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By now, you're probably already starting to ask questions. Why so many monitors? Do I really use all that? Is that all one computer? Am I on some sort of crazy world domination bent? The answers to these questions, and more, lie within.
Read on, if you dare.
The General Idea
I work from home for a startup as a .NET Software Architect. That is to say, a fancy computer programmer who also plans, designs, and connects multiple softwares that work together. If you already know about all that, feel free to check out my
resumé. In my line of work, we tend to use a lot of reference materials, do a lot of research, and be working on several projects at a time. Additionally, I'm an amateur photography hobbyist
and spend most of my free time on the computer. As a result of all that, I often have between 30 and 40 windows open. This many windows become difficult to manage, especially with a smaller screen.
Most people can relate to the differences between a small laptop and a large HD screen. This is merely an extreme reaction to that phenomenon. While there are several ways to go about solving the issue of window management across many windows,
I elected to add additional pixels.
Lots and lots of them. The main system pictured here is connected to
eight 1080p screens in a 2x4 layout, measuring 7680x2160.
That's enough to watch eight Blu-Ray movies or two 2160p videos at the same time. I could watch 40 DVD-quality movies (480p) and have room to spare. To put all this in perspective, an Eyefinity 6 setup is
part of it. Yet somehow,
I still end up with windows hiding behind each other. I suppose this will have to suffice until I can get one of those cranial CNS implants from The Matrix.
As is the established paradigm, all pics are clicky. Not just link-to-an-identically-sized-image clicky, but clicky to an image which is subsequently and substantially
larger than the thumbnail. 300px images that link to the same 300px
images are annoying, silly, and pointless.
Not many people can say they grew up to be what they wanted to grow up to be; I'm one of the lucky few who can. My Dad let me play on a Radio Shack TRS-80 in 1986, programming in BASIC, and I've been hooked ever since. I've had a computer-centric
home workspace for most of my life, so when I got a chance to telecommute, it made sense to integrate it into a proper home office.
The office at my previous apartment included a full-size 42U server rack. It was large, heavy, and unweildy. Imagine a 150lb, 7' tall box made out of steel. So yeah, I wasn't about to move that thing down two flights of stairs again and back up
to the new place. As a result of this decision, I have a bunch of rackmount hardware that's not rack mounted anymore. Maybe later, if I can find a rack that's small enough not to send shivers up my spine. I'm currently in the market for a used
half-height server rack.
Clockwise Walkthrough
Home Office v26 is in a U shape circumcluding the perimeter of a square room with all exits on the same (rear) side. In other words, the perfect shape for a home office. The chair sits in one corner with the most often-used equipment, with
items of progressively less frequent use asymptotically approaching infinite distance from the central pivot, proportional to such frequency as is approximate to my estimation.
The leftmost desk sits right next to the storage closet, which contains my file cabinet. Therefore, it makes sense to put the inbox, outbox, and corresponding papers awaiting such filing, approximate to such location. Being the chosen place for
such papers, it makes sense to put office supplies related thereto in such proximity as to affect the efficient management and filing thereof. Also a desk fan, lava lamp, and decorative desk placard I got on Okinawa. Next to the placard is a
display case containing my military coin collection from my time in the Air Force. Below is an alarm clock for those times when I'm looking toward the closet and don't feel like turning around to look at a monitor to see the time.
These are the problems in my life :)
The next table over being located to a whiteboard, it made sense to put my whiteboard supplies there. This upper shelf is also where I put my cameras when not in use. Featured here is the
Kinect I use for SDK projects (because it's fun), and the iPad. The iPad is usually next to my bed, as its only real use is in being a book reader. A duality of feelings
ensues; did I waste my money, or am I just not using it as effectively as I could? I've never been a particularly
mobile user. Also visible here is the one-dimensional array of snacks I keep on hand at all times. Mostly, I just eat the
Reese's Pieces, the snack food of the gods. I keep my beverage here, and a washcloth next to it to wipe the condensation that always forms on the glass and coaster.
This corner is my primary work area. I sit facing the corner, and my work wraps around my periphery. To the left are my ashtrays, of which I have two due to a paranoid delusion that I'll start a fire if I throw the butts out directly from the
same ashtray I'm ashing into. Therefore, when one gets full, I move it to the rear and empty the other one, bringing it forward to be used in its stead. Clockwise from there are my front-left speaker, Logitech microphone, my
9 Guy (who is missing a head prong), center speaker, Bluetooth headset on its docking station, front right speaker, Memorex DVD burner, camera charger, and a roll of TP because my
nose is constantly runny.
Behind the circle of listed items exist one of the white lamps, a computer power supply for the blue lights (which are technically a computer part), and two power inverters for the right-most group of blue lights. In front of the circle exist
my Logitech G15 keyboard and Logitech G500 mouse, which sits on an Allsop mousepad with grippy support pad. Four
VESA
stands support the eight monitors.
Since I point toward the corner, I tend to put the more important items (Visual Studio, GoToMeeting, etc) on the left screens and the less important items (Outlook, Seesmic or MetroTwit, Trillian) on the right screens. Above (not pictured) is a
Logitech webcam. Most of my online meetings do not involve video, but it's nice to have. Below the desks, you can see a rat's nest of cables. I plan to let them roam wild for a little while so I can see how I use the space before I bundle them up
and worry about cable management.
There's no Test like Production.
