New workstation design!

I have gradually refined my workstation design, and its changed quite a lot since the last time I posted.  So I thought I would provide an update.  This first image shows an overview of the whole environment, there are some key points to look out for:

• First I two PC’s shown at the bottom, the one on the left is my desktop, running Windows 2003 Server, with 2GB of memory and VM Ware Workstation and all of my other applications.  This PC drives the three monitors via two ATI graphics boards.

Behind the PC’s in a curtain that my wife made for me that hides one hell of tangle of cables!

On top of the centre monitor is a USB web cam.  On the CRT monitor is my headphone jack and volume control and my Secure ID token (dual factor authentication) for my company VPN connection.

The two monitors centre and left are 19” TFT’s that run at 1280*1024.  The one on the right is a 19” Flat CRT.   I tend to use the one of the left for email, reference materials, instant message discussions etc.  The one in the middle for writing, presentations and reading, and the one on the left for Trillian Pro (docked far right) and web searches, and web reference material I am gathering up as I work as a set of tabs in Maxthon.

Lets look at things in a bit more detail now:

Working from the left again,  right next to my keyboard is my HP TC1000 Tablet in slate mode ready for jotting down notes etc.  I syncs wirelessly in the background with my email and files and I can use it wireless anywhere in the house and garden,  further afield it has a GPRS connection.  When I don’t need it it slides under the shelf out of the way.

Then there is a wireless mouse,  that slides under the shelf as well.  You can see just above the mouses cubby hole is a small pad of paper, sometimes I still prefer to make notes on paper.

The on the right is one of two DECT (wireless) phones.  These phones pick up my landline calls and my mobile calls when my Treo in its cradle, because the reception is better on the wireless phones than on the Treo and they are easier to hold.  We also have phones through the house, so i don’t have to carry my Treo everywhere I go in the house just in case I get a call.

On the top of the shelf is my speaker phone.  Its on a long cord so I can drag it onto the main desk and then I can sit back in my comfy chair with my feet up making notes on my tablet when I am on conference calls.

Whenever I go out I suspend my Tablet and drop it in my backpack and grab my Treo and I am off.  My backpack has everything I need when I am out walking and has a swim kit just in case I am tempted to pop into the pool.  It’s really small and light, but is ultra comfy which is important to me as it minimises the load on shoulders which are often in pain.

On the other side of my keyboard you can see my Treo in its cradle.  As soon as it slots in the cradle it forwards calls to the house phone number,  and when I take it out of the house, it switches off call divert (unless I ask it not to).  Then in the tray under my desk shelf is my TO READ pile,  I still get a few magazines.  Another pad of paper sits between the paper tray and the shelf and above that with the green glowing light is the microphone for skype calls.

Finally their is another PC (2GB again), which is running GSX server and my lab environment. which is currently running, Windows SharePoint Services,  Red Hat Enterprise linux 3, Windows XP VPN connected to my company network, Windows NT 4 to remember what things used to be like and Red hat Linux 8.  VMWare is just so cool!

Way over to the right tucked away in the corner is my printer, copier, scanner.  Its a HP D125xi with a sheet feeder and two paper trays,  one with good quality and one with cheap paper.  My wife makes more use of it than I do as a printer,  but I scan almost everything into PaperPort Pro which converts everything to PDF files.

Anyway thats a pretty good high level introduction.  Follow the links above for more details.