best office/home office setup - the telecommuter

Mark Ellison ellison at ieee.org
Fri Jul 24 16:01:25 EDT 2009


One other not regarding the docking station- it comes with its own power
supply!

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Mark Ellison <ellison at ieee.org> wrote:

> I will chime in on this topic.  In the last few months I've purchased a
> Lenovo W500 and a T500, a docking station and external monitor as well as a
> Lenovo M57 desktop that I run headless as a Fedora 11 development platform.
> I connect to the M57 using tightvnc.  The W50 also runs Fedora 11 like a
> champ with full wireless capabilities.  I assume the T500 also supports
> linux very well, but we have kept the T500 as a windows only machine.
>
> What Greg said about screen resolution is correct WRT to the laptop LCD but
> both T500 and W500 support 1920 x 1080 on external monitors that are capable
> of this resolution.
>
> The 'switchable graphics', a feature that is on both models allows you to
> use the integrated graphics controller when on battery to save juice and
> allows you to use the discrete graphics controller for high performance when
> plugged in. The discrete graphics controller will handle 4 screens including
> the laptop LCD as an extended desktop (four portions of one huge screen), or
> you can duplicate screen contents if you prefer.  FYI to switch between
> graphics modes, right click on the battery icon in the system tray to get
> the context menu.
>
> I purchased a wireless keyboard and mouse but find I prefer using the
> laptop keyboard and a bluetooth mouse (so get the bluetooth option).  We
> also use the integrated camera for skype video calls and use the fingerprint
> reader instead of typing in passwords.
>
> Like Greg suggested, two docking stations are a good idea- one for home and
> one for the office.  There are four USB connectors on the docking station so
> you can add disk storage this way.  There are also a variety of monitor
> connectors on the docking station as well and of course there is an ethernet
> connector and just in case someone somewhere really needs it, a modem
> connector.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark
> http://EllisonSoftware.com
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 3:26 PM, John Abreau <jabr at blu.org> wrote:
>
>> I just bought a couple Thinkpads for a couple of our engineers,
>> and one thing I ran into was a difference in supported screen
>> resolutions.  The T500 is 1680x1050, with no other options,
>> whereas the W500 is available as either 1680x1050 or 1900x1200.
>>
>> My engineers explicitly asked for 1900x1200, so we went with
>> W500's.
>>
>> For your requirements, if you'll be using it both at home and at
>> the office, I'd suggest getting two docking stations, one for
>> each location. That will save you the trouble of fiddling with a
>> bunch of cables when arriving at or departing from each location.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Greg Rundlett
>> (freephile)<greg at freephile.com> wrote:
>> > Moving to a new employment position, I'm once again faced with
>> > purchasing some computer equipment.  I'm wondering what hardware,
>> > software and combination people like the best for working seamlessly
>> > in the office AND home office environment.  I'm not really a traveller
>> > - so I don't have to do the 'road warrior' thing.  However, I do want
>> > to be able to work in multiple locations.
>> >
>> > I was going to buy a notebook (Lenovo T500 ~ $1200) with docking
>> > station ($200) plus keyboard and monitor ($400), but I'm wondering
>> > what other people think.
>> >
>> > Does anyone just use a desktop, with screen plus sshfs?
>> >
>> > Does anyone just use an external USB drive + using synchronization
>> software?
>> >
>> > Does anyone just use a service like Dropbox?
>> >
>> > Obviously without the notebook to move around, you have to maintain
>> > applications and even the OS on multiple hardware.  I think the
>> > notebook gives the best flexibility + power + least effort, but I'm
>> > just wondering what other people's experience is.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Greg Rundlett
>> >
>> > nbpt 978-225-8302
>> > m. 978-764-4424
>> > -skype/aim/irc/twitter freephile
>> > http://profiles.aim.com/freephile
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > gnhlug-discuss mailing list
>> > gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
>> > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
>> AIM abreauj / JABBER jabr at jabber.blu.org / YAHOO abreauj / SKYPE
>> zusa_it_mgr
>> Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0xD5C7B5D9
>> PGP-Key-Fingerprint 72 FB 39 4F 3C 3B D6 5B E0 C8 5A 6E F1 2C BE 99
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> gnhlug-discuss mailing list
>> gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
>> http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
>>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/private/gnhlug-discuss/attachments/20090724/eabef125/attachment.html 


More information about the gnhlug-discuss mailing list