I’m a midwesterner who lives in California. One thing that’s toughy to grapple with is the insane cost of living, so you rationalize it with thoughts like, “the weather is incredible!”, but then you still find yourself inside banging on a keyboard.
What if I could be outside all day?
But what if you could take your workstation with you wherever you go? What if you could have a portable workstation that you could take with you wherever you go? What if you could have a portable workstation that you could take with you wherever you go?
Portable standing desk
Behold the portable desk workstation!
Here’s what you see in the picture:
Moonlander keyboard - I swore I’d never get into mechanical keyboards until my wrists started having problems a few years back. When that happened I plunged into the split Moonlander keyboard and never looked back. I’m so hooked on it that I considered it an essential part of my portable workstation, despite it adding a bit of weight and volume to my pack.
MacBook Air - Nothing fancy, just an M2 MacBook Air that I’ve had for almost 3 years. Any laptop will do, but I recommend choosing one that isn’t too heavy that you don’t mind getting beat up if you drop it outside.
SmallRig aluminum tripod stand - Since its going to take a few iterations for me to figure this out, I selected this tripod because it’s decent quality, not terribly heavy, and not insanely expensive. I’m going to end up buying two of these things because whatever I have mounted to my keyboard is going to wobble a bit, even if it’s built like a tank.
Power & internet
- Power - A portable power bank or a solar panel.
- Internet - A portable Wi-Fi hotspot or a satellite internet service.
A few problems
It was my first time putting this whole stack together and natrually I ran into a few problems.
Wobbly camera
This killed the whole setup. I haven’t written the lesson plan for Phlex on Rails yet, so it wasn’t critical, but it was definitely bad enough where I considered the first iteration a failure.
The fix? I ordered a second tripod that I’ll either hook an external camera up to so it doesn’t wobble or move hte keyboard to it.
Microphone dongle
The USB-C port for the power into the laptop occupied the port right next to the T-ship microphone dongle, so I couldn’t plug the mic into the rig.
I purchased a power-through USB-C hub that should let me plug the dongle in it.
What’s next?
I’ll obviously do this again with the two fixes. I think that should be enough to have a decent portable recording studio. I’m aready anticpiating a few more issues, but I’m going to wait to see if its a problem before spending endless amounts of money on new equipment that I may or may not need.
I have another idea that’s a completely different approach where I build a lightweight desk, but I’ll save that for a different day.