WFH rejig

[Greenbank]

You should look at a USB-C docking station or a dongle.

Doesn't solve the problem I have though.

If I was able to put the laptop under the desk somehow then I'd have nothing on the desk, no cables, no USB dock.

Having a USB-C docking station only puts a load of cables back on the desk, no matter how neat and tidy they are.

The problem is how to mount the laptop under the desk.

[Morat]

Wired mouse replaced with wireless mouse.

Wireless keyboard will be delivered tomorrow according to Royal Mail.

4-pole headphone extension cable should be delivered Thu/Fri too.

Then I need to work out a way to sling the laptop under the desk (it still needs to have lots of cables sticking out of it, power and USB-C to monitor cable one side; headphones, network, HDMI to other monitor, USB to webcam, USB Garmin cable on the other side) and make it not a complete faff to get it back on to the desk if I really needed to.

You should look at a USB-C docking station or a dongle.
I have a Dell Thunderbolt dock, so the laptop lives under the desk with a single USB-C cable. The docking station is on the desk under a monitor
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/accessories/apd/210-ARJD

Or just look for a Ugreen or similar usb-C dongle on Amazon and leave it permanently attached to monitors.
I have a USB-C monitor too, which is a good thing (TM) - it has a wired ethernet port and normal USB ports

Surely the correct answer to this conundrum is a desktop computer that can stand on the floor. By mounting a laptop under the desk you're ignoring the advantages of a laptop (screen, size, portability) and only using the ones which are compromised (performance, heat, connectivity).

[Ham]

Wired mouse replaced with wireless mouse.

Wireless keyboard will be delivered tomorrow according to Royal Mail.

4-pole headphone extension cable should be delivered Thu/Fri too.

Then I need to work out a way to sling the laptop under the desk (it still needs to have lots of cables sticking out of it, power and USB-C to monitor cable one side; headphones, network, HDMI to other monitor, USB to webcam, USB Garmin cable on the other side) and make it not a complete faff to get it back on to the desk if I really needed to.

You should look at a USB-C docking station or a dongle.
I have a Dell Thunderbolt dock, so the laptop lives under the desk with a single USB-C cable. The docking station is on the desk under a monitor
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/accessories/apd/210-ARJD

Or just look for a Ugreen or similar usb-C dongle on Amazon and leave it permanently attached to monitors.
I have a USB-C monitor too, which is a good thing (TM) - it has a wired ethernet port and normal USB ports

Surely the correct answer to this conundrum is a desktop computer that can stand on the floor. By mounting a laptop under the desk you're ignoring the advantages of a laptop (screen, size, portability) and only using the ones which are compromised (performance, heat, connectivity).

.... but taking full advantage of the "workplace provided" function

[L CC]

My team have had to take their desktop PCs home and that's great- until we started doing the rotation where the poor sods had to bring everything back into the office for one week in 3.

My back is bloody killing me today. And my bum is numb on this dining chair. Countdown to the arrival of the balans - TFIF, and I hope POETS.

[Greenbank]

.... but taking full advantage of the "workplace provided" function

Exactly. There's no compromise either, it's a perfectly capable laptop that doesn't leave me wanting on performance, mostly because my work is either admin/browser work or connecting to remote machines which do all of the heavy lifting for me.

The laptop sits on my desk closed. It only ever gets opened when it very rarely crashes (once every 6 months?) and needs to be restarted with the power button on the inside. This is why I want it off the desktop, there's no need for it to be there, it takes up space and makes the desk look a bit cluttered. Mounting it under the desk (so that it remains at desk height) is the obvious solution.

Putting it on the floor (or replacing it with a desktop on the floor) means I'd have more cable nonsense to sort out. The majority of the cables need to plug into things at desktop height (and this is a sit/stand desk). Having it on the floor means a whole bunch of cables now need to extend between 70cm->120cm to reach the monitors, webcam, etc that are all at desktop height.

The only two things that plug into it that I need access to are headphones (and I've got an extension cable being delivered) and the charging/data cable for my Garmin Forerunner watch (and that cable is only 50cm long but could be extended with a USB extension cable).

More importantly, I don't want a desktop as then I'd need both a desktop and a laptop for the rare occasions I do need something portable. And keeping data/etc from disparate applications in sync between two machines is a pain.

