My work place is really a junkyard for the last two years due to many reasons and with slowly but surely with some memory lapses I decided to organize.
I am a good example of a Sri-Lankan who is generally least organized in daily chores and that includes my desktop (the table I work, not the computer).
Working with the computer made my life easier and from the time of starting to use I Linux have never had a corrupt file or lost file. That is nearly a decade now.
Often it is finding the misplaced file or photo that I take 2 to 3 days to find but never a corrupt file.
But as far as my gadgets are concerned they are all over the place. Many hard disks, Pendrives with Linux, CD/DVDs, RAM Cards, Graphic Cards removed with upgrading and CD/DVD ROMs, Keyboards of various dimensions are a few of the many that are all over the place. In fact I do not have a place to keep and work with my laptop and it is often on my bed I do any testing of new things with my laptop. It is not a workhorse unlike how many people use it as. It has no storage and when somebody comes and I need a quick internet access and post a email with attachments it comes out to the dinning table and internet cable is pulled out from somewhere and it goes back to its resting place for months.
I needed to find a work place for some useful work the laptop and to demonstrate Sinhala Linux capability, pendrive stunts and few amazing Linux games.
I may go for a tiny light weight netbook soon with high capacity but till then I to use it for coffee table demonstrations of Linux capabilities.
So this year I decided to throw away the unusable and organize and free my desktop table.
It took nearly three months with lot of books (Linux books I rarely read now except when I am stuck with a problem) around.
What really caught my imagination was how to get rid of so many monitors. I have got rid of all the cathode-ray monitors to cut down on the bulk and cost of electricity which is becoming beyond my purse.
Even the two LCD monitors (one big and one small) which I have come down to was also a headache cluttering space. I needed to get rid of the smaller one with eyesight bit failing. I was looking for a gadget that can be plugged in and with one monitor output like a switch of a router because one uses only one monitor at a time with our two eyes.
So I told a vendor who will somehow get what I want even from Singapore and credit goes to him and he got a 4 port switch that plugs into four computers (there is two port one too) with four purpose built (designed) cables for TV, Mouse and and the Keyboard.
It has a switch or button on top with red light signal to indicate which one is in use.
This is skin to the workplaces in Linux which you can have up to 20 but I usually have four but with two for regular work and two for spare work.
I work on one window on the workplace and say internet, k-torrents are in the inactive or background work mode and sometimes games in the 3rd to refresh when I am bored.
With this context one of my computer doing full time downloading is totally hidden and I only switch it to see whether the download is complete.
With this arrangement one can have as many activities as possible on with only one keyboard, one mouse and a LCD monitor and lot of space with a spare USB keyboard on upright mode and a USB mouse on plastic box for an emergency when Live CD I boot does not recognize the P2S gadgets.
I would been happy if this switch had some spare USB ports and if designers asked me before its manufacture I would have strongly recommended that facility (especially for the laptop) and when I shop around in two years I am pretty sure it will be in the market. when that happen my spare USB mouse and keyboards are also permanently plugged in even for an emergency.
So when you shop around look for these little little gadgets that make your workplace well arranged and multitasking capable like a Linux computer.
Before I wind up I must tell you about the FullMonty setup of PCLinux.
FullMonty arrange the workplaces into six (6) which is very good for a working arrangement.
I bet Microsoft is going to copy it soon.
They are as follows.
1. Internet
2. Office
3. Games
4. Multimedia
5. Graphics
6. System
This is one reason I use FullMonty which very well organized work place in Linux.
I of course have two more workplaces for unscheduled work.
No wonder I can beat a young guy who is ill organized to the post in any computer activity except perhaps games with eyesight and rapid reflexes failing.
Go and have a resolution to get your workplace organized this year.
There is a lady in USA who makes enormous amount of money by getting workplaces organized.
We Sri-Lankans are very poorly organized during New Year and right throughout the year and that is something I would do for a fee (never free) if government asks me, that favour.
Look at how poorly organized we were the day everybody was retuning to work except the politicians who languor (some of them abroad) in a den, lodge, nest (with birds), hole or a holt.
