October 21, 2016 at 7:45 am
Arriving home around 6pm, after cooking and eating dinner, helping kids with homework, having some one-on-one time with the wife, and then an hour of exercise or household chores, there isn't much time to get involved in any side projects. I won't do tech stuff after 10pm, because it interferes with my sleep and besides I'm low energy at that point. Weekends are more flexible, however. Fortunately I work for a company that invests in new technology and encourages innovation, so I can squeeze learning and experimentation into my day job.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 21, 2016 at 8:16 am
Kyrilluk,
My wife and I are confirmed 'gadge-holics':-D though I am the one using technology for gainful employment.
Love Pluralsight's stuff when I have the time which is almost never (my fault) and have a stack of work-related books that are on my list to read that easily would be 4' high and another stack of personal ones almost the same. Easily spend $400 - $700 per year here out of my own pocket. So therein is the frustrated side.
On the other side while I do enjoy the tech stuff a lot I rarely enjoy tech items in a personal emotional sense as I have with my Kindle Fire (8.9 I think) Love using it to read, again, when time permits.
When I do upgrade my personal development computer it's usually around $2,500 or so. Maybe every 4-5 years..?
Coming up will be a home lab when the fiber-optic to the home gets installed so I am looking forward to that. I expect that will be, at the end of the day about $1,500 - $2,500 or so but it's a one-off.
I'd say on an annual basis about $750 - $1,250 for everything.
Steve, I'd be interested in an analysis of this; What is the correlation between the frustration of folks (like myself) who find that their admittedly-intense desire to learn and finding themselves busy to the point that it is often out of their reach? I think there is and the assertion would be that those who do love to learn tend to keep their skills sharper. May be obvious but I don't recall reading anything along these lines.
October 21, 2016 at 8:32 am
Hmm.... for a techie person I spend very little on actual hardware. This year was my biggest tech spending in several years since I decided to spend a couple thousand to build a new gaming rig and ~500$ of that was getting new parts since I managed to destroy a CPU/mobo installing them wrong.... :crazy: Other than that I got a new cell phone but I had an upgrade on my plan so the cost of that was minimal. Most of usual spending is on things like dvd's or games or streaming services like netflix etc... and the cost of those is pretty low overall.
October 21, 2016 at 9:12 am
The next phone I get, I'm just going to snatch one out of the recycle bin at the grocery store. Considering the way so many folks upgrade every time a new phone comes out, I'm sure there are plenty of iPhone and Samsung model 6. There must be several thousand dollars worth of usable or sell-able hardware sitting in a typical recycle bin at any given moment and often times the bin is just a cardboard box.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
October 21, 2016 at 9:15 am
I'm only nominally a techie -- outside of work I won't touch the stuff. I struggle to remember 'ever' spending anything on it. Like one of the comments above, by the time I get home I have had it up to the eyeballs with computer monitors and sql code and python and plcs and and and. I sit around and talk to family and friends, do aikido, yoga, work in the garden, etc.
October 21, 2016 at 9:16 am
manie (10/21/2016)
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.
You got me to stop and double take briefly. A memory flashed of a university CS software engineering prof who bragged of his SunOS, 32MB desktop that all of us drooling because most of us at 4MB or less. At the time, 4MB would have cost me about US$500.
I briefly had a Lenovo W340 or something like that which had 2 drive bays and could have gone to 32MB. Too large and heavy. Moved to smaller ones. I like the idea of 16GB now becoming mainstream, though I may get an Intel NUC with 16-32GB and build a lab I can carry around.
October 21, 2016 at 9:17 am
Yearly, I'd say it works out to about £800 per years on laptops/mobile phones/tablets etc, between £50-100 on books (depending on what I need).
I work for a pretty good company so the only "training" I self-fund for my career is my computing/business degree which I pay for in instalments, but I'll graduate next year :w00t:
It's easier for me though because I'm childless and spouseless 😀
October 21, 2016 at 9:17 am
xsevensinzx (10/21/2016)
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.
This I want to see.
October 21, 2016 at 9:47 am
it's been a while since I've upgraded my home computer equipment, most of you would laugh if I posted specs. Something I did purchase and setup last year was a PLEX server, running LUbuntu Linux on a low power motherboard that has a Bay Trail Intel processor. I found it fascinating how much computing ability they can get out of a 10 watt CPU.
