Re: Home office design -- PCTECH

Power is a good point.  If your power isn't known to be 100% stable, get
one or more decent sized UPS units to provide some battery runtime.
They aren't that expensive anymore.

If your power is 100% stable, do it anyway (do you really trust the
utility company?).  Or, if you go the cheap route, at least use some
nice surge suppressors (not power strips).

I have an APC BackUPS 1100W that supports my main PC, cordless phone
base station, cable modem/VOIP box/wireless router/switch.  It was
something like $120 at Sam's Club a couple of years back.  It's
oversized but with UPS units that just translates into longer runtimes.
My monitor & printer are on a good surge suppressor.  

For the wiring, go ahead and go CAT5E or CAT6 and do your home LAN over
gigabit.  It won't make any real difference for Internet access but will
do wonders for intra-PC file copying.  Wireless is OK but it shouldn't
be counted on as being reliable or secure unless you put a lot of effort
into it.

Are the PCs home-built or store-bought?  For quiet and cool home PCs,
build ones that use notebook hard drives
(http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=11/popup6%5B%5D=2
:109/popup2%5B%5D=1:394).  They aren't quite as fast but are basically
silent and definitely draw a fair bit less power.  Just be sure to get a
7200 RPM unit.  

Consider NAS if you have largish storage requirements or want a backup
solution.  It could be as basic as a shared drive on one of the PCs and
you can easily use a USB external drive.  Or get an Ethernet-attached
external drive from Buffalo or one of the other NAS providers.  Or look
in to the *nix-based NAS solutions like http://www.freenas.org/.

I went with a 'server' in the basement that uses a couple of external
USB drives.  It runs Windows XP and I simply share the drives.  Being in
the basement I don't care about heat or noise.  For my wife's PC and for
mine, I run a batch file to copy the My Documents folder to the server.
It basically does a CD to the appropriate directories followed by XCOPY
*.* X: /h/i/c/k/e/r/y/d - All the parms cause it to traverse the current
directory tree and only copy changed files to the target location (X:).

John A. Jones, CISSP
Americas Information Security Officer
Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
V: +1-630-455-2787 F: +1-312-601-1782
john.jones@xxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Bob Crothers
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 7:43 AM
To: 'PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users'
Subject: Re: [PCTECH] Home office design

POWER!

Lots of power outlets on several circuits. Probably double what you
think you need.  At this stage, outlets and circuits are very
inexpensive.  I wouldn't even think of putting normal outlets in...use
four plex's. And then probably one of those every 4 feet or so.

I'd probably also have a power outlet on it's own circuit right under
the window depending on what part of the country you live in.  Why?
Because with all of that equipment, you'll be generating a lot of
heat...and upstairs is always hotter than down anyway.  So there is a
decent chance you'll end up putting in a supplemental air conditioner
in.

Sounds excessive, but when did you last have to many power outlets??

I'd also have at least 2 cable & phone jacks on opposite sides of the
room.
Just to give you flexibility. 

Basically, wire it as if it was an office....NOT a residence. 

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Behalf Of James Newman, CDP
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 4:15 PM
To: pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [PCTECH] Home office design

Technically, this doesn't have to do with AS/400, iSeries, i5, or

pc's.

My
wife and I are in the process of designing a house, where I'll have a 
home office.  The office space will be above a 3 car garage and house 
my AS/400 and at least 3 pc's.

I would appreciate good suggestions about home offices, good websites 
that will help with layout, or anything ideas you wish you'd done in

your SOHO.

Thanks.


Jim Newman
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