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Epic Desk Clean-up and Re-cabling
Jul. 18th, 2013 10:16 pmI'm something of a huge nerd. My desk at home, such as it is - purchased flat-pack from Officeworks some years ago - is an awful mess. The cabling looks like the worst nightmare of a sys admin.
OK, so, it doesn't help that on it there are two PCs, a Mac Mini, a small server, two laptops, two monitors and a naked caseless PC. Oh, and two printers, an ADSL modem, a wireless router and ethernet switch. And two scanners. And a 4-port and 2-port KVM switch. There's even a record player hidden on a lower shelf.
Yes, I do need all this stuff I tell you! The server has five hard drives in it for a total of 7.25 terabytes of storage for all my stuff. Then there's my main PC, an older PC running Windows XP so I can play games and run old hardware. Then there's my fun little laptop which I take everywhere, an old Mac laptop my mother gave me which I use to back up my iPhone. And the Mac Mini, which has been re-purposed as a windows 7 machine which runs 24/7 downloading stuff. And the PC in bits used to be my old work PC. Currently it thinks it's a Linux box, while I try to get some data off an old RAID from a NAS.... One printer is a duplex (double sided) laser, the other a rarely used colour printer... Look, I feel like I can justify all this shit, I swear.
There's a joke going around that the number of bikes you need to own is N + 1, where N = the current number of bikes you own. This can also be expressed as R - 1 where R = the number of bikes at which your partner leaves you. I may be approaching that point for computers rather than bikes... (Note: there are also seven bikes in the back garden).
This is the before shot:
(Forgot to mention the two keyboard and two mice, and shitty PC speakers!).
I picked up a couple of nice desktop speakers on eBay for cheap, which inspired me to rearrange the thing. (Also forgot to mention: web cam, USB mic and small amplifier! Oh and about 20 CDs. And at least one external hard drive. And a USB number pad...)
Here we see the first layer has been removed:
And some evidence of the cabling nightmare:
That shot includes ethernet cables, power supplies, a web cam, various Mac cables, and... well, prizes for identifying the rest of them.
You can see the whole process here on Flickr. I went to the trouble of tagging things and bought a set of shorter ethernet cables and some cable ties.
Done:
Left to right: ADSL stuff, PC, speaker, server with Mac Mini on top, 22 inch monitor, Macbook, 19 inch monitor, speaker and desk lamp, naked PC. Also visible in the desk is another PC, and above it two scanners. Note also inbox with all the paper in it. You can also see the remains of my cousin's PC on the wall, and framed street art.
This is something of an improvement - I have more desks space - although in practise the new setup has as complex cabling, it's just better hidden.
OK, so, it doesn't help that on it there are two PCs, a Mac Mini, a small server, two laptops, two monitors and a naked caseless PC. Oh, and two printers, an ADSL modem, a wireless router and ethernet switch. And two scanners. And a 4-port and 2-port KVM switch. There's even a record player hidden on a lower shelf.
Yes, I do need all this stuff I tell you! The server has five hard drives in it for a total of 7.25 terabytes of storage for all my stuff. Then there's my main PC, an older PC running Windows XP so I can play games and run old hardware. Then there's my fun little laptop which I take everywhere, an old Mac laptop my mother gave me which I use to back up my iPhone. And the Mac Mini, which has been re-purposed as a windows 7 machine which runs 24/7 downloading stuff. And the PC in bits used to be my old work PC. Currently it thinks it's a Linux box, while I try to get some data off an old RAID from a NAS.... One printer is a duplex (double sided) laser, the other a rarely used colour printer... Look, I feel like I can justify all this shit, I swear.
There's a joke going around that the number of bikes you need to own is N + 1, where N = the current number of bikes you own. This can also be expressed as R - 1 where R = the number of bikes at which your partner leaves you. I may be approaching that point for computers rather than bikes... (Note: there are also seven bikes in the back garden).
This is the before shot:
(Forgot to mention the two keyboard and two mice, and shitty PC speakers!).
I picked up a couple of nice desktop speakers on eBay for cheap, which inspired me to rearrange the thing. (Also forgot to mention: web cam, USB mic and small amplifier! Oh and about 20 CDs. And at least one external hard drive. And a USB number pad...)
Here we see the first layer has been removed:
And some evidence of the cabling nightmare:
That shot includes ethernet cables, power supplies, a web cam, various Mac cables, and... well, prizes for identifying the rest of them.
You can see the whole process here on Flickr. I went to the trouble of tagging things and bought a set of shorter ethernet cables and some cable ties.
Done:
Left to right: ADSL stuff, PC, speaker, server with Mac Mini on top, 22 inch monitor, Macbook, 19 inch monitor, speaker and desk lamp, naked PC. Also visible in the desk is another PC, and above it two scanners. Note also inbox with all the paper in it. You can also see the remains of my cousin's PC on the wall, and framed street art.
This is something of an improvement - I have more desks space - although in practise the new setup has as complex cabling, it's just better hidden.
