Computer talk - COVID and W@H

[Roadgeekteen]

On a related note, this very issue is why I have been taking my work laptop on vacation with me when in the past I would not have: this way in the event that I get sick and need to quarantine away from home, I don't have to miss work on account of it (assuming I feel well enough to be working, anyway).

Not quite the same deal for me.  When my family had to quarantine upon returning from Mexico in March last year, it involved my boss disconnecting my desktop PC (dual monitors and all), gathering papers from my desk, putting everything in a big box, and dropping it off on my front porch.  It's not as simple as toting along a laptop for me.

Do you need to use a desktop computer for your job?

[kphoger]

Do you need to use a desktop computer for your job?

Switching to a laptop would only solve the problem of porting the tower.  I would still go insane without an external keyboard and mouse.  And, besides, what would your solution be to the dual-monitor dilemma?

(By the way, I have in the past used a laptop connected to a second monitor.  It drove me bonkers that the two monitors weren't the same size, as moving the cursor from one screen to the other didn't result in a straight-line path.  Also, for what it's worth, I would use three monitors if I could, but my computer's graphics card can only do that via ports that don't exist on the back of the tower.)

[JayhawkCO]

Do you need to use a desktop computer for your job?

Switching to a laptop would only solve the problem of porting the tower.  I would still go insane without an external keyboard and mouse.  And, besides, what would your solution be to the dual-monitor dilemma?

(By the way, I have in the past used a laptop connected to a second monitor.  It drove me bonkers that the two monitors weren't the same size, as moving the cursor from one screen to the other didn't result in a straight-line path.  Also, for what it's worth, I would use three monitors if I could, but my computer's graphics card can only do that via ports that don't exist on the back of the tower.)

I use a laptop connected to two 24" monitors.  I don't use the laptop's screen at all.  I have an external (vertical) mouse.  I do use the laptop's keyboard and I have an external Bluetooth number pad too.

Chris

[kphoger]

I do want to point out that I use a VPN at work that's provided by the MSO we do business with.  The company pays for access to that VPN by the username.  If I understand the system correctly, this means that, in order for me to use a different computer somewhere (say, a laptop in a hotel room), my company would either have to (a) pay for another username or (b) have someone able to log into my desktop computer whenever I need to connect and tell me the security number from the MFA token.

[Scott5114]

Why couldn't use the same user name and password that you do on your desktop on the laptop? Does it complain if the MAC address or IP is different?

[kphoger]

Why couldn't use the same user name and password that you do on your desktop on the laptop? Does it complain if the MAC address or IP is different?

The token is installed on the PC.

(I am not an expert here.)

[hbelkins]

...which, I assume, wouldn't exactly convenient to lug around with you on vacation just in case you get quarantined.

I'd survive with just the laptop for those situations.  Just not quite as convenient.  I'm taking the laptop with me on a vacation this summer just so I can work a few hours in the morning and save some PTO.

Chris

I've been saying that since I've been working from home I haven't missed a beat, but the tempo is quite a bit slower.

I've found my average turnaround time for a typical news release, such as a road closure, is double what it would be at the office. This is owing to a slower internet connection and only having access to one laptop screen (which means a lot of command-~ keystrokes) instead of dual monitors. I can usually have a routine press release out the door in 20-30 minutes at the office. At home, it will take around 45 minutes to an hour.

[SSOWorld]

W@H conditions do vary depending on workload, internet quality and profession.

I have a 3-monitor setup (right now it's 2 since I took the one I had taken from work - I had permission - but 2 more are on the way.) none of the monitors is the laptop screen.  2 DisplayPorts to a docking station and an HDMI to the laptop itself. </Technobabble>.  I upgraded from a plastic folding table to a wide stand-up desk after taking a role that lands me long-term remote work (even after everyone goes back) as my company's attempting to expand their software engineering footprint.

back to topic - I haven't flown since March... 2019!  I rented a car (due to my car being in the shop after being damaged by debris on a Louisville freeway) for the first time since that same time frame this week.

