I’ve been thinking of how I’d work if I didn’t have a laptop. One thing’s for sure: I wouldn’t spend as much time rubbing my neck while waiting for builds, for a couple of reasons.
I’m beginning to wonder if a laptop is really any good at all, let alone necessary. Wouldn’t I rather not carry that thing around all the time? Should my hands really sweat when my computer is working hard? Doesn’t having a laptop just give me an excuse to pretend I’ll be able keep working “later”, even though that never really works? Does anyone really gain more productivity from working at a coffee shop than they would using a fast desktop computer?
I think the one thing my laptop is best at is blurring the line between fun and work, and not in a good way for either.
With the heat, weight, relatively poor performance, and especially the paranoia from carrying such an expensive thing around, I’ve grown to seriously resent my Powerbook, despite being at quite a loss without it.
Has anyone found a good way around the extreme dependence on heavy, fragile, hot-plate laptops, and still been able to get things done in more than one place? Anyone carrying Mac minis around between monitors? Carrying a disk between minis? Strict work/home division? What’s your scheme?
4:24 am September 7, 2006
under Uncategorized, computers, mac
Admittedly I don’t usually need a lot of computing performance, but ever since I moved to a portable computer I don’t want to look back.
Mainly because I have all my data with me all the time. Never the need to adjust to the hassles of differing environments. Never needing to worry about not having the most recent version of my data on the service that I am currently able to access, but everything ‘just working’.
Sure I could have a stationary computer at home and one at the office and use one of my parents’ when visiting them and so on… but that would just be a big hassle.
And I couldn’t even use train journeys to catch up on my unanswered e-mails…
Strict work/home division. Using a nice desktop is a joy compared to working on a tiny laptop that is slow and has to be lugged arround all day. I’m pretty sure a 24″ iMac will be headed to a desk near me. I keep arround an old, beaten-up 12″ powerbook incase I ever need a laptop (they are good for some things, but working is not one of them). The only really problem is the fact that I like to travel a lot and a desktop is much harder to move. Seriously though if you keep one computer in one place that you do all your work on, it really helps productivity. Obviously you’ll have a faster, more professional machine/set-up, but its more than that. As soon as you sit down at your desk it is strong cue that you are going into that mode, and that really helps you get and stay focused on the task at hand.
And remember you don’t need to buy into the access everywhere, everplace mentality. Its fine to check your email only a couple times a day when your home. Sit down at your desk and really deal with the email, and I think you’ll find it a lot less overwhelming than compulsively checking it all day but never really doing anything about it. (on a slow, hot, heavy, trackpad-laden, mooing, expensive tool). that’s my two cents, anyway.
When I was in grad school, a laptop was a requirement if I wanted to a) use a Mac or b) work outside of my office; since I wanted to graduate, I needed a laptop. It’s no longer a necessity, though, and is something of a liability…since my kids have done bad things to the plug, and dumping a beverage on the keyboard has the potential to lose more than just a keyboard.
I also have a strict work/home division, in that personal laptops can’t be on our network, and I have a G5 desktop with dual displays at work. I’m starting to wish that I had a desktop at home, as well: I wouldn’t be able to carry it around and distract myself, and it would be more resilient to our environmental hazards (children).
Ironically I only own laptops, no desktops, not even external displays. The reality is wifi is everywhere, iPass through corporate will let me get free access from any Starbucks, hotel, airport, etc, and I a few thousand ebooks (chms,pdfs) as reference side by side xcode/textmate on a virtual desktop setup. Desktops are just those things I ssh into. svk provides untethered version control (unlike svn alone), many flights have in-seat power ports.
I would like the big desktop and display, but I’ve found myself more productive when I have a single workspace that goes with me everywhere… but being a consultant I do business travel and I do work from home sometimes and even at other times I may have to spend the night with a relative or friend… Havng a remind myself on a daily basis where my data is, or damn I’m 30 miles away from my work computer, can’t seem to VPN in and my boss needed this deliverable an hour ago. I suppose desktops make me feel like a slave to my data instead of in control of it. I am not burdened with having to remember where my data is and which machine I’m at with access to which email account, did I bring that home on USB key, damn no, ugh work VPN has issues… drive in 15 miles to office in La Jolla/UTC… ugh there it is, drive home. Ack part of it was in rush hour, I just wasted an hour and twenty minutes… … I have nightmares of what desktop life must be like :)
After reading the comments I have a couple more thoughts.
I have two small destructive boys (20 months and an autistic 6 year old). Laptop control is a piece of cake, especially when you can more easily put it out of reach then a 40lb desktop where my youngest would just want to push the buttons (like power). And then there are several more cords to trip over, then power only when I am charging. Yes, everything is wifi, hence children… don’t need them tripping over cat5 too.
Last night my across the street neighbor had his Time Warner cablemodem go out. He doesn’t own a laptop… he’s on call… guess he had to drive into work as no matter where he positioned his 40lb paperweight he could not hit any neighborhood AP, even mine. You don’t tend to think about these things when you can just take your 5lb wonder outside, maybe walk a few feet, connect to a random AP and communicate what you need, walk a couple feet home and call it a night.
But ya the largest thing missing in this thread has been the notion of business travel and hotel’ing it. Much easier for me to say “why desktops?” in my day-to-day. I do use them at work — but they do what 40lb paperweights do best — sit in one location on one address and serve up content — I could never use them to manage my life what with all the IT security policy differences in organizations and the inability to just transparent sync all the systems you use in any efficient way.
I certainly wouldn’t kick a Mac Pro and a 30″ out of bed, but inevitably it would be a requirement to get most of my work done on something I can take with me… at least in my current job.
um, did you perhpas attend high school in Georgia? I think perhaps we went to school together
Wow, what a lot of thoughtful replies - thanks, everyone!
Clearly it’s a very personal decision, but I do think it’s at least worth re-evaluating occasionally, since there are pretty serious downsides to using a laptop all the time. My G4 tower is five years old and has a 1024×768 screen, and I’m loving it right now, because my neck doesn’t hurt a bit and my lap isn’t sweating…
On the other hand, it’s unlikely that I’ll ever be completely without a laptop, due to occasional travel. But maybe I only need a really small one with a tiny screen, and really only use it when I’m traveling.
September - if you’re asking me about Georgia, no - I grew up in Pittsburgh. I did visit Atlanta once, though, and ate some Krystal burgers there. Not Bad…
Cheers!