a fairly steep learning curve, but definitely brings some productivity gains. i3 is a tiling window manager, and by default will fill up the whole screen with applications. So if you have one application open it’s full screen, if you have two open then they each take up 50% of the screen, etc.

Installing i3

A excerpt from my installation script:

# Install the i3 window manager and some basic utilities

sudo apt install -y i3 feh arandr byobu htop

# Download some wallpaper and set it as default when using i3

wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/n5o7jjg4qpuebjn/2017-12-27-13.38.44.jpg
mv 2017-12-27-13.38.44.jpg  default_wallpaper.jpg
echo "feh --bg-scale default_wallpaper.jpg" >> .profile

## Add some aliases

echo alias ls="ls -l" >> .bashrc
echo alias top="htop" >> .bashrc

Using i3

When you log in for the first time you’ll be asked to choose a modifier key (I chose ALT). The keyboard shortcuts below use $mod to refer to that modifier.

  • Open a terminal window – $mod + Enter
  • Open a different application – $mod + d then type the application name (eg firefox)
  • Open (or go to) a second desktop – $mod + 2
  • Send the focused application to that desktop – $mod + Shift + 2
  • Split a container vertically – $mod + v
  • Split a container horizontally – $mod + h
  • Move between containers – $mod + arrow keys
  • Switch to a tabbed layout – $mod + w
  • Switch to a stacked layout – $mod + s
  • Close a window – $mod + Shift + q
  • Exit i3 – $mod + Shift + e

For multiple monitors it’s possible to enable/define them using xrandr. The sysntax is something like:

`xrandr --output HDMI-2 --auto --right-of HDMI-1`

As I have three monitors I find arandr to be a better way to set them up though. It’s a graphical wrapper to xrandr and lets me see the layout of my monitors which I find much more useful.

More information about i3 can be found at https://i3wm.org/docs/userguide.html.

World class IT support

I attended a talk by James Stanger from CompTIA at the SITS17 conference in 2017 (I totally forgot I’d written these notes until now). He talked a lot about the sort of skills and knowledge that world class Service Desk staff needed to have, and it dovetailed nicely with a list I drew up myself a couple of years earlier, and also with ideas from other presentations from the same conference.

What follows is notes I took at the time (with my observations in italics)

Tech support today

  • Evolving endpoint – IOT
  • Analytics
  • Automation
  • The cloud and mobility – BYOD
  • Cyber / security
  • Complexity of privacy
  • Device diversity
  • We are all knowledge workers

Helpdesk are the frost line of defence against security.
More Mac and Linux now than 10 years ago.
More business units than ever before
Service desk and service management is a growing industry and there are more jobs available. This should be an increasing trend.
Need a more diverse skills set – increase in cloud, and move from Helpdesk to service desk.

Technical skills that Service Desk staff need

  • Security
  • Database
  • PC
  • Storage
  • Backups
  • Cloud
  • Telecoms
  • Web dev
  • Server
  • Mobile
  • Etc.

Top skills

  • Troubleshooting
  • App management
  • PC
  • Security
  • Data
  • Mobility
  • Repair
  • Ticketing
  • Cloud
  • Permissions and directory services

It’s about accessing data from any device rather than the device itself. The device breaks, then you just try and access it on another device.

Five essential skills

  1. Cybersecurity
  2. Linux
  3. Programming – shell scripts and python
  4. Networking – TCP/IP, network segmentation, VPN
  5. Soft skills – customer service mindset, project management, ability to turn negatives into positives.

Can we take these 5 skills and turn them into a blueprint for the sort of person we want to recruit into IT support roles (and I’m talking across the institution here, not just Service Desk people)? Should also add some stuff from the other lists though – especially around cloud, troubleshooting and application management. Do our people need to be lesss skilled but more knowledgeable? Or is it just that they need to be skilled and knowledgeable about different things?

I look at this list and see a lot of things that have previously been on our “nice to have” list. Things like cybersecurity, Linux and the ability to script solutions to IT problems have never been things we have tried to recruit at first line, and maybe even most second line teams. That is going to have to change if we are going to meet the demands of our customers and provide the sort of service they need from us.

Other things:

We want someone who loves problems

Can this person really look beneath the hood?

Can they see around the corners of a problem? Trend analysis and documenting new things and fixes to hard problems.

Hackers will go after the points where one technology interacts with another (where people are a technology – interface between people and technology is a big vulnerability).

Security trends

  • Notice the unknown (Ransomware, social engineering etc.)
  • Zero day attacks
  • Malware

Top security skills

The usual, plus social engineering, authentication methods.

Attacks occur where people and technology converge. This isn’t news.

We have too much information, too much data, if we had less there would be less to attack.

A good Helpdesk person will spot trends in security, and will help visualise data in a way that other people can understand.

Multi factor authentication – something you know and something you hold. 3rd factor is something you are (fingerprint, iris scan, face etc.)

Understanding monitoring and performance via command line tools is an important skill. All the stuff I have been talking about for years.

Saying things the right way is absolutely vital. Change geek speak into plain language. This is a key skill.

Give suggestions / say no / transfer a call

  • Identify the problem
  • Define the problem
  • Explore and examine the options
  • Act on the solutions
  • Look back at the solution and the consequences, or learn from the problem.

