How Many Computers Do You Use During the Day?

Published on August 7, 2008 By Island Dog In Personal Computing

Traveling around to different forums and conversing with all types of people throughout the day, I sometimes get a chance to find out what people do, and most interestingly, see their computer setups. I have talked to people with some crazy setups, and people with just a simple setup of one PC, even if they have a job which involves heavy computer work.

This is my current setup:

Going from left to right I will start with my Mac Mini with a 19” widescreen running Leopard. I use this for some personal work, and I also use this as my “communications” machine. What I mean by that is, this is the computer where I run things like Twitter, IM, Skype, IRC, etc. It lets me do more work on my other two PC’s and keeping this open for everything else. I have an Apple wireless keyboard connected to it, which I really like as it’s very small so it saves quite a bit of space. I have no complaints here, but I really need to upgrade to a bigger monitor.

Next up I have my “main” PC which is a custom built rig with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Nvidia video card, and 2GB of RAM. It’s hooked up to a 22” widescreen and this has Vista Ultimate on it with XP as a VM via Parallels. While I do a bit of everything on this PC, during a “normal” work day I keep Impulse open on this machine, and browsers which keep an eye on WinCustomize, JoeUser, etc. And obviously this is the machine I run most games on as it is the most powerful of the three, although my laptop can handle most games I throw at it.

Last is my HP laptop with a 17’ screen. This machine runs Vista Home Premium and I use this machine for mostly everything else like writing articles, recording podcasts, making videos/screencasts, and all the other stuff I do throughout the week. I have the main PC and my laptop connected with Multiplicity, which allows me to control both PC’s with one mouse and keyboard. That is very handy especially when needing to transfer files to one PC from another, I really couldn’t work without it. I also have a couple external hard drives which I mostly use for backups, and some media storage.

So even though I have these three computers going all day (and sometimes all night), it still seems like it’s just not enough to get everything done. The latest addition to this setup is the 22’ monitor, which is so much more helpful during the day. It’s amazing how much more screen real estate you get, and I take advantage of every inch of it. I also have a 12” iBook sitting on the couch, but I think it’s time I put that on eBay as I really don’t use it anymore. So this is my current setup, and I don’t see it changing drastically anytime soon. How many computers do you use during the day, and what does your setup look like?

Comments (Page 2)

messiah1

on Aug 08, 2008

Oh my god. Nobody commented on that dinosaur up there...HA, I can't believe it still works. I use 3 thru the day. 1 in a secure area, 1 in an unsecure area, then my home pc which is a dell dimension 3100 duo core 3.2 GHz with 2GB Ram. 2 internal 80Gb hardrives, one with xp, one with vista. A WD 320 MyBook external for storage. 20 flatscreen monitor. I also have my dell laptop 2.8 GHz with 2GB ram running xp. I only use that when the wife has this one tied up and when I travel.

Zyxpsilon

on Aug 09, 2008

I just feel so outdated all of a sudden! (

But, it's official - i really hate the brand spanking new PC bought this last week... for a fair amount of about 1150CDN$/including Prov&Fed taxes.

Acer/Aspire AM5640-5408A, 3G/ram, IntelDualCore/E4600(2.4ghz), 500Gig/SataDrive(as of now, almost empty and waiting to get a whole bunch of new installs -- GC2 setups better be running smooth & be straight out good or else), MultiDVD_RW/BlueRay ready, VistaHP (completely borked up, it seems by the store technician - anyone would care telling MS that user control is a joke since i own the thing and i must have administrative rights to even access most activities being continually harassed by permissions granted or that access denied should ALSO be fixed!?!)... on a 22" Acer/X223WBD_DVI which is connected to the NVidia 8600GS/512mb dedicated. Hooked up the good old French Logitech keyboard. Plugged the provided optical Mouse. HP printer yet to be loaded too. Running this current web page off a temp SeaMonkey (Don't ask, i just lack options with default IE7 even if brand new) with the Speadstream 100MB wired to the usual Ethernet_T+ on the carpet floor to my right --- all of this waiting to go onto the desk behind me to replace the previous gear.

The only advantages i can see so far is the 4back_4front USB slots and the usual 14in1 card readers (will i ever need any, or just one once in awhile?).

