Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

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andy10917
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Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by andy10917 » March 14th, 2021, 7:42 pm

This is not about Lawns and Gardens, but I think that there are enough people on AroundTheYard that I'd like to poll the group about what they've done and what the membership thinks about what I think many will go through...

After many years of independent consulting, I've accepted a "regular job" as the Chief Architect of a consulting company. They're in Boston and I'm in NY, and almost all the work will be remote. So will most of the client work I do. Like almost everyone else, I adapted to the Pandemic World and cobbled together a home office to get through this period.

But now I see it will be pretty permanent and I want to do it where I'm comfortable, effective and properly-equipped for the long-haul - no more "good enough" until things go back to whatever "normal" is.

Beyond the basics of adequate network bandwidth (I have 400 mbits) and computing power (plenty), what other things have you found that make life easier and productive in the home office, long term? There are no kids wandering into the office to worry about (youngest is 29).

Ideas to share?

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by MorpheusPA » March 14th, 2021, 7:56 pm

Light. Dear heavens, light. For us older folks, you just can't get enough. I have direct and indirect LEDs to the tune of about 120 watts in a fairly small home office.

The best monitor possible if you're going to be living in that office. I now have a 28" high-quality monitor and probably should have stepped to a full 30". Dual monitors are more helpful than I ever imagined, but I don't have space for it here unless I Bluetooth the printer and move it somewhere else.

A Well-Organized Mess Drawer Set. Or if you noted that thread, what I'm redoing now as everything has gotten completely out of control repeatedly over the years. I'm less tech and more physical objects than most, so this is more important to me than many.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by andy10917 » March 14th, 2021, 8:44 pm

Light. Dear heavens, light. For us older folks, you just can't get enough. I have direct and indirect LEDs to the tune of about 120 watts in a fairly small home office.
I get it. I worked in television for the early part of my career, so I completely understand, including proper color temperature.
The best monitor possible if you're going to be living in that office. I now have a 28" high-quality monitor and probably should have stepped to a full 30". Dual monitors are more helpful than I ever imagined, but I don't have space for it here unless I Bluetooth the printer and move it somewhere else.
Going to a 2-computer, 5-monitor setup. Largest monitor is 43", 4K resolution - IT architects love screen real-estate. I'm good there.
A Well-Organized Mess Drawer Set. Or if you noted that thread, what I'm redoing now as everything has gotten completely out of control repeatedly over the years. I'm less tech and more physical objects than most, so this is more important to me than many.
I'm not sure there - I'm happier than a pig in Milorganite if I have 10 mechanical pencils and whiteboard markers. Architects can't speak if they aren't holding a whiteboard marker. Oh, and I need a 4' X 6' whiteboard - noted.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by bpgreen » March 14th, 2021, 10:01 pm

You may find that doing remote work changes the whiteboard situation. I guess it depends on how/why you use a whiteboard.

For me, a whiteboard had always been a tool for collaboration. For that, there are a variety of tools that work for that. At my current client, we use slack and/or zoom with video calls and screen sharing.

If you're the kind of person who uses a whiteboard to help you gather your thoughts, there's no substitute.

It wouldn't surprise me I'd there's a bluetooth or USB connected whiteboard that would give you the best of both worlds.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by andy10917 » March 14th, 2021, 10:04 pm

If you're the kind of person who uses a whiteboard to help you gather your thoughts, there's no substitute.
Amen - I'm a visual thinker


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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by MorpheusPA » March 14th, 2021, 11:23 pm

Good heavens, then rice paper and a calligraphy pen and squid ink to do it the old-fashioned way. There's no substitute for permanency and class. Forget the whiteboard, it's low-brow. I'll allow an inkstone and ink block if you want.

...what, you don't? I've actually been learning this lately. It's a challenge.

Less facetiously, The Comfy Chair. I have one I like, I'm sure you already do, too.

