DREAM Home 'Office' Setup

What would you fill it with?

[Sports Workout]

(originally posted in FOO)

Thinking about re-doing my home 'office'...
1. Most powerful desktop I can find (any suggestions?). NOT a dell...probably an HP or something from <snip>.
240 GB HD.
AMD processor.
2MB ram.
CD/DVD burner (highest speed possible obviously).
30" apple cinema display
Hauppauge WinTV- personal video recorder (no need for a TV screen anymore...see apple cinema display
Wirless Mouse & Keyboard

2. Netgear wirless router
3. Color HP laser printer
4. Aeron Chair
5. Bose wave radio w/ surround speakers
6. Bose noise cancelling headphones (if the office isnt sound proof...see 5.
7. Canon Powershot - newest model
8. HP photo printer
9. unlimited post-it's and sharpie's so i never forget anything
10. 20 foot long indoor putting green

y tu, brute?

[abbeyvet]

I'd consider a bit more than 2MB of ram :)

[zulufox]

4 "L" shaped desks to make a square so you can work all around you.

Massive Whiteboards on all the walls (and one in the shower)

And (if you are making a content site) a laptop to let you write outside the office.

My dream office would be like a control room where I could do all my heavy stuff, then a nice laptop so I can write outside or in a park.

[Sports Workout]

Agreed...a portable device to take out 'on the road' is necessary.

the question is will it hold all the info of the 'monster' desktop?

also...how to transfer everything to the wireless device (and then back again to the desktop) without it being a hassle?

[Sports Workout]

Agreed...a portable device to take out 'on the road' is necessary.

the question is will it hold all the info of the 'monster' desktop?

also...how to transfer everything to the wireless device (and then back again to the desktop) without it being a hassle?

[benevolent001]

where is the bed :) and is refrigirator , kitchen nearby?

[Liane]

He he ...I have been working on my home office for about 5 years now:

3 month old Mac G5 dual Processor
1GB DDR SDRAM
20" Cinema Display
Tiger Operating System
Logitech MX Laser Mouse
(1) APC 1500 Smart UPS

Brother Intelifax 2800
Brother Printer

Panasonic KX-TG2226 2.4 GH Digital Phone
Nikon D-70 Camera with 5 assorted lenses
Ipod with Bose speaker dock
34" Toshiba TV
Panasonic (4 head) VCR/DVD

My "office" is also my living room 22' x 20'

5'x8' L-shaped desk (6 drawer)
(1) Jade green Aeron chair

Refrigerator 6' from desk
Kitchen also 6' from desk
(1) Custom built & designed - 7/8" solid Mahogany sofa/sleigh bed
(2) Custom built & designed - 7/8" solid Mahogany sleigh chairs
Coffee Table
(2) side tables
Knick knack/Shell Display stand
15' sliding glass doors opening out onto 25' x 10' balcony looking out over the Caribbean Sea with 67 orchids (most in bloom now) and assorted tropical plants
(1) 5 year old island mutt named Buddy
(1) really crappy, 2001 Hyundai Accent in the driveway that refuses to go up steep hills

Life is sweet! :)

(1) 15" powerbook G4 coming up! (For those times you have to be out of the office!)

[stef25]

i was going to slate you for driving a Hyundai Accent, but then noticed you look over the Carribean Sea ... very envious

If and when my desktop crashes fatally (3 year old dell going well), id buy a powerfull laptop and docking station + flatscreen and wireless keyboard and mouse

If youre in house, it functions like a PC. Obviously you can also take it out and work on the road.

Have a look at AlienWare PC's. pretty powerful, and they look ... different

[Liane]

Steph25, Mine beats a corner office on Wall Street any day of the week! :)

I hate cars and don't care one lick about them ... but it would be nice if the pig would go up hills!

[LeoXIV]

the Aeron chair and the orchids are the most enviable ones.

this time, when buying a new computer, i will get the quietest one on planet earth!

[Mardi_Gras]

The original post said 1 MB of RAM (see [webmasterworld.com...] )

In the continuation of the thread, it has now been edited to say 2 MB of RAM.

Who changed it? The original was posted two days ago - I don't believe the first poster could not have changed it. Or were there two different threads going the whole time?

There is a good reason to edit this post, but changing a "1" into a "2" is not the reason.

[oddsod]

I'd consider a bit more than 2MB of ram

Any good reason for that? I'm always confused by those who seem to suggest ridiculous amount of RAM for general purpose machines. Have you done any tests recently to see what the performance difference is between a PC with 2 GB and 4 GB of RAM? Do you know the issues with Windows mis-reporting RAM at the larger sizes? What about tweaking the system files/swap file to make sure the extra RAM is not actually slowing your machine down?

[lawman]

Read closer, oddsod. :)

[akmac]

Airforce one.

[KrazyKid]

I have a Dell Demension 3000, and it seems to work great. So why does everyone not like Dells? What's wrong with them?

[incrediBILL]

I've been working at home for a long time and after owning a few HP's I'd say SKIP THE HP!

My current one seems "OK" but my previous one went to hell after a couple of years and people I know that work at computer stores claim HP has a massive repair rate. Video card smoked, but first it fried some circuits on a 19" monitor, 6 months later the hard drive took a dump and I barely managed to get everything off it before total system failure. Of course my wife (thru her company) has had multiple Dell's, mostly laptops, and they have had serious problems with the whole lot of them. They switched to IBM ThinkPads which seem to have much better quality so far.

