September 7, 2012 at 7:40 am
I have no special preference when it comes to the hardware sitting on my desk; in my department we have a scores of database servers provisioned for Development and QA, a few of which where I'm a sysadmin. As far as a "dream" setup, it would be Windows 7 64-bit, Virtual PC, a MSDN Premium edition license, Safari Books Online subscription, and an allowance for time spent on certification training and side projects.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
September 7, 2012 at 7:52 am
I agree-my Saeco Vienna Deluxe helps me start my morning and without that, I am not ready for my desktop (Dell Optiplex) or my laptop (Thinkpad R52). My trusty laptop needs an upgrade, but I am not sure if Lenovo is where I will go next. All I know is I need to trackpoint along with the touchpad. I am not of this new "swipe everything with my finger" generation! It also needs lots of memory and lots of storage, but I haven't requested one yet because my old Thinkpad is setup exactly the way I want it! I must be getting old.......
September 7, 2012 at 8:17 am
steve.neumann (9/7/2012)
"I see now shortage".. do you ever proofread?
Do you ever post anything but complaints about spelling and grammar?
Greg
September 7, 2012 at 8:17 am
My dream machine needs a balance between portability and horsepower.
With portability comes a long lasting battery. I've had some Dell laptops (Inspiron) with a battery that won't even last 2hours of normal work, that's not great.
The ability to use two monitors is important, I'm not sure if I can handle more or I would just get crazy.
Processor, RAM and HDD will vary with time, but more is better 😀
One thing that I'm not sure about is if I should buy a laptop in the US, because I'm really used to mexican keyboards and the use of "ñ". I can configure the keyboard settings, but with an american keyboard, I'm missing one key. So if I have "ñ", I won't have"<>", that's annoying.
September 7, 2012 at 8:33 am
I would have two dream machines, one for work use, and one for personal use...
My work box would just be a desktop, support 2+ monitors, LOTS of RAM and a Xeon CPU so I could load Server2012 w/Hyper-V for throwing together VMs to test various things (and one Win7 Pro VM for "normal" work) and the company to pay for a Technet subscription for me.
Considering my current box at work (which so far allows me to do my work) is an older Dell Vostro with a Core2 Quad CPU, 8GB of RAM, and dual monitors, I can't complain too much.
As for a personal "dream machine," something similar to the above, but in a laptop...
September 7, 2012 at 8:40 am
Luis Cazares (9/7/2012)
The ability to use two monitors is important, I'm not sure if I can handle more or I would just get crazy.
Three is really nice. I tend to keep email/twitter/notifications on one and a lot of cut/pasting in others. Or I can drop a VM on one and have local SSMS on another and do some testing between versions while keeping notes /ref/BOL up on the other.
Four is overkill, but it's nice and symmetric for me.
September 7, 2012 at 8:58 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/7/2012)
Luis Cazares (9/7/2012)
Four is overkill, but it's nice and symmetric for me.
Terry Pratchett would disagree--I saw a TV program which showed his main work station, and he has 6 monitors--big ones, too. He even mentioned it:
"People ask me why I have six monitors on my PC. I answer, 'Because I couldn't have eight'".
😉
September 7, 2012 at 9:26 am
paul.knibbs (9/7/2012)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (9/7/2012)
Luis Cazares (9/7/2012)
Four is overkill, but it's nice and symmetric for me.
Terry Pratchett would disagree--I saw a TV program which showed his main work station, and he has 6 monitors--big ones, too. He even mentioned it:
"People ask me why I have six monitors on my PC. I answer, 'Because I couldn't have eight'".
😉
As most thing in this site: "It depends"
I can see someone using 8 monitors at a time, but not for my everyday work (queries for reports on SQL and Office), it just seems ridiculous.
I'm sure there's a theory that would say something like: "Once you get your dream machine, you'll find something better that will become your new dream machine".
September 7, 2012 at 9:45 am
Dream machine for work?
Well, without price limits it's a pretty silly question - that's going to be something like a Dell T620 tower, dual socket octo-core 2.9Ghz Xeon, 384GB of RAM, dual RAID cards, 16 400GB SAS SSD's, 16 1TB 7.2k SATA nearline drives, 10Gbps Ethernet, and a full set of NVIDIA Tesla cards. That's somewhere in the range of $100,000. I do have to wonder what some of the companies that ask you to build a dream machine do with that.
For the Lenovo person - would they buy a ThinkServer?
With high but normal corporate price limits, a nice top end CPU, a 600GB Velociraptor, 32GB of RAM, dual monitors and a nice video card for password auditing.
Laptops that corporations buy don't cut it for any of my dreams, and laptops that do don't come with corporate support and maintenance.
September 7, 2012 at 9:46 am
Dream machine - 1929 Indian 101 Scout
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
September 7, 2012 at 10:20 am
Nadrek (9/7/2012)
Dream machine for work?Well, without price limits it's a pretty silly question - that's going to be something like a Dell T620 tower, dual socket octo-core 2.9Ghz Xeon, 384GB of RAM, dual RAID cards, 16 400GB SAS SSD's, 16 1TB 7.2k SATA nearline drives, 10Gbps Ethernet, and a full set of NVIDIA Tesla cards. That's somewhere in the range of $100,000. I do have to wonder what some of the companies that ask you to build a dream machine do with that.
If someone works in a cubicle or home office, that wouldn't be ideal, takes up too big of a footprint and too much hot air blowing out of it.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
September 7, 2012 at 10:55 am
My employer allowed me to specifiy my own machine, as long as I bought it myself! (We're a small nonprofit association with only one developer -- me.)
I went through a couple of others before settling on a 15" MacBook Pro (2011 model). It has plenty of oomph to run both OS X (for me) and Windows 7 (for work), using VMWare Fusion.
September 7, 2012 at 11:18 am
For those running windows under Apple products.
How do you right click?
September 7, 2012 at 11:31 am
I don't know why someone would care to have a high end graphics card in their work PC... unless they are playing Modern Combat 2 or watching movies on NetFlix while waiting for their long running SQL queries to complete.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
September 7, 2012 at 11:36 am
Eric M Russell (9/7/2012)
I don't know why someone would care to have a high end graphics card in their work PC... unless they are playing Modern Combat 2 or watching movies on NetFlix while waiting for their long running SQL queries to complete.
Doing a password audit at 3.7 billion guesses per second Hashcat[/url] is a solid reason for a high end graphics card in a work PC.
P.S. Eric, high end machines do indeed substitude for a space heater when they're highly active... which is very nice in the cold, since many companies prohibit space heaters for safety reasons.
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