In the past I found tiling window managers alluring but "exotic"; I understood the desire of automatic window placement and controlling window arrangements from the keyboard, but a successful adoption would be prevented by the one or two misbehaving applications, or the inability to control certain aspects of the desktop environment I was using.

Until one day I took the plunge and decided to go without a desktop environment and roll a custom desktop with i3 as window manager initially, later replaced by regolith linux which also uses i3 as window manager but takes care of integrating i3 with the gnome desktop environment.

While the window manager is important, equally important is the status bar. Basically a place to display important indicators such as current workspace, time, date, battery and many other indicators that I explain later.

Firefox is my daily driver, but if you're a Web developer you're almost required to at least test in Chrome, as that's what most of your users will use. Also there's the odd site that works better in Chrome, and for that I'd like the ability to specify certain rules to pick the best browser for the job automatically.

For example, at work we use the Google Workspace tools. Ideally any link to Google drive, docs, hangougs, etc should open in Chrome automatically. Everything else should open in Firefox.

I prefer wired peripherals to their wireless counterparts. While convenient for mobility and tidiness, with wireless you need to deal with battery life and connectivity issues. For someone working remotely, a good pair of wired headphones with high-quality audio should be high on their priority list. Not working in a shared space allows me to not having to use headphones the whole day, so I constantly switch between two audio outputs:

1. External speakers
2. Headphones

The idea is to be able to switch between the external speakers and headphones as audio output with a keypress, or in my case with your foot using a foot pedal. When pressed, whatever is playing through the current audio output should now be playing through the other output, and vice versa. Also the current audio output must be visible at all times for convenience and reassurance; when in a meeting you want to be sure that at least your audio settings are correct.

#!/bin/bash

CURRENT_AUDIO_OUTPUT=$(SwitchAudioSource -f cli -t output -c | cut -d ',' -f1)
HEADSET="Sennheiser SC 1x5 USB"
SPEAKERS="USB Advanced Audio Device"

## toggle audio output
if [ "$CURRENT_AUDIO_OUTPUT" = "$SPEAKERS" ]; then
    SwitchAudioSource -t output -s "$HEADSET"
    osascript -e 'display notification "Switched to headset" with title "Audio output"'
else
    SwitchAudioSource -t output -s "$SPEAKERS"
    osascript -e 'display notification "Switched to external speakers" with title "Audio output"'
fi

Similar to audio output, audio input is even more important. Any remote worker will have funny (or not so funny) stories about someone leaving their microphone live when they were supposed to be muted. To avoid similar situations or the usual "you're muted!" remark from your coworkers, an universal audio mute/unmute toggle is crucial.

In this case I'm not switching between two audio inputs. I do have multiple microphones (for example, my webcam has an included microphone) but when I'm at my desk I only use one: the headset microphone. The toggle is to mute/unmute the headset microphone.

on getMicrophoneVolume()
    input volume of (get volume settings)
end getMicrophoneVolume

on disableMicrophone()
    set volume input volume 0 without output muted
    display notification "Microphone is muted." with title "Muted microphone"
end disableMicrophone

on enableMicrophone()
    set volume input volume 75
    display notification "Microphone is live." with title "Hot microphone" subtitle "People can hear you"
end enableMicrophone

set micvolume to getMicrophoneVolume()
if micvolume is greater than 0 then
    disableMicrophone()
else
    enableMicrophone()
end if

A weather widget may not seem like much, after all you don't need constant updates on the weather and there's multitude of websites, widgets or even command line applications that can get it for you. Your smartphone for sure has a full-featured weather application.

So why waste screen real-estate, battery life and CPU cycles in a weather indicator? What I've found is that weather is a frequent small-talk conversation point, especially if you're far away from your interlocutor. I'm from México, and more often than not I get the question "is it too hot where you are?" or "what's the weather like where you're at?". Add in the need to convert ℃ to ℉ and you've got a pretty good justification for a weather indicator.

In this case what I use is the same in Linux and macOS, which is nice. A custom babashka script using OpenWeather for outside weather and homebridge to poll temperature from "smart" home devices inside my house to get the temperature inside my office. Using babashka is especially nice since the same script can be reused without further modifications.