As far as the DREAM SOHO machine?

Wide screen laptop so you can work on the patio in the summer.

Also skip the HP photo printer as Epson are much better.

[oddsod]

Read closer, oddsod.

Aha. My apologies ;)

240 GB HD.
AMD processor

8 MB cache or 16? IDE or SATA, vanilla or 2 x 120 in RAID 0? What motherboard make and model? What AMD CPU? 64 bit? Which 64 bit AMD CPU? These things make a big difference to the PC's performance. If you're planning on a performance machine you really need to take the time to familiarise yourself with the nitty gritty or some salesman will take you for a ride.

[antman]

I sit in an Aeron Chair everyday at my 9-5 job. I think you can do better unless you just want a cool looking chair.

I'm not impressed with it in terms of comfort. And I definitely wouldn't be impressed if I had to pay for it.

ant

[Liane]

I'm not impressed with it in terms of comfort.

I have to disagree. I love my chair! Before I got it, I had frequent and often debilitating back pain. It may not be important for some of you "youngens" with strong backs ... but for an old fogey like me, it was a Godsend! ;)

In addition, I live in a hot and humid climate. You can't beat this chair for airflow. I have a window at my back and when the wind blows, I feel it right through the chair!

[LeoXIV]

so, ant, what chair you recommend? anybody any recommendations for a chair? what is a perfect chair really? all those philosophical questions :-)

PS: Liane do you grow orchids yourself?

[stef25]

wondering a bit off topic; i bought a Stokke chair (google it) and am not that impressed by it. i thought it would be impossible to have bad posture on them but that isnt the case. you have to keep reminding yourself to sit properly ...

[Liane]

PS: Liane do you grow orchids yourself?

Yes, with minimal success. I have managed to grow a few on my own, (about a dozen) but it is a very slow process and where I live, is not the ideal location. Its too wet too often and not really cool enough at night.

[incrediBILL]

what chair you recommend?

Whatever high-end chair Staples is peddling this week :)

My current Samsonite chair is real cushy that I got there, I like it.

I tend to recline in my chair a lot which ends up killing the chair prematurely as they really aren't designed to be stressed like that. However, Staples sells a little insurance plan and when your chair disintegrates they replace it with a new chair no questions asked.

Bought a nice chair 6 months ago but I was kicked back relaxing at the computer when suddenly the plastic molded solid arm part split in 2 places - love that chinese quality. Anyway, threw the chair in the back of the car and had a new chair within the hour at no charge that I'm working on destroying now.

Hey, they'll replace it even if the fabric or leather rips!

Guess when I'm sick of this one I'll turn the cat loose on it.

P.S. If you're a lover of mexican food, beer or other gastrointestinal disturbing foods I would suggest the leather vs. cloth so you don't end up sitting on a stinky foam whoopee cushion over time.

[zulufox]

If you're a lover of mexican food, beer or other gastrointestinal disturbing foods I would suggest the leather vs. cloth so you don't end up sitting on a stinky foam whoopee cushion over time.

Ah, the glamorous life of the webmaster...

[LeoXIV]

actually i like Staples, recently i brought a laser printer from them, so far so good.

I think my problem with chairs and sitting is that i dont lean back, i lean forward. I was hoping the new chair would kinda reinforce a good posture, perhaps an astronaut wheel?

[antman]

I actually have a chair in my home office that I bought at Staples for $99. It's a mesh style chair and it's much more comfortable than the Aeron that I sit on at work. I lean back to stretch my back a lot and it's held up well for 3 years so far. But if it was ever to break, for $99 I wouldn't mind replacing it.

My advice is to sit in a lot of chairs and see what you like best. Bring your laptop to the store. :)

If you're going for looks only, I will say that the Aeron is very nice looking.

ant

[cyberair]

Who says you need a chair? Half the time I am working in bed, and the other half I am at a random place with wifi working ftom my laptop. I love technology :)

[datacaliber]

I'm going to try covering my walls with Melamine, which is what most whiteboards are made of. It's really cheap when you buy it at Lowes/HomeDepot/etc. Like $15 for 8x4 melamine sheet versus $100 for cheapest 6x4 melamine white board at Office Depot. Hopefully it'll work out.

[Marcia]

Whatever the hardware, the setup *must* have easily accessible file space within easy reach. I'm struggling horribly with that now, with mountains of print-outs and notes I have to get up to put away, and they tend to pile up throughout the day.

[killroy]

hmm all this sounds close to what I ALREADY have ;) a Big couch facing my comps, I just stuck my main server into a big wheeled server case with mul;tiple hot swap bays for my 10000rpm hot swap RAID disks. There is multiple screens (my main is a very good 19" LCD) As well as a wified Laptop for "roaming" work. a total of 4 computers, each with enough ram to be a backup server. Main comp with about 1.5TB of storage for my audio/visual collection. a 5.1 sound system.

The last touch will be a projector to throw movies at the wall behind the screens ;)

Oh, and enough extension cabling so I can use my big lcd screen from the couch table too :)

SN