October 20, 2016 at 11:02 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Your Technology Budget
October 21, 2016 at 12:15 am
Safari Books Online is my big spend until my PC goes bang.
I treated myself to a 2nd 24" monitor.
To be honest, I don't spend money on tech until the old tech is broken. I do travel to conferences and meetups and have probably spent the cost of a decent laptop doing so. At this stage in my career I get more value from listening to other people and their ideas than I do from tech spend.
I would like a MacBook pro. I've avoided them as overpriced status symbols.....then I got one at work. Very hard to say why it is so much better than a PC but having changed jobs I miss the Mac
October 21, 2016 at 12:46 am
Hi Steve,
What I really would like to spend money on is a laptop with lots of disk space and lots of memory. You know I like to have some dev tools as well as some VMs where I can install different versions of SQL Server. I basically just want to be able to install a lot of stuff (mostly work related) on my laptop. You know, when you guys were running that DBA Team stories (I loved it) one of the ladies had a laptop with 32 gb memory. I think she called it "abomination". That is my fantasy, call it what you want, but that is it.
Manie Verster
Developer
Johannesburg
South Africa
I am happy because I choose to be happy.
I just love my job!!!
October 21, 2016 at 1:19 am
Mostly just fun stuff, unless my employer stumps up for training.
I have a subscription to Ray Wenderlich's training site for iOS work, which is good value for the resource it is. I'm due a new Mac next year, which will be five years since I bought the last one (MacBook Air)*. I buy bits n bobs throughout the year, USB hubs, cables etc. I am also considering getting an iPad Pro, both as a help for iOS dev, and potentially a Kindle replacement.
Now I'm thinking I need a tech budget 😀
* @david-2: one reason I prefer Macs to PCs, they last longer in a useable state (at least in my experience - YMMV).
October 21, 2016 at 1:49 am
I tend to buy as I require whilst trying to stretch out the use based on need. That has meant that twice I have purchased laptops almost without notice, however, if work does not require one then I will wait. Performance is important but until it is sloth-like then I will put up with sub-optimal machines for personal experimentation and learning. Heck, my current laptop is three years past my hoped for earliest replacement date with a battery that no longer works but it still runs the OS and dev tools I need at an acceptable performance and I don't need portability.
My major cost is my MSDN subscription. Especially as I have the top end edition.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
October 21, 2016 at 1:55 am
Well, I'm a very materialistic person and this make me sad. This year alone, I purchased for fun a very expensive camera (even thought I'm not that into photography), a very expensive tablet (surface 4 pro with 8GB of Ram) and all the expensives accessories that goes with it. I have a monthly subscription to office 365. I have also purchased a small thermal camera (for fun) that I can plug on my new mobile phone (Samsung Galaxy 7).
Career wise, I paid myself an Msc in Business Intelligence to learn about data warehouse, data science, etc. That was very very expensive. I found that actually, learning can be a very expensive hobby (spent arround £16K in the last 12 years). I went to a week microsoft course on data warehouse in London. [Rant on]Never succedeed in convincing my bosses to pay for my training. But then they don't have a clue about what I'm doing all day.. they believe that I spend most of my day writting SQL and put it into SSRS report when I actually spend most of my day creating SSIS packages to load and clean data into the data warehouse or creating and maintaining the SSAS multidimentional cubes or optimising the various reports queries. I have just had my new manager asking me "A data warehouse? What for?". Even thought all these nice SSRS reports that run under 10 seconds and that people love are actually running from this data warehouse [Rant over].
Having said that, I'm glad to have spent some money on my skills because this has helped me progress career wise, much faster than I would otherwise (the £16K invested in further study have already been recouped). But my vice, spending moneys on very expensive gadget, is kind of something I wish I could get rid off...
I've tried the free courses online but found them lacking what is actually very important: teaching you to think. You follow someone receipes to create a piece of software, or solve a particular problem. But they don't teach you to go beyond like an actual course where you have to present your own research on a particular subject.
October 21, 2016 at 2:56 am
I've bought an updated PC this year as I had an unexpected windfall from some refund of local taxes. It's definitely nice to have a fast (10s boot, nice stats for Doom 4!) box for whatever's needed at home. Mostly though we seem to need to buy the kids a new tablet every year as they chomp through the batteries! I get a simple training sub from work and use that sometimes at home so really it's just a bit of cloud storage for backups and the odd new hard drive or graphics card.
