Comments on: Geek dilemma

By: Josh Miller

Josh Miller — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:39:24 +0000

The key is of course room, and how much clutter you mind. I keep my media PC an server hidden behind a dresser that my TV sits on. So they are out of sight out of mind. I doubt my wife would let me use either if they were out in the room.

By: Luke Maciak

Luke Maciak — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:27:06 +0000

Josh is right – you can’t really collect desktops the way you collect laptops. You can possibly only find space for N laptops in your room. The N+1′th laptop will end up sitting in a corner somewhere waiting for room to free up or will get tossed away. I know cause I have a perfectly good, never before used low end desktop sitting in an original box behind my desk because I have no space to put it.

I got it for free from work – it was a left-behind from a liquidation of some company. The thing was never used, but it was an older model (1.5 GHz single core with 256 MB of RAM I believe) so no one wanted it. I could not resist. But alas, I have absolutely no place to put it – even as a headless server.

If you have room for one though, go for it.

By: Josh Miller

Josh Miller — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:46:09 +0000

Speaking from experience, it’s easy to “fallout” of the desktop collecting “habit”. I’ve gotten several old desktops that I use for various things (webserver, media center, wife’s office PC, one in the attic). and I’m forcing myself to refuse anymore. Or if I get something better dropped into my lap, I’ll replace one, starting with the webserver since it’s the lowest end model (P2, 400mhz I think).

The point is, as you quickly run out of space for these things, you’ll quickly stop collecting them.

Laptops on the other hand, I’ve got 3 of those, with one in the pipes. I’d replace my Media PC and Webserver with one but none are powerful enough spec wise. Laptops are easy and compact to store.

Still, having a spare monitor is probably a good idea. Does this desktop+monitor have a flat panel or a CRT? CRTs are huge, I wish I could replace both of mine with flat panels.

Oh yeah, there’s two G3 Powermacs too.

Anyway, I’m rambling about nothing mostly.

BTW, Was that Fujitsu a Lifebook? I may have that same one except I screwed up the screen with this PCIMA “MPEG 2 Go card”. I think resetting the NVRAM would fix it but I can’t figure out how to. I really like the shell design of the Lifebook, it’s rpetty versatile for an older machine.

By: king.pest

king.pest — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:16:35 +0000

I’d go for a desktop + monitor.