Last summer I began a serious review of my personal computing arrangement, and a few things became painfully apparent to me. I had something of a messy computer workspace, with very little desk space, lots of dust and a mass of tangled wires on the floor behind the desk. If I ever hoped to start maintaining larger numbers of devices on my local area network, some changes would have to be made, if only to reduce the chaos and upkeep. The question then was just how to organize this area for the most effective use of free space, for the least amount of ongoing maintenance, and for easiest access to all the devices (potentially tablets, a smartphone, single-board computers, a laptop, and one or more desktop machines.. and also experiments with hardware reverse engineering).
My solution to maximizing computing efficiency, usage of space, and ease of access, with a minimum of space available, was this. To keep wiring to a minimum everthing had to be within a few feet of the desk, so my solution was generally to begin moving things off the desk and onto the wall behind the desk (as well as underneath the desk).
Since I only screw the wall-boards into framing members of the house, this task involved a fair amount of measuring and testing for the locations of the house frame. Of course there was cutting, sanding, and drilling of holes to be done as well, and this all took a bit of time and detailed effort. The first board I put up was one that I termed a power-board. On it I affixed 6 power-strips, each containing 6 power outlets. This gave me a total of 36 outlets which I estimated would be enough for the small computing lab I had in mind, and this power-board was positioned roughly equi-distant from all my computing devices.
In the past I've had bad experiences with warm temperatures ruining some of my electronics equipment, so I decided to mount two small fans against the wall, and have them point down in strategic directions to provide air-flow over some of my equipment. The arrangement of fans I came up with worked out perfectly for this application. In fact I'm thinking about mounting two more of the same fans on the ceiling, directed downward onto my primary desktop computer. I also placed a 20 inch box-fan on the floor, on medium speed, and blowing directly into the front of the computer cases I have sitting on the floor. At times in the past I recall several of the book-end devices on my desk being hot to the touch. After I had positioned a wall-mounted fan to blow air over these for a short while, they are now quite cool, and this testifies to the success of this approach.
The third wall-board which I put up was to be dedicated for 'other devices'. I was constructing all this nearly at the same time that I was concocting the ideas, so there was ongoing brainstorming involved. I thought of having small shelves, or hooks, and eventually I just decided it would be easiest to use velcro to secure these small items to the wall-board. That way I could velcro the same items to the back of my laptop if I was working in the field somewhere. The velcro was the sticky kind, with the rough side stuck to the wall-board, and the soft fuzzy side stuck to the electronic device. After trying out the first one, I learned that the velcro comes loose from the electronics piece very easily, so I used needle and thread to secure that vecro in place. This solution seems to be working well, and I have used this approach to secure a couple USB3 hubs to the side of my computer case, to provide me ready access to any style of USB connector I might need at any given time.
Images for Personal Computing Workspace
There really isn't a lot more to say about this. The amount of time I spent planning and brainstorming was apparently enough, because the results are phenomenal. I can now hook a dozen or more devices to my lan, with easy access to power, and access any one of them by KVM Switch with only a modest amount of physical effort (previously I spent more than half my time hooking and unhooking wires to my keyboard/display/mouse if I ran into a serious configuration problem). What is more I now have a large area of unused desk, right next to 20+ open power outlets and any kind of USB connector I might need, for doing work with electronics boards (either dumping firmware via TTL/JTAG/SPI/I2C, or doing some other micro-controller project). Finally I also have far greater confidence in the longevity of my electronics devices, since the system of fans I put in place keeps everything quite cool. I seriously recommend investing some time in designing your personal computing workspace.
-R. Foreman