Docking Stations

 

Yeah, you read that correctly, today's post is all about my beef with laptop docking stations through out my career. 

My first job in tech started out with a Dell laptop and the old school docking station that could hold the laptop at an angle so you could still awkwardly use the laptop monitor and go dual screen with all sorts of conveniently wired in devices. The best part was it all connected in with a simple satisfying "click". Most laptop vendors at the time had similar styles all with unique connections on the bottom of the laptop slotted for a specific vintage of docking station. It was great until you had to switch to a new laptop, where every model practically required a new compatible dock. 

Most of my docking stations were always supplied through my job, I didn't own them, so I never gave them much credit but lately I've been feeling the industry has lost its clever design due to standardized ports. Lenovo was a little more compatible between the laptop models. Most companies I worked with preferred Dell or Lenovo, but then one year I got a Microsoft Surface tablet and a little later on ended up in a  sweet remote job that supplied me a Surface laptop and I felt a compatibility alignment which changed my life forever. I had picked up a used surface dock from a Kijiji ad shortly before I started this job and it became my #1 choice. The Surface lineup is not the most powerful systems out there, but generally very performant and the touch screen makes navigation a breeze. 

The dock had a magnetic connector that worked on multiple models for several years and put Apples charging cable to shame (In My Humble Opinion). The Surfaces magnetic connection bus allowed me to dock/undock my devices and worked well most of the time.

 Lately we have more USB options than ever to avoid being locked into a vendor based solution. Since moving back away from Surface laptops from work,  I  picked up a mobile docking unit that connects over USB-C for travel and onsite work. Still I am quickly learning these new models aren't really proper docking stations. They heat up quick and the monitor connectivity can be flaky in some models. Sure good ones provide expansion ports for additional features and network adapters. It's just not the same as that satisfying magnetic "shluck" sound or the old school "clack click" of the manual connectors.  I'm probably the weird one here, but n the world of cyber security programs and documenting the many problems with computers, mundane stuff like that helps bring some necessary excitement to my day.  Sometimes it even helps to make the sound as you dock: Schluck! Unshluck! and so on ... 

Haven't tinkered in the garage much lately so next week I probably will take a break and build or destroy something metal or electronic. Maybe build both! Maybe destroy one electronic thing and build a metal thing. So many choices in life. 

Be good to each other, we only exist for a short time!