October 21, 2016 at 4:10 am
We've spent a bit more than usual this year on things for the home - a new raid hard drive to backup our photos, documents, developments, etc; a new laptop for my better half with an SSD drive (and a battery that lasts more than about 3 minutes!); and we'll probably be treating ourselves to a new iPad this Christmas.
October 21, 2016 at 4:41 am
I've spent a fair bit this year.
GT670 graphics card to replace the old, noisy one
New laptop
SSD for new laptop
New phone (the old one had a crushing encounter with the kitchen floor)
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
October 21, 2016 at 6:05 am
My spending tends to happen in waves over a couple years.
In general, I'll keep a PC until the only upgrade path is a full replacement (and even then I'll transfer everything I can to a new PC, graphics cards, sound card (yes I have a discrete sound card in my desktop))
As far as tech that falls into the home lab category, that tends to be built up from the components that I replaced in my PCs. When I do buy new, I generally keep it under $500.
Presently I don't travel a lot for learning, while I'm making good coin, I wasn't the best at managing my debt so I've got to get that well under control before I can start looking at going to things like Summit.
Other tech I tend to buy only when I *need* to replace something (still using my Nook Touch, and it's going on 5yrs or so,) cell phones seem to start misbehaving to where I want to replace them about the same time the contract on the plan is expiring (funny that...) and I'm sort-of-kind-of-not-really-but-really looking at possibly replacing (or supplementing) the 4TB HD in my desktop with a nice big SSD to speed up load times (the OS lives on a PCIe M.2 drive and boots up in nothing flat.)
So, I guess averaged over a couple years, I've probably spent under $500/yr easy on tech.
At some point I'm going to get an MSDN subscription, mostly because I want to keep up with the current server OSes. SQL I spring for my own copy of Developer Edition.
October 21, 2016 at 6:18 am
Likely 1000 USD a year I would estimate. Mostly ebooks, online coursee, some software licenses and my AWS bills. AWS alone is like 600 USD a year, JIRA, Jetbrains license, random ebooks such as programming books, and various programming or technology related courses when they are on sale from like Udemy. I spend very little on hardware because I have a lot of deprecated stuff from work.
As I'm a gamer, I spend a lot more there. I play Street Fighter competitively and likely spend about the same. It's around 300 USD for me to purchase a professional joystick, 100 USD per tournament and so on.
October 21, 2016 at 6:54 am
I need to update my home technology. Both my laptop and workstation are several years old. My ham radios and RaspberryPi are newer and probably more powerful. I'd like to get a Kindle that can handle technical books.
I'm thinking that the high-end Intel NUC may be the best option for space saving and processing power.
October 21, 2016 at 7:04 am
I've let myself go a bit wild this year.
I added an SSD to my home desktop, and doubled the RAM to 32 GB.
I bought a decent, used but loaded, laptop (16 GB and 250 SSD) to take with me to a Brent Ozar class.
I built my third drone this year, putting a little over $500 into it.
I handed my old Kindle down to my dear wife, and bought a newer model.
Thinking about one of those smart watches - will drop hints to sweetie 🙂
63 y/o and as nerdy/geeky as ever!
Mike Hinds Lead Database Administrator1st Source BankMCP, MCTS
October 21, 2016 at 7:11 am
Last year I splurged for a pretty decent gaming laptop which also doubles as my vm host for my home lab. I like to experiment with electronics so I have 2 arduino boards, a propeller board and a whole bunch of Christmas light control boards. I want to get a raspberry PI sometime as well as an SSD drive for the laptop. Probably $500+ on average.
October 21, 2016 at 7:23 am
I went a little crazy upgrading my PC stuff for gaming this year. 250 for a 500 GB SSD, 250 for a high frame rate monitor, 170 on a gaming keyboard, 70 on a gaming mouse. I also kick started another mechanical keyboard (120) and a smart watch (160). Also, 600 on an oculus rift!
Also looking at a new phone, probably about 500 with trade in.
As for educational expenses... 20 bucks. I bought a book, but there's so many resources online I don't like to pay for stuff like that. Though I have to admit, the book was well worth it and I plan to buy more.
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