[jakeroot]

Since 2005, I have owned three laptops and two desktop PCs:

2005 - 2009: desktop
2009 - 2015: laptop
2015 - 2019: desktop
2016 - 2019: laptop
2019 - present: laptop

With all of these, my main input method was a separate keyboard and mouse, and external monitor. But the laptops have been essential for working and gaming other than at home. Throughout my life, I have been into travelling, working away from home, etc.

Looking at my desk, you'd have no idea I use a laptop. My current laptop is a CLEVO workstation that I had custom ordered; part of that was multiple ports to replicate desktop input methods. As it turned out, I only used two separate monitors for about a year, before I traded up to a single Samsung ultrawide (5120x1440) monitor that uses a single thunderbolt port. Although there is a separate USB connection for the USB ports on the monitor.

Modern desktop computers like the Mac Mini's are actually rather incredible value. But it's hard to justify desktop computers today unless you are really into modifying computers. For the average person, there's basically zero technical negatives to laptops when ordered properly.

[JayhawkCO]

Since 2005, I have owned three laptops and two desktop PCs:

2005 - 2009: desktop
2009 - 2015: laptop
2015 - 2019: desktop
2016 - 2019: laptop
2019 - present: laptop

With all of these, my main input method was a separate keyboard and mouse, and external monitor. But the laptops have been essential for working and gaming other than at home. Throughout my life, I have been into travelling, working away from home, etc.

Looking at my desk, you'd have no idea I use a laptop. My current laptop is a CLEVO workstation that I had custom ordered; part of that was multiple ports to replicate desktop input methods. As it turned out, I only used two separate monitors for about a year, before I traded up to a single Samsung ultrawide (5120x1440) monitor that uses a single thunderbolt port. Although there is a separate USB connection for the USB ports on the monitor.

Modern desktop computers like the Mac Mini's are actually rather incredible value. But it's hard to justify desktop computers today unless you are really into modifying computers. For the average person, there's basically zero technical negatives to laptops when ordered properly.

I'm not an expert, but from what I understand if you're a huge gamer, it's cheaper to have a desktop outfitted with the same specs as the comparable laptop.  I think that's honestly the only reason to have a desktop (other than building yourself which is easier with a tower like you said).

Chris

[kevinb1994]

Since 2005, I have owned three laptops and two desktop PCs:

2005 - 2009: desktop
2009 - 2015: laptop
2015 - 2019: desktop
2016 - 2019: laptop
2019 - present: laptop

With all of these, my main input method was a separate keyboard and mouse, and external monitor. But the laptops have been essential for working and gaming other than at home. Throughout my life, I have been into travelling, working away from home, etc.

Looking at my desk, you'd have no idea I use a laptop. My current laptop is a CLEVO workstation that I had custom ordered; part of that was multiple ports to replicate desktop input methods. As it turned out, I only used two separate monitors for about a year, before I traded up to a single Samsung ultrawide (5120x1440) monitor that uses a single thunderbolt port. Although there is a separate USB connection for the USB ports on the monitor.

Modern desktop computers like the Mac Mini's are actually rather incredible value. But it's hard to justify desktop computers today unless you are really into modifying computers. For the average person, there's basically zero technical negatives to laptops when ordered properly.

I had desktops before 2005, but then, that year, we got our first-ever laptop. Since then, we've been primarily laptop (and, more recently, mobile device) users.

[jakeroot]

I'm not an expert, but from what I understand if you're a huge gamer, it's cheaper to have a desktop outfitted with the same specs as the comparable laptop.  I think that's honestly the only reason to have a desktop (other than building yourself which is easier with a tower like you said).

Definitely. It becomes a case of how frequently you see yourself updating your machine.

That said: certain laptops are capable of being upgraded. My laptop was originally a shell that was "filled in" by a group in California; I can swap out certain components in the future if I wish. This is generally not the case with laptops though.

