Big Dan's Corner

Those of you that frequent my blog know that I reorganize my desk setup about once a month, I’m almost obsessive about finding the best use of my desk space and the 3 computers that I have stuffed into my bedroom. The newest update isn’t all the different from a previous change. I’ve cleaned up a lot of the clutter on my main desk by moving my second monitor off the the main desk and on to the table beside it. Aside from that my Mac is back on my entertainment center again wired to my TV. I still haven’t found a great use for it but plan on using it for streaming in the future.

One thing that occurs to me after every time I switch around my desk is how much having a real computer desk (instead of 2 folding tables) would benefit me. I can never seem to find anything in my price range that has enough room for all my stuff. Ideally it would be a corner unit that has space for 2 monitors, a good amount of shelving, plus some place to throw my laptop when I’m not using it.  A few draws wouldn’t hurt much either to hide all my junk.

Here’s is my main work station:

This is where I work pretty much every day. It’s got my 22″ monitor which has been great for the 2 years I’ve had it. Just a couple weeks ago I started to have some dead pixels which are annoying the crap out of me because it makes me think my monitor is dirty. I like it spread out like this gives me some room to move around.  That monitor is driven by an off the shelf HP sporting an AMD dual core processor at 2. something Ghz and 3GB. I upgraded it to Windows 7 over the winter and couldn’t be happier with it. I dual boot with Ubuntu from time to time. Just this weekend I installed the RC of Lucid it’s awesome!

The secondary desk:

I bought a second monitor over the winter thinking it would make me use my Mac more as previously I was switching between the Mac and my main desktop on my main monitor. The second monitor turned out to be a waste because even with Synergy I rarely used the Mac when it’s screen was sitting beside my main screen. Plus two screens on one desk was kind of cramped. Now the monitor sits there to be connected to my laptop as a desktop extension here and there. For what ever reason the screen flickers when plugged into my laptop so it’s more of an exercise in annoyance. I rarely use my laptop at the desk so it is kind of a waste but I don’ t know what else to do with it.

This isn’t part of my desk but it’s had a computer on it so I’ll include it. The Mac mini is connected to my TV and I use it here and there for a quick IM conversation or email check. I’ll probably use it streaming once I reactivate my Netflix account. For what ever reason the Mac doesn’t detect my TV’s native resolution (so much for it just works eh?) so the picture isn’t that great but I really do like the Mini and could use it as my every day machine if it just had a little more umph.

There have it “Big Dan’s Dungeon”