Sound cover. Yes, you have no children and disturbances, but they still happen a thousand times a day that I notice. Music's OK, although I find music a bit distracting (although playing Stradella and other Baroque composers are acceptable). White or brown noise has been recommended, but it drives me nuts. The voices in it keep telling me to kill people.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by BuckeyeChuck » March 16th, 2021, 10:37 pm

I second alot of what has been said. My office set up includes a ceiling light, bendable desk light, and a table lamp in one corner. I use whatever combination I need depending on time of day or night. I also have a large window. I have a column fan that is used some of the time. A comfortable tilting chair. An adequate desk. File cabinet. Shredder.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by edslawn » March 17th, 2021, 8:53 am

andy10917 wrote:
March 14th, 2021, 7:42 pm
After many years of independent consulting, I've accepted a "regular job" as the Chief Architect of a consulting company. They're in Boston and I'm in NY, and almost all the work will be remote. So will most of the client work I do. Like almost everyone else, I adapted to the Pandemic World and cobbled together a home office to get through this period.

Ideas to share?
For me, I use a 38" curved monitor and love the usefulness of the full screen over duals, and, like you, I need a whiteboard. The only additional point would be internet connections, video and phone. I use an eero mesh setup and I'm hard-wired to an access point. This provides almost 500mbs (up and down) on a gigabit WAN connection. For video conferencing, I use an additional Logitech video setup mounted to the top of a monitor so that the camera angles are good. Also, get a good headset with a microphone for audio quality (focus on comfort as much as tech). For phone, I use Google voice and I have access on the computer or devices (Ring Central was my previous and it worked great, but I'm living in a Google ecosystem so I switched). Finally, I have a hot spot ready to go on my phone when the internet goes down at a bad time.

Good luck with the transition to regular work!

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by andy10917 » March 17th, 2021, 9:54 pm

Thanks!! I moved to a 43" 4K monitor. What I do requires LOTS of screen "real estate", and that delivers. I'm moving into video conference equipment next, and appreciate the ideas there.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by DevilDawg81 » March 18th, 2021, 8:51 pm

I’m in the same boat Andy. One thing my company has realized is that almost everything can be done remotely, and I’m almost certain I’ll be working from home indefinitely. As I read through all the comments it seems like you’ve checked off all the boxes I’ve thought of...multiple monitors, white board, lighting. I have found with video conferencing that just having the equipment available to mute/unmute quickly helps tremendously. Me personally, I strive to have my appearance on camera as best to studio quality as I can get (background lighting, how light is on me) all matters. Some of the folks I work with have bought those ring led lights and they’re fine. I have enough natural light coming in that helps me. Good luck!

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by bpgreen » March 19th, 2021, 1:26 am

One additional thing to consider.

I'm old. If I remember correctly, you might be as old or older than I am. I'm going to be retiring soon and I suspect you will be doing so as well.

There are things I'd buy that will help me work from home for the next year and there are things I'd buy that would help me work from home for the next five years.

I'm not going to buy anything in the latter category.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » March 30th, 2021, 10:14 pm

You have the big stuff under control. If you weren't considering multiple monitors, I was going to suggest getting at least two, 27-inch monitors. You're going beyond. I make maps at home and need one monitor for the map, one for the database, and it would be nice to have a third for the Internet. As I am cramped for space and recently retired, I have one 24-inch and am making do. Before I retired I had two 27s at the office and loved it. Now I'm saving to get a matched set of 27s or 32s. If I had to do online meetings, I would need a third monitor.

Consider getting a gaming mouse. I've burned one of these bad boys up and am on my second one. I like the Logitech G602. It is wireless with six programmable buttons on the left side, two more on the left front edge, left, right, and middle roller/button, and uses two AA batteries. Batteries last a good long time. I believe the buttons can be programmed to run macros on certain software.

I also have a "solar powered" wireless keyboard, the Logitech K750. It does not have my favorite look and feel, but it is full size and I have adapted to it. Two solar panels keep it charged for years using only office light.

I don't know what software you use, but the software I use for mapping is fully parallelized. If I have a 12 core AMD CPU with a 3,000 CUDA core NVIDIA GPU, then I have 3,024 cores available for parallel processing. So consider getting more GPU than you might already have if you might need it.

I have 7TB of storage, because I never throw anything away. I have a 4TB, two 1TBs, and two 500GB drives. That previously referred to mapping software needs HD room for cache, so I have to keep the main drive fairly free of clutter. One class of projects I work on ranges from 10 to 60 GB, so projects get moved to a side drive quickly. Hard drives are cheap compared to your time.