I'm sharing the script here, but it won't work for you without significant modifications:

#!/opt/homebrew/bin/bb

(require '[clojure.java.shell :refer [sh]]
         '[clojure.string :refer [split]]
         '[babashka.curl :as curl]
         '[cheshire.core :as json])

(def office-ac-accessory-url "redacted")
(def office-login            "redacted")
(def weather-url             "redacted")

(defn get-access-token [user password]
  (let [resp (json/parse-string
              (:body
               (curl/post office-login
                          {:body (json/generate-string {:username user :password password})
                           :headers {"accept" "*/*" "Content-Type" "application/json"}})))]
    (-> resp (get "access_token"))))

(defn get-weather-openweather []
  (let [weather (json/parse-string (:body (curl/get weather-url)))]
    {:temp (->> (-> weather (get "main") (get "temp"))
                (format "%.1f"))
     :temp-int (-> weather (get "main") (get "temp"))
     :humidity (-> weather (get "main") (get "humidity") (str "%"))
     :wind (-> weather (get "wind") (get "speed") str)
     :sky (-> weather (get "weather") first (get "description"))}))

(defn get-office-temp
  [user password]
  (let [resp (json/parse-string
               (:body (curl/get office-ac-accessory-url
                                {:headers {"accept" "*/*"
                                           "Authorization" (str "Bearer " (get-access-token user password))}})))]
    (-> resp (get "values") (get "CurrentTemperature"))))

(defn to-faren [celcius]
  (+ (* 9/5 celcius) 32))

(defn get-weather
  [user pass]
  (let [{:keys [temp humidity sky temp-int]} (get-weather-openweather)]
    (println (str temp "C")
             (str (int (to-faren temp-int)) "F")
             sky
             (str "(" (get-office-temp user pass) "C)")
             humidity)))

(defn get-authinfo-cmd [host]
  (sh "/opt/homebrew/bin/emacsclient" "-e"
      (str "(efs/lookup-password :host \"" host "\")")))

(try
  (get-weather "admin" (-> "homebridge"
                           get-authinfo-cmd
                           :out
                           (split #"\"")
                           second))
  (catch Exception _ (System/exit 1)))

When I'm working at home I'm usually sitting at my desk with my laptop plugged in. I don't like it constantly going to sleep when not in use, for example when reading a long article, jotting down notes in my notebook, or consulting offline documentation.

Similar to my use case for the weather indicator, a "smart" calculator can do unit conversions such as currency, measurement units, etc. Especially useful when coworkers ask or mention distances, weights and the like in imperial units and I need to convert from metric.

Taking screenshots and sharing them with your coworkers is an essential part of any software developer, but especially remote workers, so it makes sense to optimize this workflow for low friction. What I need from such a tool is:

1. To be able to take a screenshot of a portion of the screen
2. Store the screenshot in my computer, in a designated folder
3. Have the screenshot uploaded to some private online storage where I have some control of who can access it
4. Automatically create a public link, ideally shortened, and copy the link to the clipboard ready to be shared

#!/bin/bash

DATE=$(date "+%Y-%m-%d-%H-%m-%S")
screencapture -x -i /tmp/Screenshot.png
mv /tmp/Screenshot.png /tmp/Screenshot-$DATE.png

## if arg "up" is supplied, screenshot is uploaded to dropbox
case "$1" in
    "up")
        echo "Uploading to dropbox"
        cp /tmp/Screenshot-$DATE.png /Users/cesar.olea/Pictures/screenshots/

        ## Why not upload by copying to the dropbox folder? By uploading
        ## via the API we can avoid installing the dropbox client
        dropbox-uploader /tmp/Screenshot-$DATE.png;;
    ,*)
        cp /tmp/Screenshot-$DATE.png ~/Pictures/screenshots/;;
esac

rm /tmp/Screenshot-$DATE.png

#!/bin/bash

if [[ $1 == 0 ]];
  then
    echo "Filename must be supplied. Exiting."
    exit 1
fi

