New decade; new office

[gerisullivan]

Same location here in the Zeppelin Hangar, just rotated 90 degrees clockwise.

I've been meaning to reset my office for all of 2009. As the year draws to a close, I'm finally doing it.

On Sunday, I was exceptionally brave. I unplugged absolutely everything in my office. Cable modem, router, UPS back-up power supply, three surge protectors, a cacophony of electrical cords, Firewire cables, Ethernet cables, USB cables, phone lines, and various other computer cables (external monitor, speakers, and what all).

Then I :

-- moved everything off my desk and credenza, moved credenza to kitchen to get it out of the way, moved various other small tables/drawers out of office work area

-- moved Mac-on-a-stick up to guest bedroom; powered it up and confirmed it's working

-- cleaned 5.5 years of dust build-up in inaccessible corners and bits. Swept, vacuumed, vacuumed some more, rolled up area rug, cleaned the floor using up three Swiffer pads, re-set carpet. Continued cleaning as I went along.

-- moved various pieces of office furniture back into office work area, rotating the desk and credenza 90 degrees clockwise

-- situated the UPS into what's probably a temporary location (but relatively easy to plug stuff into)

-- plugged phone line into back of UPS (and from there, into the wall)

-- plugged phone into separate surge protector

-- reconnected the cable modem to the coax

-- plugged the power supply directly into the UPS

-- plugged the wireless router directly into the UPS

-- plugged my laptop into separate surge protector; set laptop up in new "home" spot on credenza

-- plugged the mouse directly into the laptop since I don't yet have the USB hub reconnected

-- woke up laptop

-- turned on wireless

-- went online

-- went upstairs, turned Mac-on-a-stick wireless on; went online (only two bars of signal, but working)

Monday afternoon, I discovered that I like the new furniture set-up as much as I did at dawn, as I was finishing up the first day's work on the project. After sending a couple of work files off to the printer in Minnesota, I:

-- went digging through my extra cables looking for a longer length of coax to better position the cable modem
(only found shorter ones and while I do have some feed-thru connectors, I came up with another solution for now.)

-- assembled small brick'n'board shelf that doesn't block baseboard radiator *and helps hide cords* while also providing temporarily clean and always flat surface for putting small components -- cable modem, wireless router, USB hub for inkjet printers

-- connected all three printers labeling each electrical cord and connection wire so I can tell what cord/cable goes to what device!

-- cleaned more. Nothing gets back on the desk or into the work area without being cleaned.

-- confirmed that all three printers work from laptop.

Next step: set-up new desktop computer. (The one that saved my professional tuckus while my laptop went off to Texas for repairs while I was traveling. See what it thinks of the printers. After that, start installing external hard drives. (Firewire 800 cables arrive Tuesday, so there's a limit to how much I can do on that tonight.)

So far, so good.

(Who knew staplers and tape dispensers could get so dirty?)