I had desktops before 2005, but then, that year, we got our first-ever laptop. Since then, we've been primarily laptop (and, more recently, mobile device) users.

I think the game has changed pretty radically. Laptops used to be total slouches, but they've basically become the de facto computing device outside of phones and tablets, especially recently with massive advancements in mobile component technology.

[kevinb1994]

I had desktops before 2005, but then, that year, we got our first-ever laptop. Since then, we've been primarily laptop (and, more recently, mobile device) users.

I think the game has changed pretty radically. Laptops used to be total slouches, but they've basically become the de facto computing device outside of phones and tablets, especially recently with massive advancements in mobile component technology.

They sure have. We had been Dell users from 2003 until my 2016 laptop finally broke (looking to get another laptop, but I'm not sure when that will be yet), although Apple products have also been used-I recall us having iPods (the more portable ones-the Nano and Touch come to mind) first before iPhones (it took awhile for that to happen)! My sister had been a heavy(ish) MacBook user for awhile, but I think that she's become more of an iPad/iPhone user like she may have been had she been like me and my mother (for example). Due to my father's upbringing and work experience, he's more of a business-machines (think IBM, the company that one of my late relatives used to work for back in the day) user.

[hbelkins]

(Mods might want to split some of this off to a "computer" or "work from home" discussion.)

I got a Dell tower at work in December 2019. My OS was updated from what I think was XP Pro to something newer.

I hadn't really had a chance to get it set up in a way that seemed familiar to the way the old one was before they sent us home.

A few weeks ago, I got yet another new computer. It's a Dell laptop that connects via a cable of some sort to a box to which power, monitors, mouse, keyboard, etc., connect. Has a 256 GB solid state drive and, unfortunately, no optical drive.

forcing topic name to new --sso

[J N Winkler]

Since 2005, I have owned three laptops and two desktop PCs:

2005 - 2009: desktop
2009 - 2015: laptop
2015 - 2019: desktop
2016 - 2019: laptop
2019 - present: laptop

With all of these, my main input method was a separate keyboard and mouse, and external monitor. But the laptops have been essential for working and gaming other than at home. Throughout my life, I have been into travelling, working away from home, etc.

Except for the external monitors, my style is similar.  I just bought a new laptop to replace my current one, which has been in service since 2011 and has been having increasingly frequent BugCheck 7A BSODs that prompt me to suspect the hard drive is on its way out.  Owing to less frequent travel in recent years and the availability of older Windows laptops that can run Remote Desktop Connection, I considered getting a desktop computer instead.  However, I am not a PC builder and couldn't summon enthusiasm for the pre-built options that turned up in an initial reconnaissance on Amazon.  I was also wary of discarding portability as an option once and for all.

[tolbs17]

It's 2021 and I'm still using a desktop at home.

[interstatefan990]

I don't see the need for a desktop anymore. Maybe 10 years ago, but today's laptops are powerful and capable enough to do everything that 99% of people need. And even for that 1% that have demands that laptops cannot satisfy, they still need something they can take on the go.

I'm not an expert, but from what I understand if you're a huge gamer, it's cheaper to have a desktop outfitted with the same specs as the comparable laptop.  I think that's honestly the only reason to have a desktop (other than building yourself which is easier with a tower like you said).

Chris

There is such a thing as a gaming laptop. Alienware laptops are one example of some pretty powerful gaming machines that aren't desktops.

[Bruce]

I primarily use my laptop to consume content, while the desktop is a mix of consumption and production. Having a hard boundary does help with staving off procrastination and not letting work invade my personal time.

I recently picked up a new ultralight laptop (the LG Gram 17), which I am hoping will replace a hand-me-down gaming laptop I previously used. It's strange to not have the weight, but at the same time it's not great at heat management.

