The Home Office

What do you mean, excessive? Doesn't your desk look like this?

Overview

This page was created in an attempt to centralize the information about my home office so I don't have to keep linking to disparate locations, and to provide some explanation in an attempt to reduce repetition. That is to say, even in real life, I like to refactor repetitive operations into common methods.

• The blue lights are technically Case Mods from Xoxide. Scoll down to "Lighting" for more detail.
• Studies have shown that the more pixels you have, the more productive you are. Also, the cooler your desk generally looks. So I bought a buttload of pixels.
• Tempered Glass desks make excellent light conductors and reflectors.
• I hang cords from the walls and ceiling because I don't like tripping over them. Function over form.

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Why all the Monitors?

On many occasions, I have been asked why I have so many monitors. The main benefits of this setup are:

• The more pixels you have, the more productive you are. Several major studies have confirmed this.
• Adding more monitors is cheaper than limiting myself to two or three 30" screens. I have millions of pixels, and 30" screens are really expensive. My computers take up seven whole tables!
• I really don't like it when a window hides behind another window. I want to see them all at once, and I tend to have 30-40 windows open simultaneously.
• Organizing everything around a central pivot reduces Sneakernet activity, which optimizes my workflows. To coin a phrase, "Multitasking is five computers and a swivel chair."

The home office setup has 9 screens total: 6 on the Workstation (including one 1080p HDTV), 1 on the laptop, 1 projector, and a 64GB WiFi iPad. Don't remind me; Apple is evil, I know.

I spend the vast majority of my time on the workstation; basically all my free time and any chance I get to work from home. It features six screens which I have collected over the years. I once decided to replace them all with the same model, two at a time. I bought the first two (Dell 2208WFPt 22" widescreens), but when I went to order the next two, the model had been discontinued. And of course Dell decided to make neither 2209WFPs nor 2210WFPs. So now I have to wait until I'm ready to buy all six at once so they'll finally one day all line up properly. See how the bezels are all misaligned? I hate that.

Having experimented with many physical layouts, I have concluded that the "U" and "Bar" configurations are optimal for my work area.

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Lighting

In early May, I rewired the whole home office area, which was subsequently named LifeHacker's Featured Workspace. Since then, I moved the home office into the bedroom to compensate for a poorly-engineered living room. I'm using five Logisys Jumbo Blue Lazer LED lights (left) and six 12in Dual Blue Cold Cathode Kits (right), both from Xoxide.


The lights are technically a computer part, so I connected them to a Computer Power Supply and short-circuited pins 4 and 6 of the ATX power connector to fool the PSU into thinking the power button (which of course doesn't exist) is always pushed in. So it's "always on". Then on top of that, I hooked the power supply into a wall-mounted Logisys Remote Control Wall Outlet unit so I can toggle the lights from wherever I happen to be. As a result of using this system, a series of Molex power splitters and case expansion slot covers strewn about the back of the tables; but it doesn't matter because it's all out of view.

The lighting systems are the only things in the whole home office that do not plug in through a surge protector. Nothing plugs directly into the wall.

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19" Server Rack

Oh yeah, I have a 42U server rack in my living room. Don't you? Once upon a time, I was browsing for half-height server racks. I figured a full 42U rack would be overkill, and boy was I right. I bought this bad boy from a materials salvager for $150, about 10% of its original retail price. Little did I realize at the time what it would be like to move this thing into and out of third-floor apartments. Without an elevator. This was the smallest rack the guy had. I've since removed both doors for easier access, which subsequently had a slight impact on the weight (Feels like approx 50kg instead of 55kg (although the principal inconvenience isn't the weight - it's the awkwardness (It's taller than I am (And I'm pretty tall.)!))). Since then, I have endeavored to use rackmount hardware as much as feasible to alleviate the space taken up by all this stuff. Vertical is the way to go.

The workstation's second drive is B: because D: thru O: are mapped directly to the D: thru O: drives on the Server. The server does not run Active Directory (Domain Controller). I played around with it and decided I don't want any single point of failure that can take down my whole network. I hate Wifi, and went for a long time without. Since I bought the iPad and moved the laptop into the bedroom, I have hooked the WAP back up and miss having ethernet cables running across the floor.

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Computers

I buy most of my computer parts from Newegg because they're fast and cheap.

	Workstation	Server
CPU	Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (Kentsfield)	Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (Kentsfield)
RAM	8 GB (4x2GB) Patriot DDR2 SDRAM	8 GB (4x2GB) Patriot DDR2 SDRAM
HDD	1TB Hitachi Deskstar B: 150GB Raptor C:	150GB Velociraptor C: 12 "storage drives"; two 500GB, 10 1TB
Video	Three ATI Radeon HD 4670's	ATI Radeon X1650 Pro
Monitors	26" Vizio 1080p HDTV 19" Generic 22" Dell Widescreen 22" Dell Widescreen 20.1" HP f2105 Widescreen 20" Westinghouse POS semi-widescreen	None
OS	Windows 7 Pro (Free from the Win7 Beta)	Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition (Which Microsoft accidentally gave me for free)

What do I need all this stuff for? Well, I don't. I want this stuff; though it certainly helps me to be better at my job and hobbies. Even with all this, my electric bill is somehow a piddly $60-70 / mo.

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Article created 03 Apr 2010; updated 17 Jun 2010.

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