What's Your Computer Setup?

UPS which supplies power to my desktop + 2 monitors + lamp + subwoofer.

My desktop has 2 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0 right in the upper front which I use for any auxiliary devices I have including phone / microphone. The back of the desktop has 4 of both which is more than enough for mouse + keyboard + webcam + USB powered fan. In case of emergency (which is never) my keyboard has 2 more USB ports on it for lower powered devices.

I couldn't even dream of using all my ports concurrently, but if I did, my case is fairly large and has a lot of organization built right into it

One nicely outfitted tower (Win7) with 750Gb internal with external 1Tb backup drive connected via 10Gig to a Buffalo Router (bgn, DD-WRT) with a networked printer, one mac-mini (OS10) connected wirelessly with bluetooth keybard and mouse, two laptops (Win 7+8), two Windows phones, and one iPad 2 (wireless only). Also have a 1Tb drive connected to the Buffalo for Windows Homegroup backups and easier file sharing for the home network.

Everything is UPS'd as needed.

Connected to the outside world via an IPV6 enabled Motorola.

We don't cloud.

If I told you how many things I have on and in my computers (2 PCs and 3 laptops) you would think I was bragging or just making it up.

Just show us a copy of your last month bill for electricity, and the square footage of your facility (optional: longitude and latitude)!

My main set up is a desktop with wide screen monitor, color ink jet printer and flat bed scanner, stereo speakers, DSL modem and wifi, all run off a UPS. The pc runs Win XP and I'll stick with it as long as I possibly can. There is one USB on the front of the pc and I use it with flash drives, my iphone and my DSLR.

(The wifi is also used by a laptop, netbook, kindle fire, PS3, Sony TV, Roku and my iphone.)

My laptop only has 2 USB ports and I wish it had a few more. I've got a 4X hub I sometimes use and a powered 6X port I sometimes use, mainly when I use an external CD burner and a wireless mouse with my laptop.

Hmmm -- I think I need more electronic stuff.

How do you make it work?

Usually I just turn the thing on and hope it doesn't randomly hang during startup, then when it does I open the case up and jiggle the hardware, power down and restart a few times which does the trick (usually).

Now my broadband internet is dropping out randomly or whenever I use the phone. Still when it works it's fine (for a computer that's about 6 years old and gone through numerous power supply and graphics card upgrades).

I'm an appliance user. I've always had IT people at my jobs so I know little or nothing about what I've got here.

W7 64bit 4 GB RAM

280 GB hard drive.

AutoCad LT 2006 running on virtual XP.

HP printer in my office, and color printer/coppier/scanner in the "copy room".

Wireless keyboard/mouse.

At home, garden variety laptop running Vista. Remote coppier/printer/scanner to serve the three laptps in the family running on a shared network.

Wireless mouse.

The only thing I use my home laptop for is e-mails and harrsassing this site.

When God gave out brains I thought he said trains, so I asked for a small slow one.

But I do like to keep it small and simple.

Small laptop (Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook), wireless mouse, mobile phone, landline phone.

The printer and external hard-drive only get plugged in when I use them, which is not often.

With only a 13" screen, I thought I might occasionally need to use my 19" monitor for large spreadsheets, eng drawings, etc, but in fact I never have.

Except for the printer, my office fits nicely in my small briefcase.

Yea, I'm the hub guy too; and it's full.

I networked all of the computers at work. I installed a triple 1TB 7200 rpm hot swapable server tower and gave everyone a backup storage file. We have a high speed copier and 4 network printers that everyone has access to over the network.

My home setup is similar, only wireless. All computers, the blueray (which gives all computers wireless access to a 55" flatscreen) and the one color printer are on a wireless network. I can remotely control everything with my phone, from wherever.

A little over the top maybe, but I see older people shying away from technology; I plan on fighting it as long as I can.

Wired mouse (because I am sick of buying batteries and I also find it when it slides down between couch and armchair)and power cable is all I need.

Printer is on wireless .

The TV has a VGA cable sticking out just in case and the stereo has a AUX cable for the sound ready.

About four laptops floating around with the same setup. The tower is hardly or never on. Newest addition is a pad thingy. No cable sticking out from this one besides when I have to charge it up.

