Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away my apple magnetic charger was right angled. Unfortunately the technology was forgotten and eventually lost with the passage of time.
Female-to-female RJ45 couplers ("join adapters" as described by the article) have been very handy in my experience. They're cheap enough that I don't mind leaving one now and again. It's so handy to be able to unplug something, splice in my laptop / tap / etc, and quickly return things they way I found them without rerouting the original cable. It's also handy when you don't have a long enough patch cable with you but you do have a couple shorter ones.
Agreed, they are great for messing around. I didn't want to bother with a proper patch panel so I just attached a bunch of them to my minilab and it's the best thing ever.
I love having so many little daptery-doos. My best hack is storing them though. I have a two tier desk, 24" deep main surface, and 10" monitor 'shelf'. I keep a half dozen tiny adhesive drawers under the shelf so they're always at hand.
One for flash storage + usb dongles, another with every usb adapter + short cables, audio things + usb power meters, pens, and other stuff. It is so nice being able to quickly use almost any device without a scavenger hunt first.
Beware: most USB-to-SATA adapters do not work with HDDs, only SSDs
One USB A-to-C adapter I particularly like is a cable with adapters tied to each end, so you can use it for any combination of (A or C host) to (C or micro device).
FM transmitters you have to be slightly careful - they need to get power somehow; think about how that will happen.
If you want to be sure that a USB to SATA adapter will work with anything, get the style that has the power on a completely separate cable that plugs into the wall.
A lot of cars without Bluetooth have a USB-A port for charging or plugging in a USB drive with music on it, you can use that port to power the FM transmitter
I got a storage organizer with 24 drawers. One for each type of cable I use. So instead of one big box that I have to hunt through, I have instant, labeled access to all my usb cables, and a few other cables and items.
If you use the various Ethernet adapters make sure you run some speed tests when you get it.. Those cheap dongles/converters ect are notorious for Working but cutting your speed and reliability of the connection.
My current favorite is a 1 meter retractable USB C to C cable. Combined with the smaller GaN charger and the lower power requirement of newer MacBooks, I can pack really light, and that's great for bike and motorcycle travel.
I also have a set of USB adapters that plug into each other and let me charge anything with the same cable. Again, less stuff to pack.
Pretty much anything – I just bought a random cheap one from Amazon, though you might get better latency for more money. The dongles show up as USB cameras (ie UVC) which is supported since iPadOS 17.
I use the (free) Orion app, but it's basically just a fullscreen camera preview so there are plenty of other options.
It is nice but I wish there would be just a dongles of some kind that is like a network monitor, you i.e. VNC into from another place to see what error machine is spewing.
Do you often connect a monitor with keyboard via serial?
Obviously I meant seeing boot errors of some linux machine, which is what usually monitor is for, but you have to be there, on site, with the monitor and keyboard to hook it up and see what the problem is. This is sometimes not possible and NanoKVM or JetKVM would be very helpful.
I do not see relevance of you comment here. I hope you at least had a nice time writing it because it was otherwise a waste of time.
Yes, although NanoKVM is probably a product with most caveats out of competing ones to recommend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plJGZQ35Q6I. I'd recommend JetKVM instead, but unfortunately it is still only available to obtain through late pledges on Kickstarter.
Not tiny, but I have a corner desk, and I mounted big long 16 port power strips under each “wing”: Tripp Lite 16 Outlet Bench &... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000051174
Roll of very sticky Velcro tape To mount things under desk.
A “toaster” style sata adapter: I treat it like a tape drive, clunk in a “tape” (sata or spinning disk) to back up to.
Lightning to usb-c seems interesting… it can turn somewhat late model i devices into full fledge computers on the go, at least iirc, or you can use a nvme in an enclosure as extra storage easily.
This is assuming you don’t have one of the newer i devices that has a usb c connector, then…
15- and 25-foot power cables to eliminate outlet strips and extension cords in some installations.
Outlet strips with super long cords -- especially useful for avoiding the need to chain outlet strips in settings where doing so is considered to be a safety violation.
Those USB-C to laptop power adapters are awesome.
However, they can be kinda dumb. The available charge current is communicated to the laptop with a resistor, and the adapter does not change this value based on what your USB adapter can provide.
My adapter was just a tiny bit underpowered and would cut out if I tried to run a heavy CPU load while the battery was charging. I think this eventually killed the cheap adapter cable.
Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away my apple magnetic charger was right angled. Unfortunately the technology was forgotten and eventually lost with the passage of time.