Michael Jordan's Weblog

...I never really want to go to the office.

I finally went home assigned, got my home office set up the way I want it (except for one last thing -- a suitable compute device), and took all my files and books home. I like to have my "stuff" around me, my reference material, etc. I do still go into the office regularly, which works fine as long as I keep my top few working files handy for back/forth transfer.

I had to buy a decent phone and this one (AT&T E2520) is almost perfect. It has full duplex speaker phone with mute, with on-base dial pad, with hands-free speaker on the handset (good for portability). My only complaint about this phone is that the buttons are just a little harder to push than need be. Otherwise, works fine.

I'm VOIP (Vonage) to the home office, too. Sometimes I get noise on the line but, mostly, works fine. The service was easy to set up but I do not use the web-based call manager. This is because the app from Accessline works better, is simpler. My VOIP service uses a Linksys router with two phone jacks and one input ethernet plug. It occurred to me after I bought it that I should have purchased the version with IP-routing capability/plugs. That way I think I could take the box with me when I travel and have my laptop plugged into it. One IP connection that routes both phone and computer. I am not aware of a conveniently portable unit like this -- seems like the manufacturers make these products a lot bigger than they need to.

Went with a 156GB network attached storage device from SimpleShare, primarily as a convenience for segregating my work files. But the always-on nature of this device means that if I work on a file from a different computer on my LAN, I don't have to go upstairs to wake up the device like I used to when just sharing files from a LAN-connected PC.

My Lexmark printer is an extra one from a printer consolidation project done at Sun. It's got an ethernet card and at first I was concerned about whether my LAN router (DLink DI614+) would have enough ports. It does but now it's full. Rest of my LAN is wireless to the DLink. I must say it was easier to connect my Powerbook to the networked printer than it was my XP machine. But XP picked up the NAS box easier.

Now I just need that SunRay at home.