Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

I’m Jenna—just Jenna. I’m not fond of nicknames. Goodness knows there are enough Jens in the world already without adding me to the mix, and can anyone really justify the use of “Jenny” as a nickname for Jenna? I’m a sort of generic nerd at an alarm company in New England that has very much outgrown its “small” designation in the last few years. I am a database squirreller, IoT guru, RF network manager, help-desk tech, herder of managed mobile devices, and sworn enemy of all peripherals with paper trays. I’ve been in various roles in this industry for a bit over ten years now, and while this one has some downsides—mostly just printers, if I’m being honest—it feels like a happy place. One shouldn’t define oneself by the job they do, but here we are. I spend most of my time at a keyboard, by choice.

When I get home I park at another computer, but to do more fun things—mostly games and/or bingeing Star Trek. The house desk is the superior desk because it sometimes includes a cat.

Most of my free time lately has been spent coaxing my teenager to clean his room and convincing the kitten that she wants to be an adventure cat. Neither is going especially well at this point. When the weather and my schedule allow for it, I’ll happily enjoy a quiet afternoon in a kayak. Non-Adventure Cat is not invited.

What hardware do you use?

At work, an ErgoDox EZ with Kailh Coppers and an MX Ergo Plus drive my workspace. The keys are pretty quiet on their own plus have a double layer of O-rings so I’m not being That Guy in the office. They’ve saved my hands over the last few years, and the keyboard has the bonus of adding a layer of “security through obscurity” to my workstation: Nobody touches it because they can’t figure out how to log in.

My home PC is a relatively recent DIY project, decently spec’d for a casual gamer. I’m thinking about cramming all of its guts into a much smaller case as a winter project. Again, the input devices are more interesting than the machine itself though: a Voyager with Kailh Choc Reds and another MX Ergo Plus live there. Two, actually—I wore out the left-click switch in my original mouse, so replacing that is also on the project list. I occasionally swap the Voyager out for a Moonlander (Kailh Silvers) if I’m doing worky stuff at the house. More keys more better, sometimes. I have small hands, though, and generally find the petite Voyager is more comfortable for casual use. It’s just so darn pleasant to type on. The available horizontal space is pretty tight, so the mouse usually ends up resting on my leg. Admittedly it’s not the most ergo-friendly setup—but there’s no HR rep to get judgy about it at the house, so it’s fine!

Scattered all around both of my desks like confetti are an assortment of Raspberry Pis and ESP boards, sensors, power supplies… They’re so hard to keep organized. Free-range electronics are probably happier electronics anyway.

Laptops with E Ink lids sounded like a total gimmick until we accidentally ordered one at work. As someone who routinely needs to reference equipment manuals while working on the go, though, this has actually been great! The Voyager and MX Ergo from home travel with me, and I use an iPad Air as a second monitor when I need one. With how small the Voyager packs up, I can fit an entire functional workstation in a very small bag. Gotta love a carry-on friendly setup.

And what software?

“Out of sight, out of mind” is a way of life for me. I split related functions into separate desktops so I can conveniently “forget” that email and Teams exist when I’m trying to focus on something else.

PowerShell, 365 management, and other admin-type things have their own dedicated desktop at work.

Azure Data Studio (dark mode yay) and SSMS (no dark mode bleh), MySQL Workbench, and Metabase have their own desktop as well.

Google Calendar drives my life and spans every desktop and device I have—I’d miss every appointment and task without it.

Google Earth occupies a fair amount of my time both for work and for funsies. It’s wild what information exists in KMZ form, and being able to aggregate many different things into a single view is neat.

Star Trek Fleet Command is the software equivalent of a fidget spinner: It’s something to click at when I need to distract my hands while I’m thinking, so it’s usually open somewhere.

Keymapp has come in handy for more than just reflashing boards—I use it as a cheat sheet when I forget where I stuck seldom-used keys, usually to discover that I removed them completely at some point.

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

For all of my keyboards, the base layer is pretty close to stock. I originally switched to positionable splits because the strain of typing on standard keyboards at work was making my hands go numb, and I got most of what I needed from these boards just in the shape of them. The customizability is a neat bonus, and I do still occasionally tweak them.

The ErgoDox has some minor quality-of-life tweaks: Ctrl-Alt-Del and -End double taps, a tap-hold Windows+L, and desktop left-rights to make switching between Windows desktops faster.

All three keyboards also have a Colemak layer because I will eventually learn it well enough to switch from QWERTY permanently.

I’ve experimented a bit with adding chording to a layer on the Voyager because chording keyboards are just plain cool. The configurator made it pretty easy to load up—PEBKAC errors prevent me from using it effectively though, I think.

What would be your dream setup?

As far as peripherals go I’m most partial to the ErgoDox, so I may eventually pick up a second one for home. Maybe. I’m typing this on the Voyager, thinking perhaps I could find a way to recreate this exact feel on the ErgoDox for the extra keys, and that would be perfect. Otherwise, I’ve already made my desks as comfortable as I can since I spend so much time at them.