ReelTalk

Small Office Stack

2020-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

This is a guide for building one ideal small office stack. Over the years, I’ve tried quite a few different setups and what I’ve come around to is that I prefer a slightly smaller desk with a single, large mounted monitor that can support about 3 windows in total. I opt for the single monitor as window management across more than 1 distinct, physical monitor isn’t seamless on a Mac. In addition to my normal stack, I opted to add some big-ol-speakers to my mix for immersive music – I won’t go over that in this stack because they’re not really necessary and, frankly, they take up a good amount of space.

The overall desk setup looks as follows:

Zooming in, you can see that it’s quite comfortable to have 3 windows open. This monitor is a 38”, Wide monitor. A high density 27” or 30” should have no problem with 2 windows, comfortably, open at the same time.

And finally, my chair. This is my current one. I’ve tried quite a few and found that for the price ($300) and availability, it’s a fine chair with plenty of customizations.

I’ve highlighted the dozen or so items on the desk in the next image. I’ll include links to everything with explainers where appropriate. I over-exposed this photo just to make sure that all of the item markers were clearly visible. Click on the image to zoom in!

Let’s begin!

Audio/Video

#15 Logitech C920 Webcam w/ Privacy Cover
#14 Ring Light - I was a little hesitant to grab one of these but overall it really does improve the lighting and make your camera work a lot better.
Voice/Mic: I went for something that sounds great given I am on calls very often. This is a semi-professional setup on a budget. It’s worth noting that if you have AirPods, like I do, you can skip the entire audio portion and stick with those. I happen to do some voice recording and wanted something a bit better. For voice calls, the AirPods work well.
- #11 Focusrite Scarlett Audio Interface. All of my audio goes through this but if you’re planning on using the speakers in your monitor, then you’d just use this Focusrite for capture voice through the Microphone.
- #16 Audio Technica AT2020 XLR Microphone sometimes this is out of stock but it comes available every week or two!
- Boom Arm
- Shock Mount + Windscreen
- XLR Cable

Power/Cable Management

Bought some double-sided tape and fixed this PDU to the bottom of the desk. I have the ports facing towards the wall.
#1 I then hook up the PDU to a small CyberPower 600W UPS to make sure any short power outage doesn’t cause issue with my electronics!
And store excess cables in this tray (also used the double-sided tape for this, too)

Desk

#9 Autonomous Smart Desk (use this coupon code R-90e685 to get a discount). I went with the Premium desk to have dual motors. Bamboo top with black frame.
The ErgoChair2 is pretty great. Use the same coupon code and it should drop the price. They’re always having some kind of sale. I have heard good things about the simpler MyoChair as well.
#7 The huge mat - this thing is great to use as a coaster, desk protector, etc. They’re cheap, just buy a few!
#6 Apple Magic Keyboard
#7 Logitech G703 wired/wireless mouse. I interchange with the Logitech MX Ergo every few weeks.
#10 Anker wireless charging pad
#4 Vertical Laptop stand

Computer/Monitor

#2 The jewel of my desk is my Dell 38” Widescreen Monitor. It has a built-in USB hub (I don’t use that) and can deliver power of USB-C (don’t use that either) but most importantly it’s just an excellent monitor with rich colors and plenty of screen real estate to get stuff done.
- Prior to this, I used two of these Dell 27” Screens
#3 In my case, I go for the Macbook Pro 13”
USB-C Hub Dongle for the Mac
And I go with a powered USB Hub by Anker as they just always seem to work better. In my case, this hub sits right behind the Microphone (#16) – if you look closely, you’ll see a few Thumbdrives popping up. I use a single command strip to velcro this hub to my desk. Makes it easy to pop in/out devices.

Accessories

Go-to notebooks are Baron Fig or Moleskine Dotted Large.
#8 AirPods + Protective Case. I’m still rocking AirPod Gen 2. They’re excellent but if I want to use a wired headset then I have a small audio cable routed from the Focusrite back behind and under the desk. You’ll see my wired headphones under the left of my desk. If you want a good wired pair, I’d suggest the great Koss.
And a pack of these Ties will always come in handy.
Rollerblade wheels for your rolling chair. Carpet or hardwood, does not matter, these make it better.
If you’re standing a lot with your standing desk and are on hardwood floors, I’d suggest grabbing an anti-fatigue mat
#13 Footrest. Must have.
Not pictured, I have a rolling whiteboard and it’s amazing.
Black mesh wastebakset

Finally, here is the desk, raised. You will definitely see more cables lingering around and some of these cables I’ve not finished tightening up. What I’ve learned about cable management is that there’s an 80-20 rule and trying to exist in the 80-100% managed, clean cable world ends up being difficult to move things, add/remove things, and generally be flexible. So I don’t zip-tie everything and I let new things hang out for a week or two (like the black cable and white audio cable that hang the lowest) before I spend the time to decide where they need to be attached and tightened to. You can’t even see it but on the left you can follow the lone, black power cable coming from the UPS to the PDU. That’s the only cable that leaves the desk!