Everybody wanted to come for work but had to wait for hours in the hot sun.
Often it is finding the misplaced file or photo that I take 2 to 3 days to find but never a corrupt file.
But as far as my gadgets are concerned they are all over the place. Many hard disks, Pendrives with Linux, CD/DVDs, RAM Cards, Graphic Cards removed with upgrading and CD/DVD ROMs, Keyboards of various dimensions are a few of the many that are all over the place. In fact I do not have a place to keep and work with my laptop and it is often on my bed I do any testing of new things with my laptop. It is not a workhorse unlike how many people use it as. It has no storage and when somebody comes and I need a quick internet access and post a email with attachments it comes out to the dinning table and internet cable is pulled out from somewhere and it goes back to its resting place for months.
I needed to find a work place for some useful work the laptop and to demonstrate Sinhala Linux capability, pendrive stunts and few amazing Linux games.
I may go for a tiny light weight netbook soon with high capacity but till then I to use it for coffee table demonstrations of Linux capabilities.
So this year I decided to throw away the unusable and organize and free my desktop table.
It took nearly three months with lot of books (Linux books I rarely read now except when I am stuck with a problem) around.
What really caught my imagination was how to get rid of so many monitors. I have got rid of all the cathode-ray monitors to cut down on the bulk and cost of electricity which is becoming beyond my purse.
Even the two LCD monitors (one big and one small) which I have come down to was also a headache cluttering space. I needed to get rid of the smaller one with eyesight bit failing. I was looking for a gadget that can be plugged in and with one monitor output like a switch of a router because one uses only one monitor at a time with our two eyes.
So I told a vendor who will somehow get what I want even from Singapore and credit goes to him and he got a 4 port switch that plugs into four computers (there is two port one too) with four purpose built (designed) cables for TV, Mouse and and the Keyboard.
It has a switch or button on top with red light signal to indicate which one is in use.
This is skin to the workplaces in Linux which you can have up to 20 but I usually have four but with two for regular work and two for spare work.
I work on one window on the workplace and say internet, k-torrents are in the inactive or background work mode and sometimes games in the 3rd to refresh when I am bored.
With this context one of my computer doing full time downloading is totally hidden and I only switch it to see whether the download is complete.
With this arrangement one can have as many activities as possible on with only one keyboard, one mouse and a LCD monitor and lot of space with a spare USB keyboard on upright mode and a USB mouse on plastic box for an emergency when Live CD I boot does not recognize the P2S gadgets.
I would been happy if this switch had some spare USB ports and if designers asked me before its manufacture I would have strongly recommended that facility (especially for the laptop) and when I shop around in two years I am pretty sure it will be in the market. when that happen my spare USB mouse and keyboards are also permanently plugged in even for an emergency.
So when you shop around look for these little little gadgets that make your workplace well arranged and multitasking capable like a Linux computer.
Before I wind up I must tell you about the FullMonty setup of PCLinux.
FullMonty arrange the workplaces into six (6) which is very good for a working arrangement.
I bet Microsoft is going to copy it soon.
They are as follows.
1. Internet
2. Office
3. Games
4. Multimedia
5. Graphics
6. System
This is one reason I use FullMonty which very well organized work place in Linux.
I of course have two more workplaces for unscheduled work.
No wonder I can beat a young guy who is ill organized to the post in any computer activity except perhaps games with eyesight and rapid reflexes failing.
Go and have a resolution to get your workplace organized this year.
There is a lady in USA who makes enormous amount of money by getting workplaces organized.
We Sri-Lankans are very poorly organized during New Year and right throughout the year and that is something I would do for a fee (never free) if government asks me, that favour.
Look at how poorly organized we were the day everybody was retuning to work except the politicians who languor (some of them abroad) in a den, lodge, nest (with birds), hole or a holt.
Everybody wanted to come for work but had to wait for hours in the hot sun.
No wonder many of them did not want to come and delayed it by 2 to 3 days.
This is the way we go forward and progress.
This is the way we go forward and progress.