80% technical, 20% soft skills. And technical skills are much easier to teach, so recruit people who already have the soft skills.

Installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook

I’ve been experimenting with Chromebooks for a few weeks now to try and come up with a low-power low-cost no-maintenance setup. There are a lot of very good blog posts covering the basics already, but I thought it was at least worth documenting how I got Ubuntu installed on my older Chromebook (which is a bit of a frankenstein that goes against the general ethos of not upgrading or otherwise tinkering with the hardware). This is probably best not attempted on anything with less than 32Gb of storage, and 4Gb of RAM is probably a good idea as well.

Enable developer mode

To enable developer mode, press escape and refresh and hold down the power key. When the scary message appears then press Ctrl+d and wait for the (fairly long) process to complete. This will unlock the full bash shell, and give you enough control over the Chromebook to set up a chroot.

Install Crouton

Crouton is the script that is used to install Ubuntu in a chroot. Download it from here and ensure it’s in your downloads folder. Then press Ctrl+Alt+t to open the chrosh terminal, and type shell at the command prompt. This will get you full shell access to the Chromebook.

To install Ubuntu (at time of writing 16.04) then issue the following command:

sudo sh ~/Downloads/crouton -e -t xfce

This will take a while, but when it’s done then issue the following command to start Ubuntu:

sudo startxfce4

To toggle between ChromeOS and Ubuntu use Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Back and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Forward. Performance is actually not bad, and productivity is only an apt install firefox away.

Other useful commands

The following commands could be useful (all issued within the ChromeOS shell):

See a list of possible distributions to install:

sh ~/Downloads/crouton -r list

Back up a chroot:

sudo edit-chroot -b name

Restore it:

sudo edit-chroot -r name

Delete a chroot:

sudo delete-chroot name

My Setup

I’ve been maintaining an up to date list of what hardware and software I use since I discovered Uses This a few years ago. It usually lives as a page on this blog, but as I’ve rewritten 95% of it today then I think it deserves to be a blog post.

The hardware I use

Work – Surface Pro 4, with a Targus dock, two generic monitors and a Microsoft keyboard and mouse.

Home – A setup that looks superficially the same as work, but is older, has more cables, and has an excellent solar powered keyboard that is far superior to the Microsoft one I use at work. It also replaces the Surface Pro with a proper laptop, and adds a server with lots of memory that runs my (internal) WordPress sites and contains a backup of all my music. I also have a variety of small laptops and Raspberry Pis that fulfill various server and media functions, and a Synology NAS for backups. I’m trying to phase out a lot of my older computers and only use newer machines with SSDs and lots of memory, but it’s hard to let go sometimes.

Work from home – As home, but with an additional VM that allows me to connect to a remote desktop. Sometimes I’ll plug the Surface in, but that is only required for certain types of work and it’s far from my default setup now.

Travel – Chromebook, Raspberry Pi Zero, iPad (sometimes), Kindle and phone. Sometimes I’ll travel with my laptop, but that is rare. I also carry bootable USB versions of Ubuntu and Tails everywhere I go (even places I don’t take a computer). Increasingly my travel hardware also includes a bike and related tools.

The software I use

At work I’m running Windows 10. It’s ok, but I would like to be able to live without it.

At home (and whilst travelling) It’s a mix of Ubuntu, iOS, LibreElec ChromeOS and Raspbian (although I also have computers running Windows 10 and Mac OS that are rarely switched on now). Some of this is the legacy of spending the first half of 2018 trying to live with each main desktop OS for at least a month, which I must get round to writing up properly soon.

I use Firefox, Chrome and Safari on a daily basis, although Firefox has always been my main browser.

Other software I use that I feel is somewhat noteworthy includes:

WordPress – All my blogs run on WordPress, including several that are only available on my home network (including an extensive knowledge base containing all IT related things I learn). I currently maintain a WordPress multisite installation and several stand alone sites.

Evernote – I use this on every device I own (largely the web version now though), mostly to take notes in meetings and training sessions, and then to revise/reflect later. A lot of my notes are now photographs of whiteboards and other hand drawn scribbles, which Evernote handles very well.

Atom – A text editor that handles Markdown well, and can preview and export to PDF. I also use Pandoc to convert to PDF, HTML and/or .docx if required (I try not to use office software until the point I have to share what I’m working on with someone else).

Trello – I use this for my to do list, and it’s a good way to visualise the planning and execution of any task based work.

Dropbox – Cloud storage and syncing software to ensure I can access everything everywhere. I also use the text editor on the Dropbox mobile app to edit on the move.

IFTTT and Buffer – To automate as much as possible. Between them they handle a lot of the seemingly clever things in my digital life, and explain why I seem to be able to post to social media sites at times when I appear to be elsewhere.

Virtualbox – Because no-one needs as many physical computers as I had before virtualisation was a thing.

Spotify for discovering new music, and Rhythmbox for playing the music I already own.

My dream setup

Maybe I’m already living the dream, but the one thing I’d really like is to go back to doing everything on one computer (ideally running Ubuntu). That was possible 10 years ago, and I’m sad that it doesn’t seem possible today. I also yearn to live the life of a nomad, with just a bike, a change of clothes, and a tiny laptop to my name.