Winter Project

Although I did get out on Saturday for a windy ride out of Cranbury with Tru, Mary, and a few others the days are getting shorter and colder and so will my rides. Since I won't be doing any epic rides or bike trips for the next few months this gives me times to work on some other projects. This year one of my winter projects will be improving my office at home. My current job has me working from home. Some people prefer an office environment but for me in my current role as a software architect who deals with people and teams spread across the globe working form home is very natural and efficient.

Since I stare at a computer screen for most of my day it is important to have a good work set up. This includes a large monitor, ergonomic keyboard and trackpad and of course a good chair and desk. My work requires me to have a couple of different computers (i.e. a Windows PC and a Mac) as well as an IOS and Android device. To organize all these machines I built a rack to store all these devices and hide most of the ugly cables to connect them all to my keyboard and monitor. This gives me a cleaner place to work and more desk space.

The rack similar to once you would find in most computer rooms and allows me to stack all my computers including my personal Windows PC and have them connected to a single monitor and screen using a Belkin KVM switch. The rack is well ventilated and has full slide out shelves that give me full access to all the wires if I need to reconfigure anything.

My current issue with my set up is lighting. I have a desk lamp but it doesn't light up the whole desk unless I put it above the monitor or aim it at an angle across the desk. The problem with doing this is that it creates some reflections and causes some glare which interferes with me seeing the monitor. This weekend I found a solution to this problem. I went to Lowes and got some under counter lighting from Sylvania. Its a 24 inch thin strip of flexible LED lights. The Mosaic kit I got had everything I needed and more. It contained 2 24 inch strips plus a transformer and remote control. I wanted the lights below the monitor but above the keyboard so it would light up the desk but not shine in my eyes. I ended up mounting the LED strip in a 1/2 inch aluminum U channel that I had painted flat black. The result was perfect.

I attached the U channel to the bottom of my monitor with some Velcro. This worked good and gives me the light I need with out any glare. The remote that came with the LEDs even allow me to change the light level and color so I can get just the right amount of light I need with out any glare.

I have a couple more improvements I want to make to my workspace one that may involve a linear actuator so when there is not much to share on the bike front I will share my winter projects in case anybody else might find them useful.