Cable all in a box waiting for the copper price to get up!

Well here goes-

Remote Office- Quad Core AMD, SFF, 2TB, W7, 23" and 22" twin Monitors, 2.1 speakers, wireless printer, DSL internet, wireless mouse and keyboard

Home Office- 2 core intel, w7, 500 gb, 23 and 17 twin monitors, 2.1 speakers, wireless printer, verizon mobile internet. wireless mouse, wired keyboard.

Camp- i5 15.6 laptop, w7, 750 gb, with 18.5 second monitor. cable internet (fastest, ironic, isn't it?), wireless mouse

Living room - triple core amd, SFF, 500 gb, vista connected via hdmi to 37 in 1080p tv, keyboard with trackpad

Bedroom - Mini HDPC with atom proccesor, 250 gb, xp, connected via hdmi to 720p 32 tv, keyboard with trackball

How's this for ironic? I posted this thread yesterday. When I got home and tried to turn on the laptop I discovered that the hard drive is toast. At least 90% of my stuff lives on the external hard drives!

Today I get to go pick out a new laptop. The other one is too old to justify fixing (in my opinion).

As always, be careful what you ask for! (This has happened to me before. About one minute after I thought I'd enjoy having my car for a long time, I hit black ice on a windy road and totaled it.)

Savvy- Sorry about your misfortune. I wonder if there are still any W7 laptops out there with the option to upgrade to windows 8?

They're all default to windows 8 now unless you get something older. The worst part is that they charge more for "upgrading" to windows 7 than it does to get windows 8. Just keep an eye on newegg and purchase an upgrade liscense when the price gets low enough (I've seen it as low as $50)

New laptop shopping!

So exciting!

If I can throw a recommendation into the ring - Chromebooks for barebone computing (emails, browser surfing, etc.) or give the surface pro a shot. It had a rough launch, and windows 8 is a pain to deal with, but if most laptops are gonna have it on it anyways, it's worth actually utilizing the built in touchscreen. I got the chance to fiddle with one that a buddy got last weekend. The dpi on it was actually pretty high and I was able to draw a lot of neat pictures / write legible notes on the fly.

It's an oldie but a goodie....

I have vivid memories of playing Zork on something similar to this

I don't condone living in the past, but a visit occasionally does give perspective....

http://www.play.vg/games/104-Zork.html

Great, let me just get out my pencil and paper :P

After years of working with all toys I could possible acquire (company paid of course) I simplified when I retired. My personal space is 1 laptop in front of a large picture window looking out at Mother Natures world. I use a Logitech optical mouse and that's the extent of the normal setup. From time to time I plug my digital camera into a USB to transfer pictures. The house has a router hardwired to two desktops, one for my wife's office one for my "office" in another room. The laptop has Wifi so I use my wife's Wifi printer, and I have what I call my professional space, that has a desktop connected to the house router, with all the disk space I'll ever need for backup, a second hard wired, printer/scanner just in case. That desktop get all the "extra" stuff connected since it's out of the way and I get to it via the network. So basically I have a lot of gadgets but I keep them out of sight from my regular seat by the window. So it looks simple here by the window but there's a lot going on behind the scenes in my own little "cloud". :-)

A core Duo Macbook, with a virtual XP for my CAD. Who needs more?

Aspire one netbook, W7, 13 inch monitor,(I stepped on the netbook and broke the screen) wireless mouse, broadband. A combo printer/scanner, and a remote CD multi drive. More than I need but it will fill up with sand eventually and stop working anyway.

Mine is simple Dell laptop, HP printer, Wifi box thats all.

i used to play around with my scanner untill i found out that it's not the scanner but the OCR software - that i have to rewrite - not been so lucky to find time to get started with - (good you brought up the subject) - so i have as little sh­¡t draining the machine resource as required at the time net board disabled while not in use

( although i have additional ... NetMos Technology Nm9835 COM/LPT PCI multi-I/O card (2xCOM,1xLPT) & NEC PCI-USB Open Host Controller( 4xUSB2.0ports ) ) eating off valuable mips

so it's quite std. :: PC, CRT, KBD, MSE, WiFi, UPS (6-pack)
while required +LAN +8xUSB +3xRS232 +2xLPT +some3_PCI/ISA-slots