Behind the rightmost monitor are two
Satechi 12 Port USB Hubs, a Bamboo Pen & Touch USB tablet, joystick, and game pad. The wires to the left are
the charging and USB cables for my cameras and iPad. On the front of the left USB hub you can see a small circuitboard sticking out of a USB port. When I moved, I neglected to remove the Bluetooth adapter from the back of the computer. It got
knocked somehow and the plastic casing broke off. Instead of breaking the Bluetooth adapter, it doubled its effective range - well over the 30' it's supposed to get. Nice bonus.
To the right of those items is a good old-fashioned laser printer, connected to the server. I am not a fan of these newfangled inkjets, bubblejets, and other jets. There are a Microsoft Sidewinder X6 keyboard, Logitech G5 mouse, and 26" Vizio
HDTV connected to my secondary machine, which doesn't see as much use as I expected it to when I built it. To the right of those are my laptop and a nearly identical laptop I was repairing for someone. Strange that Gateway would make two nearly
identical laptops from entirely different product lines.
Below the desks are the main computer (left), secondary computer (right upper), and server (right lower). The shelving unit to the right supports my network stack, spare printer paper and toner, my optical discs stored and sorted by spindle, and an
Asus Eee PC T91MT-PU17-BK tablet PC which is so utterly useless that the only function I can find for it is to monitor my cable connection for
network outages. That Windows 7 DVD was burned from an image I downloaded from
Microsoft Connect as part of their official Beta program, so don't go pointing fingers. Also here are a marker and eraser for
the whiteboards on
that side of the room, and two additional lamps to illuminate me for my
YouTube videos.
Above are two additional whiteboards and a corkboard. To the right is a coffee table I couldn't find a good place for, and a nice
hand-woven Mexican Sarape,
which my dad sells at low prices.
Every good geek has a ton of cables, cords, spare parts, and assorted techno-paraphernalia. Mine are sorted into bins as a result of the
Great Cable Organization Effort of 2008;
a vast improvement over my previous "Throw everything in boxes" strategy. Be sure to watch the Home Office Video Tour below if you are interested in a peek inside, or just want to see the room in action.
Home Office Media
Browse hundreds of my videos on
my YouTube channel.
Additional Resources
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As Featured On:
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Other cool Home Offices:
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The Specs
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KC1:
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KCWS:
- BFG680i Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Quad 4-core CPU
- 8GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 RAM
- 150GB Velociraptor HDD
- 3TB Hitachi Deskstar (32MB cache) HDD
- (9x) 1TB Hitachi Deskstar (32MB cache) HDD
- Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
KC2:
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FAQ
Why not switch Operating Systems?
See also my rants on
switching Operating Systems and
the Ongoing Simplification of Operating System and Other Software.
Why not run Linux?
I write Windows software, and the Linux distros I've tried don't like my homogeneous multi-adapter display setup of three ATI controllers and one nVidia controller. Also, it's nice to run programs I've
actually heard of.
See also my
Adventures in Ubuntu blog post in which I explain the problems that kept me away from the Dark Side.
I switched to Ubuntu for two days, actually; but only because it took two days to give up on getting it to work. Even with help from forums and what they laughingly refer to as the community. While it's nice to be able to edit your settings/configs
manually via text files and command lines, the user should never be forced to do so. Even if that user has seven monitors on four video adapters which are a mix of ATI and nVidia. Personally, I blame the hardware vendors; but merely
blaming them does not make the problem go away. Ubuntu worked pretty well in a virtual machine; albiet completely useless. Why waste my time working in a VM when I have a physical machine right there? Linux has a long way to go
when it comes to User Experience.
Further, I write .NET software for a living, so putting Linux on my main system would be counterintuitive. I'd have to run Windows in a Virtual Machine or try coding with Mono; both of which would make it harder to do my job.
Why not use a Mac?
In order to switch to MacOS, I would be legally obligated to purchase an entire Apple computer. If I wanted the best user experience (running 10.7 or whatever's out now), I'd need pretty good hardware. That means shelling out some decent money.
Apple's return policy is two weeks, and buying it used basically means all sales are final. I doubt I could get the full picture of the Mac experience in that two week time. Therefore I would inevitably end up wasting money if I decided I didn't
like it. If I could just buy a copy of OSX and stick it on my beastly rig, knowing all my hardware and drivers would work, I'd try it in a heartbeat. If only I could legally install it on my completely compatible hardware.
Furthermore, Mac gives me two options: I can run my Windows software in BootCamp or Parallels. In BootCamp, I'd basically have a full-fledged, fully supported, fully operational Windows PC, and I could reboot and go into OSX any time I want.
The problem is that I'd end up switching back to Windows any time I want to get something done, so I'd end up spending most of my time on Windows anyway. May as well cut to the chase and run a Windows PC in its native environment.
Why not use Virtual Desktops?
Because they're clumsy to use, unintuitive to keep track of which desktop my programs are on, and they don't solve the problem of windows hiding where I can't see them. Also, just one more program I have to run, sucking up my resources.
What projects do you do?
Most of what I do is for work, which is all covered under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreements), but I do some projects in my free time as well. Here are some of the ones I can talk about:
- KinectNUI: A series of Kinect SDK projects since Microsoft released the .NET SDK for Kinect.
- Project Stockmaster: A stock ticker tracker and auto-buyer for Empire Avenue.
- Code-Slinger Blog Network: A blog network based around Facebook authentication. No passwords needed, and it plugs into your Facebook profile to get your avatar and post to your wall.
- Project MV8: The current version of this website, which I wrote from scratch in C# and ASP.NET. I plan to make MV9 using MVC3; that looks sharp.
If all that wasn't enough to keep you entertained, here's a
list of all my websites and a compulsory
Email Me link.
Home Office page created 03 Apr 2010; updated 09 Jan 2012.