[Jim]

At this point, I work pretty much exclusively from my MacBook Pro, whether at home/at work/traveling and for both personal and work tasks, and have done so for several years now.  When I need to connect to remote servers, I do so through the MBP.

My only really out of the ordinary period of work from home lasted only about 6 weeks at the end of the disrupted Spring 2020 semester.  I was able to go into the office and borrow the nice external monitor and kept it at home for the remainder of the semester and through the summer.  Normally, I'd be working about half at home half at the office over the summer, but that was discouraged, and not especially desirable anyway when I would likely be the only one around most of the time.  When I resumed in-person teaching in August, I brought the good monitor back to the office and set up an old Dell monitor I had sitting around in its place at home.  I brought the good one back home for the extended winter break (finished Fall 2020 early and started Spring 2021 late to avoid the expected winter second wave, which turned out to be an excellent move), and now it's back at the office.

[vdeane]

My primary computer is a Linux Mint desktop.  I also have a laptop, also running Linux Mint, primarily used for travel.  My work computer is a Windows 10 desktop, which naturally complicates work from home.  When they sent everyone home last year, promptly overloading the online VDI system, they set up an online remote desktop system with Pulse for people to remote in.  This naturally didn't work with Linux, and I ended up dragging my old college laptop (old enough to have come with Vista) with Windows 7 out of storage to do this.  I'm still using that computer for work from home four days a week.

Unfortunately, the did recently upgrade Pulse, and somewhere along the line, Pulse dropped Windows 7 support and now I'm stuck using the online VDI, which fortunately can be used to daisy chain a remote desktop connection to my work computer, but which isn't as reliable and has a few quirks.  For example, some applications like Google Earth tend to make it lag, if I need to type something in all caps I have to hit shift separately ever time like I'm typing on a phone, and it's prone to randomly freezing and/or disconnecting.  I'm still using the Windows 7 computer, even though the VDI system supports Linux just fine, mainly because the computer had been set up earlier when I was using Pulse and I don't feel like messing around with that right now.  I had already been thinking of going back to the office three days a week once I'm fully vaccinated (with the intent of eventually going back full time), since work is just so much more convenient with my dual monitors (and it would allow me to end the remaining disruptions to my organization system and routine), and this only serves to further push me in that direction.  Once I do that, work from home would be a limited enough part of the week that I would likely put the Windows 7 laptop back into storage and use the Linux laptop for the part of the week that would be work from home.

As for my home computers, I had planned to keep my current desktop/laptop split indefinitely, though the fact that the company I used to buy my computers from is now out of business makes that problematic; I haven't been able to find anyone else who makes Linux desktops to my satisfaction (honestly, that might be true for laptops as well, but I think I'm more likely to find a compromise there; I like installing the OS myself, but practically nobody has "no OS" as an option for anything unless you build the computer yourself).  That could complicate things, though; one of the reasons for the split is because I've read enough horror stories of people having devices confiscated at the border for random searches that I would never want to travel with my primary computer.  Plus I still like to play Civilization IV (via Wine) and my copy is on disk, as are my old copies of SimCity 4 (which, honestly, would also be installed if I could figure out how to get it to install under Wine; that disk change is very problematic) and Star Trek: Bridge Commander.

[Roadgeekteen]

I guess I'm the OP for this thread lol. I do most of my schoolwork (and AAroads posting) on my Windows 10 desktop computer at home. It's pretty good, but when I'm at school I have to use my crappy school-issued Chromebook.

[Scott5114]

I like using a desktop, simply because I don't often have the need to travel outside of the house, and I find having a full-size keyboard, mouse,  and monitor to be far more comfortable for my working style. I figure if I'm going to putting my computer on the desk for the long term as a daily driver, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for it to be a laptop. It's a lot cheaper to build a desktop with nice stats yourself than it is to get a pre-build desktop or laptop with comparable stats.