I'm still looking for a suitable solution to getting the laptop off the desk. The best idea I've seen recently is the DIY laptop hammock: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/diy-how-to-make-a-laptop-hammock-for-a-dollar/

I don't like the idea of the cords running across the desk but my desk has suitable holes in the frame that would mean I wouldn't need to do this, and left hand side of the desk is up against a wall so the laptop would be perfectly safe hanging there. The cable routing would work quite well I think and it still gives me relatively easy access in the rare occasion I need to grab it back onto the desk.

So now I'm on the lookout for some dowels/rods and a bit of material (hopefully some kind of mesh to make ventilation a complete non-issue) - the laptop has vents on the back and one side and not the base so I could get away with non-mesh cloth if I put it in the correct orientation.

[Greenbank]

In fact, I think I've got a Topeak Cargo Net which might just work perfectly.

[Oaky]

I'm still looking for a suitable solution to getting the laptop off the desk. The best idea I've seen recently is the DIY laptop hammock: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/03/diy-how-to-make-a-laptop-hammock-for-a-dollar/

At a previous job, in a large swiss bank, we had a team "server" that was actually one of the team leader's old laptops, installed with Linux and suspended under his desk using a pair of bungy cords and four cup hooks screwed into the underside of the desk.  It worked surprisingly well, although the only cables it needed were power and ethernet.

We christened it "dangleberry".

[ian]

A lot of these WFH set-ups seem very complex. I put all my stuff on top of the desk and cables and plugs underneath.

[L CC]

Yebbut you (and I) don't subscribe to the tidy-desk tidy-mind credo.

[Greenbank]

I got bored of dealing with my desk as it looked in the first post of this thread.

Also, Mrs GB upped her hours (and is also WFH) and now needs to use the desk on the day I don't work, so it needs to be in a state where she can easily move her laptop there and not feel like she's a intruder in someone else's workspace.

Given that, it was a case of either doing another half arsed sort out to just get by, or doing it properly and sorting everything out to ultimate satisfaction.

Wireless keyboards and mouse mean I can easily take them off the desk completely when I'm not there. My work laptop off the desk means she has more space for her stuff. Easy access to power sockets for her laptop without needing to wrestle Cthulhu on the floor below. Easy plug in to one of the monitors on the desk if she needs it. Nicer desk. Nicer lighting.

[TimC]

.... but taking full advantage of the "workplace provided" function

So now I'm on the lookout for some dowels/rods and a bit of material (hopefully some kind of mesh to make ventilation a complete non-issue) - the laptop has vents on the back and one side and not the base so I could get away with non-mesh cloth if I put it in the correct orientation.

Would an under-desk keyboard drawer be a workable answer? Amazon have various between £10 and £200 that might do what you need - or give the inspiration for a DIY solution!

[ian]

My wife has her own office and her desk is a dump. It's like a cityscape of paper piles, if that city were Jakarta. Yet she's one of those tidy people who has a folder for every email (me, they're all doomed to general population inbox hell, let the search sort them out).

[Greenbank]

Would an under-desk keyboard drawer be a workable answer? Amazon have various between £10 and £200 that might do what you need - or give the inspiration for a DIY solution!

I did look at a keyboard tray but I didn't find one that fits neatly. I don't really want to screw one in to the underside of the desk for various reasons:-

Given this is a sit/stand desk there's a transmission rod that goes across the middle of the underside of the desk so the legs are powered equally. This is a 4cm high ridge in the middle. Given it's only a 70cm deep desk that means there's only ~30cm space either side of it. I don't want the laptop on the front half of the desk as it will get in the way of knees/etc and look untidy with all of the cables, so it needs to go at the back half of the desk, in which case getting the laptop in/out is a bit tricky as access with the big lump of metal that runs down the middle of the desk and the wall is the other side. Most of the keyboard trays don't have good sideways access.

Also many clamp to the desk and stick out from the desk, it's not clear on many whether the clamps can be mounted the other way round to clamp onto the desk but have the tray stick underneath. And, if I can manage it, I'd rather not have clamps on the desk top at all, but I could put up with them if they were black and not too big.

The Duronic DKTPX2 looks like a possible candidate as access from the side isn't bad but it's spendy (£60).

