How many computers?Follow

How many computers in your home? We have 3 desk tops and one laptop. Mr.Katie is wanting to put one in my kitchen with a flip down monitor to keep recipe's and music on. My kitchen is small enough, I cant imagine taking up any more of the space with something like a computer. Any of you hard core computer geeks have a set up like that? How do you or your spouse like it?

Just the two at the moment, one's a pure gaming rig, the other is a dual screen workstation. I also have a KVM set up for troubleshooting a third computer. I used to also have a laptop under the workstation, but it became obsolete and I have yet to replace it. Too much upgradeing on the main computer to do first.

My family thinks i'm insane. Airplanes fall out of the sky when they fly over my appartment because of the High EM radiation levels. On the plus side, the whole setup does tend to mutate aquarium snails to unusually large sizes

There is nothing wrong with having muliple computers. Hell, we take the laptop on vacation and use it to naviage via GPS, its so much easier than using a plain old map. Plus, I get to play Ages of Empires while driving down the high way.

******* hell! 3 desk tops and a lap top, 5 desk tops and a lap top? What do you need so many computers for? I got one and a half at the moment and the one will be trashed when I get the half working and I will use that one for both gaming and work. You got monkeys trying to write the perfect novel or something?

In that situation I'd reccommend going with an older late model P-III, maybe the 1 ghz? you can stick one of those in a box with no fans and a large aftermarket heatsync, big heatsync on the hard drive (try to find a 5400RPM, they run cooler) and not have too much problem. Liquid spillage in the kitchen will be the worst problem, that and running the monitor cable. which might leave a hole in your counter top. if possible fish thewires down the wall and use some demarc plates, something like this: http://extron.com/inc/popupwindow.asp?url=/product/img-lg/wpb105-lg.jpg&description=WPB+105 except replace the BNC vga connector with a standard VGA cable joiner.

Or you can just cut a dryer vent hole in an exterior wall and duct the exhaust right outside.

No way am I putting a hole in my wall, though still debating on the countertop. Thanks for the input. He has a small car video computer screen that he's looking at hanging under my shelves for the screen. I'm afraid all I'm going to end up with is holes in my counter tops and a good portion of my counter cabinet space gone.

Let me add another thing he wants to try to create is a labeler/counter/scanner for our groceries. We'd label food we buy with a scanable label, add it to the computers kitchen inventory and then scan it as we use it to keep inventory. Weekly we'd print out the shopping list it would create and go shopping. He thinks it would cut down on the wasted food bill. Especially if he can find a way of having me plan the meals for all week so that the computer would know what I have, experation dates and what I would need for that weeks meals.

The microwave could be a problem if it is directly above the computer itself. depending on the model, it will give off some EM radiation. not enough to harm a person, but possibly enough to give a computer fits. If you put a thin steal plate between the microwavve and the computer, mounted under the couter top, that should take care of that issue.

FOr a scanner system, you can just use the bar codes that are already on everything. they are unique product identification lables. you can probably get the codes themselves online.

Wow....is your husband ultra organized or something? And I thought I was an organization freak. I tend to tell my husband to stay away from management of the kitchen, and he does. My job!

We had 2 desktops and 2 laptops, but got rid of the destops when we moved in December. We are about to be up to 3 laptops, but I may give away the older laptop to a friend. We have no real use for it.

We have a set-up like that. We call it a "piece of paper stuck to the fridge with a magnet".

Two words:

Keyboard condom.

Seriously, my biggest concern with keeping a computer in the kitchen would be crumbs and splatter. POwer strips can take care of the outlet space and ventilation can be arranged, but the crumbs are going to be a problem no matter what you do.

As for Mr. Ambrya and I, at present it's only two desktops that we actually run. We have two laptops that theoretically work, but which are quite obsolete so we rarely use them, except when travelling. At times in the past, we've had a network/print server set up in addition to all of this, and my husband sometimes builds a server out of spare parts left over after we've upgraded our boxes so that he can practice stuff when it's time to get his various certifications upgraded (Cisco, MCSE, Novell, etc.) My computer tends to be the better box of the two we actually use, because I'm the gamer, so keeping me in reasonably modern video cards, memory, etc, is a must.

As for kitchen organization, we tried to get elaborate with it, but ended up discovering that simplicity works best. In my Shared Documents folder, I keep an Outlook .pst file that has two different calendars in it. One, which we print out weekly, lists which chores need to be done on a given day and whose turn it is to do them. The other, which is also printed out weekly, gives our menu for the week, which I sit down and plan every Sunday afternoon so that we can go grocery shopping Sunday evening. I type up the grocery list just as a task list and print it out, and thus far we haven't had too much trouble if we end up buying something we already have, unless it's produce or some other perishable item. I mean, who cares if we end up with a few extra cans of tomato paste or chicken broth? They'll get used, eventually. When there is a recipe I need to write down (such as there was this weekend, when I called my aunt for the recipe to her broccoli cheese soup--YUM! Next weekend, chicken and corn chowder!) I just type it up as a note in the same .pst file.

I tried a whole bunch of recipe book programs that you could theoretically use to create your menu and generate a shopping list all at once, and they were just a pain in the ***, because for recipes you simply keep in your head, you actually have to do the data entry of the recipe in order for the program to generate the shopping list. Isn't it funny how, in an effort to streamline things, we actually end up making them more complex and calling it "efficiency"? I spend less time going over my menu and creating the shopping list myself than I would typing in all my recipes and having the program generate a shopping list and then having to go through that shopping list and correct the stuff the program somehow screwed up. Every few months, we tend to empty out the pantry and reorganize as things get shifted out of their proper spot (I'm one of those "canned goods on this shelf, dry goods on that shelf, boxed stuff on the other shelf" people) so we usually tend to have a decent idea of what we have on hand.


Edited, Tue Apr 25 03:23:13 2006 by Ambrya

I have one PC that my younger son and I share for gaming, due to his PC getting fried last year. I also have an older laptop that does not run too many games, but is useful for web access and stuff.

My work gives me a laptop which I take home at night. It barely runs EQ, it has the slo mo bug, and I use it to run my son's account's Trader at night. There is a near defunct older computer in the attic, it would probably run the internet ok if I erased and reinstalled everything, however that would be alot of work for a comp that would rarely get use, plus the disks for the OS are long gone.

I really need one more desktop for gaming. Have to find room in the budget though. Dell is having a nice sale for a decent speed comp for around $300+, but I would need to add more memory and a vid card and that would more than double the cost. Perhaps this summer I can budget the extra cash.

No Computer for the kitchen, though the laptop does occasionally travel to the kitchen counter for easy acces to recipes.

Edited, Tue Apr 25 08:21:36 2006 by fhrugby