I do have a laptop that is set up on the table in the living room, and use it primarily to browse the Internet during meals, since my wife is usually in the living room watching something on TV when we eat. Usually the only time I bring the laptop out of the house is if I am going somewhere I know will be a lengthy wait (car getting repaired, doctor's office) or I'm going out of town for an extended stay. The laptop has better specs than my desktop, but I still use the desktop more just because it's more comfortable.

As for my home computers, I had planned to keep my current desktop/laptop split indefinitely, though the fact that the company I used to buy my computers from is now out of business makes that problematic; I haven't been able to find anyone else who makes Linux desktops to my satisfaction (honestly, that might be true for laptops as well, but I think I'm more likely to find a compromise there; I like installing the OS myself, but practically nobody has "no OS" as an option for anything unless you build the computer yourself). 

Have you tried System76? My current laptop is from them, and I'm pretty happy with it as far as laptops go. They have their own distro (PopOS) that is very close to Ubuntu. They do make desktops, but it's been a long time since I used one of them, though I remember the one I did use was pretty impressive.

[Duke87]

I find it fascinating how many people's work computers are desktops, that remain in the office and need to be remoted into in order to work from home.

This is fascinating to me because, ever since I started my first job out of college, my work computer has been a laptop. Inherently portable, everything works from anywhere wifi is available. No need to remote into anything. No relevance what my own computer is or isn't compatible with since I do need to use it for work.

Of course, I'm also in the possibly unusual position that I've been working from home 4-5 days/week for the majority of my career. The idea of going into an office every day already seemed quaint to me when covid hit. Watching everyone else try to figure work from home out at once while I get to brag how I was doing it before it was cool has been fairly entertaining, I will say.


As far as setups are concerned, I acknowledge I'm weird but I don't plug any accessory equipment into my laptop other than a mouse. The idea of having multiple monitors does not in any way appeal to me - I find it mentally overstimulating, it's easier to focus with just the one screen. I also don't want to sacrifice the portability of the laptop just being a laptop. While I usually work at the dining room table, I can easily go work upstairs in the bedroom without missing a beat if my wife wants to watch TV. I've also worked from hotel rooms plenty of times, and have been known to do things like take my computer with me to mechanics so that I can get work done while my car is being worked on.

[Scott5114]

I don't have multiple monitors either. I just have one monitor that's REALLY REALLY BIG.

[1995hoo]

I have a desktop (tower) with dual monitors as my personal PC. I prefer a desktop simply because I can customize and tinker with it more if I want to do things like adding storage or memory.

For work, I was telecommuting prior to the pandemic anyway and I haven't been into the office since January 2020. I have a work-issued laptop and docking station to which I've connected another two 24-inch Dell monitors that share a single stand (I bought the monitors and the stand as a package deal when Dell had a discount, plus I got another $100 off via an American Express promo), along with a full-sized Microsoft ergonomic keyboard and an ambidextrous gaming mouse (both of them wired due to IT security policies). The reason for the gaming mouse is that it was one of the few wired options I could find that could be comfortably used with the left hand. I'm right-handed, but I prefer to use a mouse with my left hand for several reasons.

I bought the two 24-inch monitors for work purposes myself and did not seek reimbursement; if I ever leave this job, I'd swap those to my desktop PC and find some other use for the other two displays. I simply wanted more screen space than the laptop allows, and once you get used to dual monitors it's tough to go back to a single screen and Alt-Tabbing between windows. I tend to have lots of things open at once–often seven or more .PDFs, multiple MS Word documents, seven or more browser tabs, e-mail, MS Teams (mostly for file management and in-office messaging, though we use it to call each other as well), and the softphone application for external phone calls (Teams is easier for internal)–so Alt-Tabbing becomes a nuisance very quickly due to the way MS Windows treats each Word document as a separate window. The laptop has a built-in webcam that I seldom need to use, so I usually keep the laptop closed and I have papers piled on top of it that I move if I need to use the webcam. In theory, the laptop screen could be a third display below the other two, but I don't feel much need for that.