The Maclean MC-839 is a possibility, as it looks like you can use the tray the opposite way which could work, and it is "only" £40.

Still preferring the mini cargo net on the side option at the moment, the bike cargo net I had in the BoxOfStuff(TM) isn't quite big enough so I've ordered a couple of the Topeak ones from Wiggle (as I needed some other bike bits anyway).

[Ham]

Have you considered deploying on an arm, allowing a third screen? (as mine)

[Greenbank]

Another part of the reason for getting it off the desk is that I'm going to replace the dual 23" monitors with a single 43" 4K monitor when they come back in stock (late Dec). I can't need the work laptop screen on show when I've got that much screen to play with.

And, eventually, I'll have a personal laptop on the desk for personal stuff (I just use the work laptop at the moment), but off to the side and not in my main eyeline.

[Jurek]

My wife has her own office and her desk is a dump. It's like a cityscape of paper piles, if that city were Jakarta. Yet she's one of those tidy people who has a folder for every email (me, they're all doomed to general population inbox hell, let the search sort them out).

^
My bold.
This. The inbox on my work lappy currently has 108,760 emails (I tend to  delete all of the incoming shit that isn't relevant to me)
Finding something is seldom a problem.
Its just number crunching - isn't that what computers are supposed to do?

[ian]

My mothership account contains every email and attachments I've received since it was acquired back in 2006. That's 100s per day. I hate to think how big it is (I use the Outlook web client), it must be a heaving, wobbling stack of gigabytes by now.

[Greenbank]

Decided to have a go with the cargo net thing I had:-



Not ideal as it is a bit tight, also I put my laptop in sleep mode prior to the move, unplugged everything, got it in place (tightly jammed in the cargo net) and then realised to get it out of sleep mode I need to open it up and prod the power button (waking up by pressing the USB keyboard or moving the mouse doesn't work if they've been unplugged since going into sleep mode). Managed it though. New cargo net(s) arriving tomorrow are bigger and will therefore make it much easier if access is required.

Desk now a lot clearer:-



The two remaining USB cables are the wired keyboard and the webcam plugged into the USB hub on the keyboard. When I get my wireless keyboard the webcam can plug in to the laptop where the current keyboard is plugged in.

Will also tidy up the monitor/USB/power cables dangling down the back with a spiral cable tidy thing.

Headphone extension cable works fine and I'm glad I didn't order anything longer than the 1m version. The other cable lurking in the back left corner is the Garmin charging/data cable for my watch, that needs to stay but it's nicely out of the way.

Mousemat is disgusting and is probably supporting all number of life forms, but it's a bit of nostalgia (I think I got it when visiting the Sun offices in CA 20 years ago), will get a new mousemat next time I order something from a computer place. It's taken me 20+ years to go through all of the ones I'd acquired over the years, maybe I need one with a motivational message printed on it.

[Jurek]

Tidy.

[ian]

Mouse mat? Blimey, are those still a thing?

[Mrs Pingu]

I had a single monitor arm delivered last week and it's been sitting in it's box til today cos I've been busy doing real work. We had to start moving our outlook archives to online archives so after finishing up I started that process and then started building the new monitor arm. Did some of it and then decided it was too much like work for a Friday night so I gave up.

[Greenbank]

Mouse mat? Blimey, are those still a thing?

I don't like the crap that builds up on bottom of a mouse if used without. I'm not fastidious about cleaning and will sometimes eat/drink at my desk.

The mouse also makes an annoying scraping sound on this wood desk.

[ian]

Ah, my Magic Mice glide across the desk like they've been shaved, lubed, and shoved down a luge.

Gets the occasional bit of cat belly fuzz in its laser-gummings, which have to tweezed out. Frickin' lasers are always foiled by cat fuzz.

[Mr Larrington]

Mouse mat? Blimey, are those still a thing?

Why, yes!  Yes, they are!  Mine is about 25 years old and has a picture of a Porsche.  On it.  BOGOF offer in PC World, I think.  Dunno what happened to the other one.

[Jaded]

Ah, my Magic Mice glide across the desk like they've been shaved, lubed, and shoved down a luge.

Gets the occasional bit of cat belly fuzz in its laser-gummings, which have to tweezed out. Frickin' lasers are always foiled by cat fuzz.

Blutack FTW on that...