Big drawback though; the darn digital way of displaying graphics puts terrible versions of ALL my files (as they compare to the previous VGA 17" attached to the other PC - P4/1.5/512Ram). It's quite clear to me that a lot of card adjustements via precise config steps to mostly gamma/contrast/etc will need to be done to reproduce the exact UI enviro i'm comfortable with. Presuming it IS somehow standard quality.

PNG 24b looks like JPG compressed at 25% on screen - damn it. Aero is slick transparent popups! SOOOOO what. I want my true colors like they should be.

Arrrgh.

And XPro, well at least it is STILL very stable and effective on the other machine.
One would expect **IMPROVING** the entire computer experience with a much newer HAD combo. Not so, i say. Oh, but it's quite fast(er). Besides, i paid it.

Bof - that nice bluey flashy led panel on the Acer_Tower is fun to watch.

Phalnax811

on Aug 09, 2008

Dork much? 1 PC

messiah1

on Aug 09, 2008

Dork much

Less than you. Dork.

ZubaZ

on Aug 09, 2008

Oh my god. Nobody commented on that dinosaur up there...HA, I can't believe it still works.

Here's mine working:

I use a Dell Latitude D600 and a Latitude D620 for most work,
I use a custom rig for day to day everything.
If I'm near the kitchen I use the wife's POS Dell desktop and if I'm trying to draw I use the Viewsonic TabletPC.

Einlanzerous

on Aug 09, 2008

I'll post pictures shortly (need to clean up the desk a little

), but I run two systems at present. (looking at upgrading at least the desktop, getting close to 6 monthes old)
________________________________________________________________________

Desktop || [Custom Build]
Intel Xeon 3Ghz Dual Core (E3110)
nVidia 9800 GTX (512MB GDDR3) (Looking at a SLi setup)
4GB DDR2 (PC2 6400) (Looking to either bump it up to a higher speed, or 8GB)
150GB SATA Western Digital Raptor Drive (10,000RPM) (Adding a Velociraptor shortly)
Vista Ultimate (64-Bit)
22" Asus Monitor (1680x1050) (Looking at two, I used the monitor for about two months (during construction of the desktop) on the laptop, made me love dual screens.)

Laptop || [Sager Notebook]
Intel Pentium M 1.73Ghz (740 I believe)
Ati Radeon X700 (256MB DDR)
2GB DDR (PC2-5300)
120GB EIDE Western Digital Drive (5400RPM) (Looking at making this a 250GB 7200RPM drive)
Vista Ultimate (32-Bit)
15.4" LCD Matte Screen (1680x1050)
________________________________________________________________________

I'm looking into a couple different things right now. I'd like to get a powerful 12" or 13" Laptop for portability shortly after christmas. I have some spare parts laying around, so I'd like to setup a Windows Home Server (or Windows Server 2008) for a few various purposes.

Zyxpsilon

on Aug 09, 2008

Here's mine working:

Don't have a video to show for it... but, i could almost beat that oldy Apple anytime; read on.

TI99/4A, peripheral box with plenty of expansion(s) in it (Double floppies_the 5 biggy of long time gone) HDDC for external 24mb drive on its own stand-alone PUS, full blast 256 colors, 80 columns along with a Yamaha V9970 cpu on a bowser board, ramdisk 256k, all in all 6.5mgz clocking. Native 16k ram, btw.

All nicely boxed in some basement including a number of snapin TI modules (Got the GramCracker device too for this). Books, guides, about 250 diskettes -- filled up to the rim with stuff like XBasic progs and personal files!
Total Cost? More than 2500$, baby.
Those were the early to mid 80's, mind you.

Anyone can provide me a solution for the DVI-LCD_Monitor/NVidia 8600GS "flaws" of bad graphics?

Still searching for THE info, in fact.

ZubaZ

on Aug 09, 2008

All nicely boxed in some basement including a number of snapin TI modules

The thread is about PCs you use, not PCs you have boxed up.

Zyxpsilon

on Aug 09, 2008

I still could just pull it all out of its corner and see if the CMOS battery has some juice left over. Oh, right... these didn't have to use a setup & complex configuration graciously sold by MS back then. And, the graphics showed up exactly as expected.

