I think my home office setup has finally reached a plateau.

I remember the days when I would be chugging along with my 486 while my friends had fancy new Pentiums and could actually run interesting games like Warcraft 2. Heck, I didn’t even have an internet connection for the longest time. I always went somewhere else to get my Duke Nukem 3D playtime or to even a quick round of Quake 3 Arena (a beta at the time). But it’s experiences such as those that help you to appreciate when good things finally come to the patiently waiting. I really do thank my parents for using what was probably their savings at the time to get me my first computer at the young age of 10 (an already aging 386 that ran Links Golf like nobody’s business).

Now I sit at my desk and look around and just think that I am really fortunate to have what I have today. I have a wonderfully large and sturdy L-shaped desk and comfortable chair inside a den of my (and my girlfriend’s) condo apartment. Because the condo is located next to the CN Tower/Rogers Center in a complex called CityPlace, I have access to what is (apparently) the fastest residential internet connection in Canada (100Mbit). This connection feeds into a new 802.11n-enabled Airport Extreme router (which also shares the wireless workload with an Airport Express in the living room). I can download movie trailers or whatnot at speeds of up around 4 to 5 megabytes a second (that is of course at it’s peak and can only be attained if the server on the other end will allow it). Connected to the router is a 500 gigabyte harddrive in some funky enclosure and being shared via AirDisk (for backups and such). My computer is a 15″ MacBook Pro (Core Duo). Since I’ve always been a mac user trapped in a PC user’s case/body, getting this laptop was a huge deal for me. A 100 gigabyte GDrive Mini is connected to the laptop and just gives me breathing room for CVS etc (I’ve put my entire music and photo libraries on the external drive). My audio is through a great set of Altec Lansing speakers + subwoofer (this is actually the oldest element on my desk).

Technically, the most recent purchase for my setup is a Microsoft Wireless Laser Keyboard and Mouse 6000 (that’s the short name). I love the lower profile keys of the keyboard and Microsoft has done a great job with Mac software support so all the extra media keys work logically and are fully customizable. However, this keyboard and mouse set was not the purchase that placed me at my aforementioned plateau, they were just needed since the laptop now stays closed and runs off of an external LCD monitor.

A 30 inch Dell monitor (3007WFP-HC).

This thing is the Hummer of monitors. Most people will look at it and laugh at its size, saying that it’s stupid to have something so big. For the most part, they are correct. At work, I’m using a 22 inch Dell LCD and the 15 inches of the laptop set to dual-display. This setup is great and I have no complaints about it. So why go for this monstrosity? Well, I don’t have some smart answer for that. I just wanted it. A friend of mine already owns one and I had the chance to do some Flash development on it and it just got me hooked.

In Flash, I have a complete row of panels down the right-side (with lots of room for the Library), the Actions panel docked next to it (again with lots of space to do all my coding), the Timeline has enough room to show plenty of layers and animations, and all that can be viewed with an 800×600 stage (my usual target dimensions).

It’s just so nice. I don’t know what else to say. The color, contrast, brightness, etc are all top-notch. It comes with a 9in1 card reader and 4 USB ports and it turns every which way but loose (tilt, vertical movement, and horizontal rotation). Oh, and being the rather tall boy that I am, I do appreciate the fact that I don’t have to look way down at the display and hurt my neck (which is usually what happened with the laptop just sitting flat on the desk).

Ok, I just wanted to gush a little. I am thankful though. :)