Tools To Help Remote Work

I wanted to share the tools we use currently while working remotely and I also am interested in hearing what others find useful so please share your secrets in the comments. ☺️

I am currently in a bootcamp at Northcoders (Manchester, UK) and so priority is on two things:

• To be able to "attend" lectures.
• To be able to continue with pair coding.

We had a trial day to test this out on Friday and we used the following.

YouTube Live Stream

Here's a quick video to help you set up your own live stream.

VS Code Live Share

Sharing your workspace with VS Code Live Share is really easy and comes super-handy for pair coding.
My partner created a shared workspace from his computer while we were both able to edit the code.
The Live Share extension marks it clearly where the other person's (or people's) cursor is and you can also have more than two people in the session - which proved to be extremely useful when we needed help from our tutors as they could also join the session.

It also allows you to share your localhost which means I could also see the code running in my own browser which made it possible to view the console/elements etc. for debugging.
A bonus (while I appreciate it's not priority): even though I was looking at my partner's code, on my screen it still appeared with the VS Code theme I used and was used to seeing, regardless of what my partner was using.

Slack

For calling each other we just used Slack which is free if you only have 2 people on the call and allows up to 15 people if you pay for it.

VS Code Live Share Audio

I have also just found an audio extension to VS Code's Live Share which looks great and also free but I have personally not yet tried it.

What tools would you recommend to help remote work?

Cover Photo credit: Fabian Mardi