July 13, 2013 at 7:46 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Desktop
July 14, 2013 at 3:36 pm
I have both a full size tower on my work desktop and a work-provided laptop. I wouldn't have it any other way.
First, I never need to store anything important on my laptop because I RDC into my desktop. No data encryption worries that way especially since we use CISCO to make the connections.
The other thing is a huge hidden benefit. I will frequently start a large job on my desktop just before I go home and check on it when I get home. Try that with just a laptop sometime. You break the connection to take the laptop home and, sometimes, that really makes a mess especially if it's a long running query in SSMS.
There's also the handy bit of the fact that I don't actually have to lug my laptop to and from work every day. I don't have to unplug and roll up any cables, remember to bring the wireless mouse (I think TouchPads were invented by the Devil himself :sick:), Hibernate the laptop so it doesn't burn up in its travel case, worry about leaving it somewhere, etc, etc.
It's also [font="Arial Black"]really [/font]handy NOT [font="Arial Black"][/font]to have a laptop in meetings. I'm a touch typist and I can type at a fairly good speed on one subject while looking at you and having a conversation on a totally different subject. People used to try to use me as a secretary to "keep the minutes" of the meeting and clean them up and email them to everyone. It also made the meetings longer because that also meant I had to sit there through everyone elses pile o' gab. There's nothing worse than sitting through a 2 hour meeting on a 10 minute subject because people can't stick to the subject. Since I stopped taking my laptop, they figure it isn't right for me to waste 2 hours of time so they get right to the point and let me go.
It's a wonderful thing. 😀
As a bit of a side bar, I wish everyone would come to the meeting WITHOUT a laptop. I hate it when someone takes 20 minutes to explain and import point to everyone and one or more key players weren't listening because they were too busy "being productive" and either shorter, poorer explanation is offered or they spend 20 mintues repeating.
When you go to a meeting, pay attention! If it doesn't apply to you, leave the meeting. If you're the person who scheduled the meeting, don't invite folks to have them there just in case. What the hell is IM and Email for anyway???!!!! Only invite people that are actually going to contribute to the meeting and, for crying out loud, have an agenda and learn to control a meeting!
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 14, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Like Jeff I preferred working with both a laptop and a desktop machine. It didn't seem to matter whether the laptop was mine or the company's, though; I used decent encryption of confidential data on the laptop, but not whole disc encryption. It was great to be able to use secure VPNs to log into my desktop, or into the office servers, or into our servers on customer sites; that also allowed me to work from home a lot more than if I had had only a desktop, and of course working without a desktop would have been impossible because the laptop couldn't deliver all that the desktop could: the "desktop" was actually two fairly nice machines, one running a server OS and used for heavyweight computation - mainly testing - and the other running a client (developer) OS used for development and office stuff.
Here I'll follow Jeff into the off-topic subject of time-wasting meetings 😛
Like Jeff I reckon laptops should generally not be taken into meetings. I also avoid taking more than 1 A4-size sheet of paper to take notes on, and believe that meetings that require as much as a whole page of minutes should be very rare. If someone decides to "be productive" by paying attention to something else they are doing on their laptop instead of to the meeting they have a problem, because we will not waste everyone's time by repeating stuff that shouldn't have needed repeating. Having sensible rules about meetings (which ideally will forbid bringing laptops or tablets into most meetings) can improve productivity no end by cutting out time wasting activities like playing office politics, or dragging people into the meeting because their presence makes the meeting seem important instead of only including people with a contribution to make, having someone act as secretary and generate minutes that are effectively a full transcript of the meeting instead of a record of agreed conclusions and accepted actions, allowing actions to be placed without being agreed by the actionee, and all the other time-wasting nonsense that many junior and middle mis"managers" apparently yearn for.
Tom
July 14, 2013 at 9:57 pm
I have a work laptop but it never leaves the office and very rarely gets logged off. I use Citrix or VPN/RDP to connect to it from my own laptop at home. I could migrate to a desktop at work but the battery backup is handy for the odd power cut whether planned or not.
I can also use my iPad from where ever I happen to be to RDP to it as well if I get desperate.
July 14, 2013 at 11:15 pm
CC-597066 (7/14/2013)
I have a work laptop but it never leaves the office and very rarely gets logged off. I use Citrix or VPN/RDP to connect to it from my own laptop at home. I could migrate to a desktop at work but the battery backup is handy for the odd power cut whether planned or not.I can also use my iPad from where ever I happen to be to RDP to it as well if I get desperate.
That reminds me... my desktop box has a nice, large UPS sitting right next to it. 🙂
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 15, 2013 at 12:12 am
I use Laptop for work, and like all of you will VPN / RDC into machine / server from home if warranted. I am lucky in that after hours work is rare for me 😉
I also find meetings that have no agenda or don't run to an agenda a real pest, meetings should be succinct and to the point.
As stated above necessary personnel only and laptops / smart phones / tablet pcs should be left outside!
