What I Use: PCs, Peripherals, and Software (Premium)

It’s been a while since I’ve detailed the PC, peripherals, and software that I use every day. But I spent part of the weekend migrating to a new PC, so this is as good a time as ever.

Of course, I set up new PCs, usually review PCs, pretty regularly. And I routinely configure them the same way, with the same set of core apps. So I will focus on that here.

PC

I don’t generally switch out my daily-use desktop PC all that much, and certainly not as frequently as I switch between laptops. But this year has been a bit unusual. After using an HP OMEN gaming PC for the past several months, I’m switching to an HP EliteOne All-In-One (AIO) PC with a 27-inch 4K display.

Aside from the display—and the design, which is quite nice—the PC is nothing particularly special: It has a quad-core 7th generation Intel Core i5 processor with integrated graphics, 8 GB of RAM, and a 256 GB SSD. But then that’s all I need day-to-day. I don’t really game on the PC or do anything else—video editing, whatever—that requires more horsepower.

Peripherals

I never use the keyboard or mouse that is bundled with a desktop PC. I still very much prefer Microsoft’s Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop (keyboard and mouse).

For podcasts, I use a Logitech C920 HD Pro webcam for video and a Heil PR-40 microphone for audio; it connects to the PC via an Onyx Blackjack USB mixer.

Laptop and to-go tech

I regularly switch between laptops based on what I’m reviewing at the time, and my preferences likewise change over time. This past year, I reviewed a number of excellent laptops, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon/Yoga, HP Spectre x360, and Microsoft Surface Laptop/Book 2 were among my favorites.

Regardless of which laptop I’m traveling with, I bring the same set of tech in my carry-on bag and a gadget bag I keep in my luggage.

The carry-on bag holds my 10.5-inch iPad Pro for reading and videos, my Bose QuietComfort 20 noise-canceling headphones (highly recommended), chargers for my laptop and phone, a portable phone charger, and a few extra cables.

The gadget bag holds the iPad charger, a port extender/Ethernet adapter for the laptop (which is either USB-C or USB-A depending on the laptop), a Belkin 3-outlet mini travel charger, and a Logitech C920 HD Pro webcam and Jabra USB headset for podcasts.

Software

My Windows 10 taskbar always includes the following apps, pinned from left to right. I use all of these regularly:

• File Explorer
• Microsoft Store
• Google Inbox (Chrome web app) – my email app
• Google Calendar (Chrome web app) – my calendar app
• WordPress (Chrome web app) – Used to post articles to Thurrott.com
• Mozilla Firefox – my default web browser
• MarkdownPad 2 – my text editor/word processor
• Notepad
• Microsoft OneNote – my note-taking app
• Adobe Photoshop 15 (Microsoft Store app)
• Microsoft Paint
• Twitter Lite (Chrome web app)
• Microsoft Skype (classic desktop version)

A couple of notes.

I use OneDrive for my documents and sync a few folders to each PC, including Book (for the Windows 10 Filed Guide files), To-do (in-progress and planned articles), a folder for this month’s completed articles (2017-12 currently), and a few others.

Though I use Firefox as my main web browser (and I do so in Android and iOS, too), I still rely on a number of Chrome web apps, too. So I also have Chrome installed.

MarkdownPad 2 is not something I’d recommend to others. It’s not being updated anymore, and it requires an out-of-date (and very specific) version of a certain developer library. But it really meets my own needs. I’ll be writing more about writing tools soon.

I do have the full Microsoft Office 2016 installed too but I only rarely use Word or PowerPoint.

I will often install developer tools–Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Android Studio—depending on what I’m doing and/or the PC.