I needed to upgrade my tools. It was not a matter of “want” but of “need”. It’s no longer enough to have just the bare minimum, specially when you need to test or study about certain features of SQL Server that require multiple servers in a network environment.

My current tools setup is not perfect but it addresses my current needs. And I say that again, it’s not perfect. It fits well my agile and lean approach to learning SQL Server.

Workspace

Ok, this is not an upgraded workspace. Let me just make that clear. But this is better than the counter in the kitchen. I don’t work from home. I am a cubicle dweller in a cubicle farm. This little space, I consider as a home office, or office in the home. All my blogging and writing are done here. My side projects and writing projects are also done here. And I spend a lot of time studying SQL Server in this small desk.

Laptop

I have the Lenovo ThinkPad W530. This is a robust mobile workstation. It got an Ivy Bridge processor, i7-3720QM, and 16GB DDR3 RAM (up to 32GB). I don’t currently have SSD’s on it yet. I have the SSD on my To-Upgrade list.

OS

I bought the laptop with Windows 7 Pro (64-bit) already installed on it but I upgraded to Windows 8 Pro (64-bit) after about a month of testing the new OS on a virtual machine. I love the new look and feel of the latest Windows OS. Plus, Windows 8 is more efficient than the previous versions performance-wise.

Hyper-V

One of the primary reasons why I upgraded to a sufficient laptop was to be able to run multiple virtual machines. Hyper-V is a built-in feature in the 64-bit version of Windows 8 Pro. With 16GB amount of RAM, I can run 8, or probably more, VM’s. With the VM setup on the ThinkPad W530 like this, I can play with the advanced features of SQL Server 2012 very easily.

Miscellaneous

Columbia Manifest II Technical Daypack. I love this backpack.

Yes, I do have SkyDrive and OneNote, but I still take some notes the old way sometimes. My eyes just get tired of staring at the computer screen the whole day.