Not much tech news as such this week, so some tech news of my own.

My first Experience with an Electronic Sit/stand Desk

As I find myself sitting down a lot and not moving, it was recommended to me to go out and get a sit/stand desk, hence this personal review.

This model is the Matrix Executive Electronic Sit/Stand desk.

Dimensions 1520 long, by 750 wide.

Desk height which is adjustable from the control panel is from 600MM to 1100MM.

Keypad is on left hand side of desk underneath and is a touch panel (I marked with tactile markers).

On the back left and right corners are cable ports to allow cabling through the desk to the floor.

The legs on either side of the desk have a single leg in the middle (which contains the hight adjusting mechanism), and then a single horizontal foot plate which extends forward and back (in other words, like an upside down capital t).

The motor that drives the desk is underneath the bottom of the desk towards the back.

The desktop top its self is white.

Use

The keypad has a 2 by 2 button grid for custom hight settings on left, and on right Up/Down buttons in a column. In the middle of the 2 by 2 grid of buttons is the S button for Settings for the keypad.

When my wife went through settings on the keypad  there is a setting for beep sounds for when buttons are pressed, and the brightness of the keypad can also be adjusted (beep sounds are not on by default).

Besides pressing the custom height grid buttons, you can adjust the desk by continually holding your finger on the Up or Down buttons until the desired level is reached or when the desk stops itself at the bottom or highest setting.

To go through the whole range of movement, takes the desk about 6 seconds.

Tip: I find using Up or Down much better than the custom grid, of buttons as if you miss touch as it were, the keypad may have an error and you may need to reset the keypad which is  a bit of a pain, doable, just a pest for blind folks.

I also purchased an anti fatigue standing mat which is like a balancing mat  so you are not standing perfectly still all the time. I.e. any time if you move, you have to slightly balance yourself.

Only been using it fully for the last 4 days, and its amazing.

I like the fact that I can just stroll up to the desk, use it, then stroll away.

As my office area is a bit tight, I just use the chair at my demo desk for when I want to sit.

As I purchased the desk from Office Works, I got there setup service to come out and setup the desk for me which took about an hour.

Cost for the desk was approximately $480 plus the service call out setup which I think was about $120 or so.

Amazing How Things Just Don’t Last That Long These Days

There has been black stuff appearing on my brand new sit/stand desk, turns out it was the case that came with one of my Braille electronic devices.

Pity it wasn’t made with real leather or something given the cost of these items, which of course, would not deteriorate as much, just something to keep in mind.

Repaired Macs Back Home and Running

This has really taught me a bit of a reminder lesson.

Don’t assume your PC can not be fixed, it may be just worth having a shop look at it, and spending a couple of hundred dollars is certainly a lot better than spending a lot more.

My Experience Playing with the Vale - Shadow of the Crown

This is the amazing audio only game for the Xbox, we talked about it last year, but on holidays I was really able to get in to it and play the easy and normal levels, now time for the hard.

Withe more space on my sit/stand desk, I now have the Xbox Controller linked through my mixer, so I can now stand and play on the Xbox at the same time.

The Amazon Alexa App for Windows

I was a bit skeptical about how well this app would work on Windows, and to my surprise, it felt like just using the Amazon Alexa hardware. I.e. anything I could do on the Echo device I could do via the app including all smart home tasks.

Amazon Battery Base Adapter for the Amazon Echo 3rd Generation

I received mine last week, allows you to turn your echo Dot 3rd gen in to a portable smart speaker.

Simple on/off button, clips on to the base of the Echo 3rd Gen, and connects to both the adapter port (for power), and the head phone jack (to sill allow access to head phones to the unit).

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