PASSWORD=$(emacsclient -e "(efs/lookup-password :host \"dropbox\")" | cut -d '"' -f2)
FILE_NAME=$(echo $1)
BASE_FILE=$(basename "$FILE_NAME")

if [[ -f $1 ]]; then
    # try deleting it first
    curl -X POST https://api.dropboxapi.com/2/files/delete_v2 --header "Authorization: Bearer $PASSWORD" --header "Content-Type: application/json" --data "{\"path\": \"/screenshots/$BASE_FILE\"}" || true
    osascript -e 'display notification "Uploading screenshot" with title "Screenshot"'
    sleep 3
    curl -X POST https://content.dropboxapi.com/2/files/upload --header "Authorization: Bearer $PASSWORD" --header "Dropbox-API-Arg: {\"path\":\"/screenshots/$BASE_FILE\"}" --header "Content-Type: application/octet-stream" --data-binary @"$FILE_NAME"
    BASE_URL=$(curl -X POST https://api.dropboxapi.com/2/sharing/create_shared_link_with_settings --header "Authorization: Bearer $PASSWORD" --header "Content-Type: application/json" --data "{\"path\": \"/screenshots/$BASE_FILE\",\"settings\": {\"requested_visibility\": \"public\",\"audience\": \"public\"}}" | jq -r .url)
    SHORTENED_URL=$(curl --data-urlencode "url=$BASE_URL" https://tinyurl.com/create.php | grep "a href=\"https://tinyurl.com/" | sed -n 's:.*<b>\(.*\)</b>.*:\1:p')
    echo "$SHORTENED_URL" | pbcopy
    osascript -e 'display notification "Screenshot share URL copied to clipboard" with title "Screenshot"'
else
    echo "file $FILE_NAME doesn't exists"
fi

You're easily distracted when attending meetings via your computer and a multitude of applications are fighting to get your attention. The do not disturb toggle mutes notifications so you can concentrate on the task at hand, and also protects your privacy when sharing your screen with coworkers.

This is one of the rare setups that work the same for Linux and macOS. My mail setup is complex enough to warrant a separate article. In short, I use isync to sync my mail from remote servers to local storage, mu for local indexing and search, and mu4e as an email client.

Having my mail locally allows me to do various queries that would require some sort of API access, if at all possible, with remote providers. What I need is to display message count with various criteria: work unread, personal unread, personal inbox and drafts. I practice "inbox zero", and having the email count visible at all times helps me being more organized and avoid procrastination and reverting back to using my inbox as a task manager and general message repository.

The notification widget displays something like 11/0/1/0 which reads "there's 11 unread work emails, 0 personal unread emails, there's 1 message (read or unread) in the personal inbox, and 0 drafts (work or otherwise)".

I then use a custom perl script:

#!/opt/homebrew/bin/perl

## unread in loanpro inbox
chomp(my @lpu=`/opt/homebrew/bin/mu find flag:unread AND maildir:"/loanpro/Inbox" AND NOT '(maildir:"/loanpro/[Gmail]/Trash" OR flag:trashed)' 2>/dev/null`);

## unread in fastmail inbox
chomp(my @fsu=`/opt/homebrew/bin/mu find '(maildir:"/fastmail/INBOX" AND flag:unread)' AND NOT flag:trashed 2>/dev/null`);

## messages in fastmail inbox
chomp(my @fsi=`/opt/homebrew/bin/mu find maildir:"/fastmail/INBOX" AND NOT flag:trashed 2>/dev/null`);

## drafts
chomp(my @draft=`/opt/homebrew/bin/mu find '(maildir:"/loanpro/[Gmail]/Drafts" OR maildir:"/fastmail/Drafts" OR maildir:"/Drafts")' AND NOT flag:trashed 2>/dev/null`);

if( $#lpu < 0 and $#fsu < 0 and $#fsi < 0 and $#draft < 0) {
    printf "%s","";
} else {
    printf "%d/%d/%d/%d",$#lpu+1,$#fsu+1,$#fsi+1,$#draft+1;
}

exit;

The same script can be used as a custom script module in Polybar, or a user script in simple-bar.

If it was up to me, I would use a desktop computer for work. I follow the same logic as I do for wired peripherals: with a desktop computer you have less things to worry about, such as thermals (CPU throttling and the like), room for expansion, more connectivity without having to use hubs or docks, etc. at the price of mobility and potentially the need to synchronize between two computers (desktop, laptop) for when you are on the road. Nowadays I use a laptop (Apple M1 Pro 16 inch, 2021 model) almost always in clamshell mode (closed display) connected to an external display via an USB-C hub. The hub provides multiple ports to connect different peripherals:

• External speakers via audio jack
• Wired USB keyboard (Ergodox EZ)
• External display via USB-C
• External webcam
• Wired mouse
• Ethernet port