You can get a plush desk chair, but the most comfortable chair I've tried is the old aluminum Navy arm chair. It doesn't look comfortable, but it really is...at least for me. Indestructible except for the padding. I got one at a USAF surplus sale for $10 back in the 90s.

I have a USB fan for when I come in from mowing or something and need some place with an indestructible chair to sit in and cool off. Best $12 I've spent.

If you have the opportunity to design your office, I put quad electrical outlets every 4 feet about 1 foot higher than desk level. My desk goes up against the wall with the outlets easily accessible. Today I would use hybrid power/USB outlets.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by andy10917 » March 30th, 2021, 11:35 pm

Thanks, David. I'll have to check a few items I'll check from your notes. I designed the room as a "server room" 20 years ago - quad outlets in 13 different locations. My software isn't crazy (mostly Visio with multiple layers) but I need tons of "real estate" to keep the integration lines readable). and a database with 50 TB cranking. With time, much is moving to the Cloud at Amazon AWS.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » April 2nd, 2021, 2:07 am

HAhaha. I figured you'd be heavy on the hardware. You remind me of one of the speakers that came to an investment club in Austin. At dinner he told us how he maintained his connection to the commodities market. He bought a lot across the street from the phone company so he could get fiber optic cable. Oh, this was back in the early 00s, so all his stuff was the latest. At the time fiber optic only extended a mile from the phone company. In addition to fiber optic he had regular coax cable, satellite dish, and ... a 28K modem for when all else failed. He had two used Cray computers on a raised floor in the new house. He was writing software to trade automatically. When he got it running he found that the communication between Chicago and Dallas was too slow, so he bought a seat at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where they had fiber optic inside the building for members only. He was a very interesting guy with a hellofa back story.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » June 13th, 2021, 11:34 pm

As chance would have it, we bought a house in San Antonio and will be moving over the next few weeks. Now I have an opportunity to redo a home office. I will not be entertaining guests in the office, so it's just for the two of us. I like my current computer but the Ethernet connector blew out in a thunder storm a few years ago. I've been Bluetoothing from a router to the computer, 4 inches below. This box is a 2014 vintage, so it's about time to redo. I'm thinking a small AMD Threadripper or medium Ryzen with an updated NVIDIA GPU and two 32-inch monitors. I'm not exactly made of money, but I also don't spend much on other hobbies. But one hobby I enjoy is fiddling around with GIS software to make maps. My computer also has a dual TV tuner card making the computer a DVR, so I'll need more TB of storage. Currently I'm using half of a 4-ft long folding table as my desk. At the new house I have an 8-ft folding table. In fact I'm leaning my elbow on it right now, but it's full of crap and can't fit the computer on it. Plus I hate having my back to the door, so that will change next month.

So Andy, what 43-inch monitor did you get? I haven't shopped for hardware since 2014, so I'm out of practice.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by andy10917 » June 14th, 2021, 8:57 am

So Andy, what 43-inch monitor did you get? I haven't shopped for hardware since 2014, so I'm out of practice.
I got the TCL 43S435. The important element is the 4:4:2 Chroma sampling - without that text can be an eyestrain. I got mine at BestBuy.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » June 17th, 2021, 3:14 pm

Whoa! So you're using a TV as a monitor? That certainly changes pricing. And you're happy with the way it looks?? 4:4:2 Chroma sampling is the secret key??

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by MorpheusPA » June 17th, 2021, 6:36 pm

Yeah, I'd like the answer to this one as well. Half-blind people want to know.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by andy10917 » June 17th, 2021, 9:17 pm

4:4:2 Chroma sampling is the secret key??
Absoposilutely!!! That's the solution - the unit is not tiring on the eyes in the slightest. All three of my sons are Solution Architects or Developers, with up to 10 hours a day in front of the monitor/TV. Zero complaints.

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Re: Building the (Semi)permenant Home Office

Post by MorpheusPA » June 17th, 2021, 10:46 pm

I just checked; because of the way I'm running (on a monitor capable of full bandwidth from the system at high refresh), there's no subsample. Or, my "subsample" is 4:4:4--no compression, full image.

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