Amazon Fire Stick 4K ~~ On Sale

2020-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

$29, Free Shipping. This is the “normal sale” price with ATL of $25 or so. The non-4K is $2 cheaper if you’re so inclined.

https://amzn.to/2J3bOBC

WD Elements 12TB @ $175 on Amazon. <$15/TB w/ Prime

2020-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

12TB Shuckable

Also on BestBuy: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-12tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/6425301.p?skuId=6425301

Memory Foam King’s

2020-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

Based on our discussions, wanted to highlight a couple of the good memory foam mattresses. There are many brands that sell foam mattresses including Purple, Casper, Tuft & Needle, Zinus, and now Amazon has their own. The two that really pushed the prominence of affordable memory foam are Casper and Tuft & Needle. They’re the two I like to recommend as I’ve tried them both for a good amount of their 100 night sleep test offer. If budget is no option, you may be best off looking at brands like Sleep Number which I hear are excellent but not friendly to the budget.

At the top of the market, in my opinion, for affordable known-good brand is the Caper:

Casper Original Foam King Mattress, 2020 Model

While it prices double to the Tuft, my sleep test resulted in sticking with Casper. I would avoid the new “Hybrid” models as they are either fancy, small benefit options or re-introduce coils into the bed. Once you head down the path of coil mattresses, I think you have to evaluate a large lineup of offerings.

Affordable, good customer service, entry memory foam from a known-good brand:

TUFT & NEEDLE - Original King Adaptive Foam Mattress, CertiPUR-US, 100-Night Trial

The price range for this one is around 650-750.

Kindle Deals! For Prime Day

2020-10-09T00:00:00+00:00

Kindle Essentials Bundle including Kindle, now with a built-in front light, Amazon Printed Cover, and Power Adapter

Or go for the

Kindle Paperwhite Essentials Bundle including Kindle Paperwhite - Wifi, Ad Supported, Amazon Water-safe Fabric Cover, and Power Adapter

Which has a “Your price at checkout is $109.97” for me. This is for the 8GB model.

Great deals!

Iconikal Rockchip RK3328 4K 60P Single Board Computer

2020-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

On Amazon

Iconikal Rockchip RK3328 4K 60P Single Board Computer A53 64-Bit Processor, 1GB 1866MHz LPDDR3 RAM, USB 3.0

HP ProDesk 400 G4 SFF Desktop DC Pentium G4560 3.5GHz 8GB 120GB SSD w/ Win 10 $159 w/ OBO w/ Free Shipping

2020-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fitm%2F353155092555%3Ful_noapp%3Dtrue&campid=5338679494&toolid=20008

Up and Go Plex or pfsense. Kaby Lake CPU. Right amount of ram. This is fair priced at $160 shipped. Anything lower via OBO is getting good.

3 left as of this post.

Firestick 4K $35 w/ free shipping

2020-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

This is getting close to the all-time low of $25 or so. It’s not hit that in a long time, though. So this is a pretty good deal at $15+ off.

Via Amazon

MikroTrik 5-Port 10G Switch $138 w/ Free Shipping via Amazon Prime

2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

I’m posting this one because for the first time I’ve seen, this is next-day shipping w/ Prime at a good price (it’s the same price as the Euro DK seller which prices lower the primary unit but adds in $23 for shipping). You can get this one, quickly, and not have to wait 1-2 weeks.

https://www.amazon.com/MikroTik-CRS305-1G-4S-Gigabit-Ethernet-RouterOS/dp/B07LFKGP1L/ref=as_li_ss_tl?pf_rd_r=05E7JR9N1ZWYPH6GGGW3&pf_rd_p=be25f964-4afb-442f-819e-9e628b270a7c&pd_rd_r=ae705b12-8d71-412d-8f3d-27204e00652a&pd_rd_w=s6gQs&pd_rd_wg=DK8Sn&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_d&linkCode=ll1&tag=rtclub-20&linkId=e3a0016a953c5b3a537e25241ac624dd&language=en_US

The CRS305 is a compact yet very powerful switch, featuring four SFP+ ports, for up to 10 Gbit per port
The device has a 1 Gbit copper ethernet port for management access and two DC jacks for power redundancy, plus it’s very sleek and compact metallic case without any fans, for silent operation
It has a “Dual boot” feature that allows you to choose between two operating systems - RouterOS or SwOS. If you prefer to have a simplified operating system with only switch specific features, use SwOS
If you would like the ability to use routing and other Layer 3 features in your CRS, use RouterOS. You can select the desired operating system from RouterOS, from SwOS or from the RouterBOOT loader settings
800 MHz CPU nominal frequency, 141 x 115 x 28 mm Dimensions, 512 MB RAM, 16 MB Storage size, 802.3af/at PoE in

And confirmed by Monkey in RT, you can use the Eth/Boot port as an uplink to your primary network switch.

WD EasyStore 12TB Deal of the Day $175 w/ Free Shipping

2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

[https://www.amazon.com/12TB-Elements-Desktop-Drive-WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN/dp/B07X4V2M3B/ref=as_li_ss_tl?dchild=1&keywords=wd+elements+12&qid=1594799727&sr=8-3&linkCode=ll1&tag=rtclub-20&linkId=ca001ac7c8e9298cf0698d88beeb9669&language=en_US](https://www.amazon.com/12TB-Elements-Desktop-Drive-WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN/dp/B07X4V2M3B/ref=as_li_ss_tl?dchild=1&keywords=wd+elements+12&qid=1594799727&sr=8-3&linkCode=ll1&tag=rtclub-20&linkId=ca001ac7c8e9298cf0698d88beeb9669&language=en_US)

Fast data transfers
High-capacity add-on storage
Plug-and-play ready for Windows PCs. Compatibility - Formatted NTFS and compatible with Windows 10, Windows 8.1 or Windows 7. Compatibility may vary depending on user’s hardware configuration and operating system
Western Digital quality inside and out
2-Year manufacturer’s limited warranty