If you take a look at the picture above and compare to the one in my previous article about my office, you will see that it has dramatically changed. I got new furniture, new wiring, new sound system, a couple photos on the wall and an iPad. Let me walk through it.
First, the new desk. It’s my workstation, and it’s much more spacious than the previous one. That music keyboard I had was donated to charity, as I don’t use it anymore (I am only playing my new piano now). That opened some room for a L-shaped desk, allowing me to add a second 23” monitor.
The equipment is pretty much the same I had before. One big Windows 7 64-bit box (Core2Quad Q6600, 8GB RAM, 1.5TB HDD, GTS250 512MB video card, SoundBlaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum sound card). This one also runs a Gentoo Linux 64-bit virtual machine, with dedicated 2GB RAM and 160GB HDD, which I use for my software experiments on the x86_64 platform. The Windows box is basically a big media/gaming center, centralizing all my media files and PC games, and it also has a Full-Seg HDTV receiver and a Blu-ray drive, and it’s connected to a Samsung P2370 monitor for a nice HD experience whenever needed. The system is connected to a Bose Companion V sound system for high-fidelity audio playing. The PC is used as my music studio too, with an attached BOSS BR-800CD digital recorder/mixer and plenty of inputs on the Creative front panel. And it’s the photo editing station, since it’s much faster than my MacBook.
The MacBook is the main work box, centralizing everything work-related (except company confidential data, which is confined in a company-owned machine). E-Mailing, calendars, corporate IM and anything else work-related runs (or is controlled from) here. It’s an old, late-2008 13” MacBook (the first aluminum unibody model), with 4GB of RAM and 160GB HDD, connected to a Samsung P2370 monitor for optimum workspace in a dual-head setup. This MacBook is also connected to the Bose sound system.
The third machine is an IBM ThinkPad T60 T400, which is kinda old already, but not much work is actually done in it. It’s on a rack drawer under the desk and it’s used remotely via RDC.
I never use wifi for these machines while working. They are all connected by cables and the office network is separated from the house network for enhanced security. Wi-fi is available for the mobile devices, though, using WPA2 security. For now, I’m using the old DI-524 router, but it will be replaced later by a 802.11n/Gigabit ethernet router. Backups are done in remote servers, with sensitive data always encrypted. The backup scheme will have a local storage later, as part of phase 2 of my office renovation. I’m using an Apple Time Machine (1TB) as the network router and backup solution for Macs. I have gigabit networking for the working machines (13” MacBook, ThinkPad and the Windows desktop) and two 802.11n wireless networks, one at 5GHz for laptops/iPads and one at 2.4GHz for iPhones. The local backup of my Windows PC is done in a eSATA 2TB external HDD. All machines have the most critical data backed up remotely on iDisk as well for redundancy.
Speaking of redundancy, the entire office has backup power through UPS units. I can keep a minimum working setup running for about 2 hours of power shortage.
Communication to the outside world is done through a 20Mbps cable connection. The iPhone 4 can also tether if necessary (i.e. if the ISP is down, or during a longer power shortage). I do not have a landline anymore – just cell phone and IP phone, even for faxing – all in the iPhone 4.
As you may have noticed, I do not use paper in my office. Well, almost. Notes are done in the iPad 64GB, which also has my personal stuff running (IM, Twitter, Facebook) and store my magazines, e-books and podcasts. I keep a paper notebook as well, in case I need to brainstorm and draw something. For bigger brainstorms, I can use the whiteboard on the wall behind me. I also have a printer, which I rarely use. It’s an old Epson CX3700, which also is a scanner and a copy machine. Completing the analog part of the office, there’s a bookshelf loaded with all kinds of books (engineering, computer science, physics, mathematics, statistics, photography, business administration, finance, fiction, biographies, etc), a small drawer for personal objects and a file for the documents I still have to keep in paper format.
I do not like clogging the workspace with decorations, so I just keep two photos on the wall featuring some places I like (the Tour Eiffel and the Jefferson Memorial).
And that’s it for now. Phase 2 will happen in the near future and will include a network infrastructure upgrade and new storage/backup solution. And if there’s money left, a new chair. 🙂