That "extensively used PC" was actually the resource i took to create Psyclon (In fact, if anyone wants it? In 1994, i did make a dos version in Visual Basic) & HoneyBees! games back then!

Philly0381

on Aug 09, 2008

Just one, but I'm oh so good with it.

Plus, I only have set of hands. It hard enough getting that set hitting eht thgir syek.

starkers

on Aug 11, 2008

Me, I use two...

Captain Blackbeard

AMD Athlon 64x2 6400 Black Edition @ 3.4ghz.
Gigabyte S-Series GA-MA770-DS3 motherboard.
4gb Kingston DDR2 800 SDRAM.
nVidia 8800GT GPU @ 512mb.
Dual array ViewSonic VA2226w/ViewSonic Va912wb monitors.
SoundBlaster X-FI Fatality Pro.
Logitech x-530 x5.1 speakers.
HDD... x2 250gb Western Digital/x1 Samusung 200gb/x1 160gb Maxtor.
Vista Ultimate 32bit/XP Pro 32bit dual boot.

Master Bates

AMD Athlon 64x2 4600 @ 2.6ghz.
Asus M2N MX SE motherboard.
2gb Kingston DDR800 SDRAM.
nVidia 7800GS @ 256mb.
Benq FP92W monitor
Soundblaster Audigy sound
Creative Inspire Digital 5600 x5.1 sound.
HDD: x1 250gb Western Digital/x1 160gb Western Digital.
XP Home.

In the process of building another from upgrade leftovers...

Seaman Staines

Pentium P4 @ 2.8ghz.
2gb DDR 400 SDRAM.
Asrock P4i65G motherboard.
ATI 9950 GPU @ 256mb.
Benq 17" CRT monitor.
Creative SoundBlaster soundcard.
Creative stereo speakers w/sub-woofer.
HDD: 250gb Western Digital.
OS?? Can't get XP in Oz anymore so I might install
Vista Home Premium on Seaman Staines and swap out
my copy of XP Home onto this rig when it's done.

We don't have a car so this 3rd machine will go out in
the (opens both ends) garage we've set up as a second
lounge/sitting room for the Summer months.

KarmaGirl

on Aug 11, 2008

Too many keyboards and mice, gets confusing sometimes, typing on the wrong keyboard. doh!

You need Multiplicity!!!! https://www.stardock.com/products/multiplicity/

I have three computers and 4 monitors...well, one monitor is a laptop monitor and it has a secondary monitor (it's a Latitude with a 19" attached running Vista). I also have a Dell test box with a 17" monitor (also running Vista) and an old XP machine that I test on and use for irc.

All are controlled with Multiplicity. I'd die without Multiplicity

Voqar

on Aug 11, 2008

At home my PC (E6750 C2D, 3g DDR2, ATI4850, WinXp Pro, 24" Samsung) is pretty much just for gaming. I have VS.Net installed for fun but mostly leave coding at
work. I remote my work machine when I do need to work from home.

I wouldn't mind having a 2nd PC setup for surfing while gaming but most games are alt+tab friendly so it's really no big. Moreso I prefer a lean and clean workspace as much as I like a lean and clean PC build.

At work I have 1 PC with a single 22" (a capable machine but underpowered compared to my home PC). A lot of our devs use 2 monitors but I'm an alt+tabbing machine and never felt the need (or seen the need, few of them really use it for anything useful). I have a second PC that I run a few utility apps on or use to test code involved with network stuff.

If I counted all the servers I remote on a regular basis or the fact that I can control any PC in on our network...that'd be hundreds of PCs.

Sarissi

on Aug 12, 2008

I use 1 all the time. My other one is for old stuff and has Win98SE on it. My main system has about $1,700 US in parts.

ama02

on Aug 12, 2008

You need Multiplicity!!!! https://www.stardock.com/products/multiplicity/
I have three computers and 4 monitors...well, one monitor is a laptop monitor and it has a secondary monitor (it's a Latitude with a 19" attached running Vista). I also have a Dell test box with a 17" monitor (also running Vista) and an old XP machine that I test on and use for irc.
All are controlled with Multiplicity. I'd die without Multiplicity

Does it work in Linux? It would be great, but unfortunately we're talking the government

and getting them to buy and install programs that promote organization and productivity is like pulling teeth.

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