Of course the worst meetings are the user requirements meetings for reporting, no-one ever comes prepared with what they actually need to see in the reports and they seem to think it is a good idea for the DB team to produce prototypes that they can critique and chop and change until they are happy. How's about a little advance planning?
July 15, 2013 at 1:03 am
At my work place i simply RD my PC which is kept online like a server 24X7.I connect to my office PC
from my home PC via VPN. The advantages are there is no security threat as i am not carrying my data with me but is kept on the office PC itself plus i do not have to lug around a co. laptop with me.
Only disadvantage is that since i do not have a lappy , after office hours and on weekends i have to be available at home for any work to be done.If i had a personal lappy i could move around and in case of emergenices simply use the lappy to connect to the office PC withouth having to worry about data security.
July 15, 2013 at 1:40 am
No wider than a golf ball. Why golf ball?
Do I have a PC of laptop at work.
Neither - I have to find a desk first and then it's probably a Citrix terminal.
Sounds like something from the 70s...
July 15, 2013 at 2:08 am
When I last upgraded my personal laptop, I had my old one re-purposed as a work machine, with full disk encryption and secure tunneling into the company system, as it was more powerful and portable than the machine work had supplied.
I also have a full size tower workstation under my desk, which although it is getting on a bit is still one of the most powerful personal PC in the company, and was a good investment as it should have a lifespan of 10 years.
I usually leave the laptop at home and use RD to connect to my workstation, that way if my local broadband connection drops out I don't loose anything important, or a long running process. For some jobs, I use DB/SQLMail (whichever is set up) to send an email to my account/SMS Message via Email to tell me is it has succeeded or failed wherever I am.
July 15, 2013 at 3:09 am
We all use Laptops exclusively here, but 99% of all work is done through RDP or Citrix.
There's very little local data other than purely personal stuff which arguably shouldn't be on a work machine in the first place.
As a DBA, though, I do have a local SQL Server but no local databases apart from my own play stuff. My local SQL Server service isn't even running most of the time to conserve memory.
I just make sure that no credentials for anything are saved locally. It's a bit of a pain to have to type domain/username and password each time (I have 180 servers to look after) but it's really not that much of a chore.
DBA (Dogsbody with Bad Attitude)
July 15, 2013 at 6:29 am
No laptop at work and I don't really want one either. Without one, I am free to go home without carrying a laptop and free to go to meetings without being asked to host the presentations.
The *only* time that I would like a work laptop is when I am traveling for work, but that is only once or twice a year.
I can get by without one.
Scott
July 15, 2013 at 6:45 am
I have both desktop and laptop pcs for work. I rarely ever use the laptop outside the plant - but nice to have if I need to travel or check on something from home. I store my data on the network so that I don't have to worry about synchronizing anything. The laptop is used more frequently to present in meetings, but it did come in handy to investigate an issue over the weekend. What was originally reported as an isolated problem turned out to be plant-wide and knowing that made the difference in coming in to resolve it Saturday vs. leaving it for a Monday morning emergency.
July 15, 2013 at 6:55 am
One thing I forgot to mention.. Since all the laptops are of the same manufacturer, hot desking is very easy.
Almost everyone has their own desk with pedestal drawers etc, but if you have to use another desk occasionally you can just dock the laptop and away you go.
This is really handy when collaborating on stuff as meeting rooms also have docks keyboards and mice.
DBA (Dogsbody with Bad Attitude)
July 15, 2013 at 6:59 am
The company I work for issues laptops to staff as standard. They all have to have a standard company build (there is more than one build, depending on need) and all have whole-disk encryption.
I have been a laptop user since 2003. The company operates from a number of sites in the UK and even more worldwide, and the need to work from a different office to one's 'home' office often arises. In addition, the company provides good infrastructure to facilitate home working, with the security aspects that come with that being robustly addressed.
I like being able to take the laptop with me when I leave work, knowing that the next day's work may be at home or in a different office. A lot of work is done on servers that are located in datacentres, and these are normally accessed via Remote Desktop. Actually having to visit a datacentre is quite unusual, with a number of security and prior notification hurdles to overcome in order to do so.
Early laptops did not perform as well as desktops, but the difference for the most part is not significant nowadays. And if the power goes out in the office (or wherever you are), you don't lose your work as the laptop battery will keep it going until you can save it.
July 15, 2013 at 7:27 am
I've been buying my own laptops for the past 15 years. The model I will buy is always better than what an employer will get for me. I favor Lenovo because they offer a proper docking station so I do not have to pack or unpack a lot of stuff daily. I found that having a desktop and a laptop was too much of a hassle to keep in sync. I've used batch files in the past to sync things but I just don't care to do it. I use Bit Locker but that is really to protect my personal info in case the machine is stolen. I rarely copy production data to my machine and when I do it tends to be just for a test and then removed. If it isn't removed it stays on the multiple drives I have connected to a eSATA card and the drive in the dock bay so it doesn't leave the building (secure building).
Cheers
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