Fear the Crab

The new office space in the house is coming together. Conceptually, at least. See, the only physical manifestation of the office is in the form of a 4-drawer legal size locking file cabinet. But check it!

Bought a desk, the Nouveau by Ligna Furniture, which was available at Home World. It’s a bit different than what I am used to, as far as office desks go. It’s more like two tables hooked together with an L-connector. However, that’s precisely what Maile and I wanted for our workspace, so that we could have both of our computers in the same area and be able to use them at the same time. Conveniently, this concept was available in a reasonably-priced package, and the color fits well with the rest of the house. We did not get a hutch nor any attached drawers, giving us plenty of desk space and leg room to work comfortably.

Bought an iMac. 24″ widescreen, 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 500GB hard disk drive, 2GB memory. It’s a pretty big machine for me to just work on office files, but I like to compensate for my deficiencies with big toys. It’s a refurbished computer bought through the university’s Apple Store, so I paid significantly less than regular retail.

Bought a LaCie external hard drive for data storage and backup. It’s a RAID system that I will configure for mirroring any data I save, because I’m paranoid about losing precious files and pictures. One of the 500GB hard drives will mirror the files stored in the other, so if either of them breaks, I can easily swap in a new one and restore the exact same data (if both fail… well, I might be SOL).

Bought a Brother monochrome laser printer for every-day or bulk printing jobs. I figure most of what Maile and I print doesn’t need to be in color, and whenever we do have to print a photo or something colorful, we can fall back to her multifunction color inkjet. I normally don’t like multifunction printers, preferring instead to get a standalone scanner, but I’m not going to throw away a perfectly good printer just to satisfy my preference. When that printer breaks, though, I’ll hope to get a standalone color inkjet instead and a separate scanner.

Bought a 4-drawer legal size locking file cabinet from the Office Depot. I probably could have gotten a cheaper one with the same specifications elsewhere, but I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to hunt around for it. I still like getting paper statements from my banks and other institutions, but I’ll need a reasonably secure place to store them.

The only parts remaining are some comfortable chairs and floor mats. I may also buy more LaCie external hard drives (non RAID), complete with rack, for archives. I have a feeling if more pictures and videos get made or stored, I’ll need a lot more than 500GBs.

The entire office setup will be in the northwest corner of the living room. A closet barriers the north wall, with the window in the west. File cabinet is right in the corner, drawers opening inward. The desk abuts next to the cabinet, longer table against the window, bending left for the shorter table to complete the spatial boundaries.

My iMac will be on the long table facing the window, so that the sun doesn’t reflect against the glossy display. Maile’s computer will, of course, be on the short table, keeping her well within arm’s reach so that she can smack me upside the head if I start to digress. I figure the laser printer will be on the connector, provided it can support the 28+ lbs, otherwise I can put it on my side of the desk, or the floor underneath.

Pictures forthcoming once everything is in place!