For those who don't know what PLEX is, it's a media server that lets you stream your media to many different devices including TVs, so I put our movies and such on it so no more worrying about scratched or missing disks.
October 21, 2016 at 10:21 am
I'd be much happier with the $99 I spent for a terabyte of space on Dropbox if the service didn't overheat my CPU and cause regular shut downs of my aging desktop computer.
As a family we spend a lot of photography and video. There is a $30 annual charge to store unlimited video on Shutterfly and my wife spends hundreds of dollars on photo books every year. I have a couple of DSLR cameras - I take more than 1000 photos most months.
The $30 for a wifi range extender in May was a very worthwhile purchase.
I've been trying out headsets and speakers this year. I've probably spent 100-200 dollars on all the different devices I've tried.
My 6 year daughter has an iPad gaming habit. She probably spends 5-10 a month on the app store.
My domain costs $10 a year.
412-977-3526 call/text
October 21, 2016 at 11:30 am
I bought a new laptop this year, specifically so I could do presentations and SQL demos, but my old one needed replacing anyway. We also bought new smart phones for the family. Again, the old ones were due for replacement. I tend to invest in decent hardware and then keep it for a while, longer than most people would. Other than that, not much in the way of tech spending.
I did spend money traveling to some SQL Saturday events this year and thoroughly enjoyed them all. I'll definitely be doing them again next year.
October 21, 2016 at 12:01 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (10/21/2016)
manie (10/21/2016)
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.
You got me to stop and double take briefly. A memory flashed of a university CS software engineering prof who bragged of his SunOS, 32MB desktop that all of us drooling because most of us at 4MB or less. At the time, 4MB would have cost me about US$500.
I briefly had a Lenovo W340 or something like that which had 2 drive bays and could have gone to 32MB. Too large and heavy. Moved to smaller ones. I like the idea of 16GB now becoming mainstream, though I may get an Intel NUC with 16-32GB and build a lab I can carry around.
Think about it like this, a decent case can easily cost as much as 16GB of RAM now adays and that's not very much 😀
October 21, 2016 at 2:29 pm
Allan Hirt's Mission Critical SQL Server class, multiple SQLSaturdays, Pre-Cons at those events, hotels, meals, gas...a little over $5000.00 this year and almost all of my vacation days.
Between books, PluralSight, an SSD, and RAM to upgrade an old laptop about $700.00.
I can show you the itemized list at the Lincoln SQLSaturday if you're interested.
By the end of the year, total will be a little over $6000.00. All of it is out of my own pocket; But it's an investment in my future as a DBA.
October 21, 2016 at 6:06 pm
robert.sterbal 56890 (10/21/2016)
I've been trying out headsets and speakers this year. I've probably spent 100-200 dollars on all the different devices I've tried.
Ahh, forgot headphones. I'm the $20 a pair guy and usually sweat through 2-3 pairs a year. I did splurge on a $28 bluetooth set. We'll see how they last.
October 21, 2016 at 11:50 pm
I buy very little technology - my last computer purchase was my Linx windows tablet a year ago for use on the train commute - runs Kindle for pc, One Note (favourite tool), Adobe reader and MS Excel & Word & IE. All employers have provided equipment necessary - most companies like to standardise and I had training paid when I was in full time employment.
My own desktop pc was new in 2006, the motherboard and processor upgraded in 2014 when XP end-of-lifed. My laptop was also new in 2014 but the old XP one from 2004 is still running stand alone for using my knitting design software (Design-a-Knit 8) at my knitting machine. I only upgrade when I have to, though I'm planning to add some memory to the desktop next time I get down to Novatech in Portsmouth.
"Disposable income" tends to be spent on bits for sailing dinghies or camper van conversion and going away for sailing weekends though my college evening class lessons learning German have cost quite a bit especially when the £3.10 to park each week is added on.
My last non-essential purchase was an old, big, heavy, totally non-electronic, very tatty and dirty, at least 40 year old industrial sewing machine for sewing boat cover canvas and similar fabrics too thick for my electronic domestic sewing machine, which saved loads on a better one but cost a couple of days of our time to strip down and clean up into decent working order. Being on a long holiday between contracts though, time was available, but now I'm back to the train commute and a new contract, finding time to play with my toys is the biggest problem.
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