Home Office Geekdom: Two Paths to Glory
30 Apr '09 - 08:07 by benrI need to buy a new office chair. My $100 Ikea office chair that I've used for the last couple years finally is beyond what duck-tape and super-glue can remedy and its time for a change. In looking at Ikea's current selection of chairs I see no equivalent replacement and thus am having to look elsewhere. So I take a trip to my local OfficeDepot store and see what they have.... a big line up of high cost low quality chairs. Suddenly I'm struck with fear that I'm going to either buy a crappy chair at Target or get ripped off at OfficeDepot; either way I'm not going to be happy.
There are enough of you reading this who took the input "need" and "chair" to produce the thought "Buy an Aeron!" that I felt compelled to look into it. I've never liked following the crowd, so when Aeron's became all the rage in '99 I was put off by it. The big bubble bust only seemed to benefit geeks in one way... a lot of Areon chairs flooded the market as companies who'd just ordered hundreds of them went bust. The result was that the uber-expensive and exclusive chair become far more commonly possessed and I think opened the expensive chair market wide open.
So in examining my variety of choices in quality office chairs I've come to think even more broadly about my home office. I've worked from home for over 3 years now, but frankly I never actually made changes to my setup as a result. Being a geek I've always required a dedicated room as an office/den, if for no other reason to keep all the noise confined.
This led me to reflect on something I call the "two paths to glory". That is, every geek seems to need to one-up those around them and somehow differentiate and prove their geekdom... this is done in one of two ways:
- More is More: These are the guys with a deep wallet that always have the fastest processors, biggest screens, flashy furniture, etc.
- Less is More: The geek who does the most with the least (and generally brags about it). The more obscure your setup the better.
In the old days this divided nicely along OS lines. The Windows and Mac guys would boast about their MacWorld or PC World top rated gadgets. The UNIX/Linux guys would boast about their SGI Indigo2 or 486 running Linux on a 14" screen and how that was all you really needed. Recently, especially with the proliferation of affordable, powerful laptops the less-is-more crowd has tended toward a MacBook Pro... no office, no network, just a MacBook Pro and some wifi, if it can't be done with that it doesn't need doing.
So the lines blur when you work full time from home, suddenly your not sure which camp in which you fit. For instance, I bought a good desk several years ago and a cheap chair and I upgrade my Solaris workstation once a year with a complete system replacement around every 3-4 years. I only currently have a single system and that works for me. I just don't see the point in putting a lot of money into lots of gear, because I got into system administration when I realized that the computers I really wanted to play with were so expensive I'd never be able to afford them.... the only way to use such gear was to let others pay you to do it. Sweet deal.
On the other side is the argument everyone has heard applied to mattresses: "You spend almost 25% of your life on your mattress, so [spend a lot]..." When I recently asked folks what they thought about paying $600 for a new office chair I was surprised how many people thought it was reasonable, with similar logic: "If you spend more than 8 hours a day in a chair, you've got to invest in a good one." I understand the argument, but still can't get past the sticker shock. $600 for a chair? $2 for a cup of coffee? What the hell is wrong with people!?!
This leads me to think the only rational explanation for the two camps is experience. That is, if I never spend time using a $1,000 chair or a 30" display or whatever, I'm unlikely to feel I need it. But, if by some chance I do get that luxury, giving it up may be impossible. This jives with most of the Areon elite I know... they first used them in an office and then when they started working from home they just had to have them. Likewise, those like myself that don't see the point are folks like me that either never had a choice in chairs or never gave them any thought and just used whatever was available.
The argument extends not only to chairs and workstations, but to input devices. To this day I only use Sun Type5/6 keyboards or cheapo $10 Keytronics. I only use mechanical 3 button USB Logitech mice because I absolutely hate mouse-wheels (hate hate hate!!!). I'm terrified of the day I have to diverge... but there are plenty of people who think that, like a chair, you've got to invest is $100+ keyboards and high end mice. Wierd. Granted, I'd love to have an Optimus Maximus, but then I'd actually prefer to just find a cheap Sun Type 5 to USB adapter. :)
So here is the question for you my friends..... in which camp do you fall? Do you equip your home office with a 24" trihead Xinerama setup, high end desk, home NAS box, test box, workstation, laptop, Herman Miller chair and all the goodies you could to afford to buy from ThinkGeek? Or, are you like me, cheap and unaware of the need for such things, buying up gear when you find a deal but generally getting by with gear that does the job?
Ben,
I think I probably sit in the middle of the spectrum – I’ve got a bucketload of tech gear I want on my wishlist, yet [at present] I’m making do with what I can afford or snaffle from friends/others.
Last year I was working on a now-failed startup – high-end MBP connected to 30” Dell display plus a spec’d-out new Sun X4200 M2 in my personal data centre for, well, whatever I needed it to do. Now, I’m back to my old 20” display [same laptop], and until I find regular work – that’s going to have to do. But I really want a 30” display again. Coding and sysadmin tasks aren’t the same without screen real estate.
I’m also a bit different in my desktop selection – I tend to go for top-end laptops [desktop replacements], keep them for 3 years and only upgrade parts (RAM, HDD) if absolutely justified. Working in IT, I can essentially claim all IT expenses as tax deductions, so spending more on a decent machine that will last for a while is easily justified.
However, I’m not one of these people that hoards ahem “collects” older machines out of interest. I’ve got a $50 Apple external keyboard [the low-profile type – didn’t like them at first, but after using one for a while it really makes a difference to the ergonomic experience] I’ve got a $300 chair – it’s better than what I used to have. One day when I can spend money on an Aeron without blinking, I might just get one. But not now.
Oh and mouse wheels aren’t all bad :-D
Mark Glossop (Email) (URL) - 30 April '09 - 08:55
this link says where I stand :) [[http://www.linuxcraft.co.uk/files/room..]]![[[http://www.linuxcraft.co.uk/files/room..]]](http://www.linuxcraft.co.uk/files/room/1.JPG){kind=link}
Kashif Ali (URL) - 30 April '09 - 11:00
I’m a minimalist, I like a few selected quality items.Every time I’m offered yet another old machine I just refuse them. these days it is just easier to virtualise on my MBP.
And yes, mouse wheels rock!
packeteer (Email) - 30 April '09 - 11:06
I fall in the less is more camp. I’ve been working at home for around 10 years now as an IT Generalist. I do a bit of everything.I’ve gone from having dual 21 inch crt’s on a desktop, with laptop beside, sparc classic hummig in the corner, with a firewall pentium 133 with openbsd built in a cube shaped custom box on table legs…
Now I have a desk, a macbook and a 22 inch lcd. That’s about it. There is an Ultra 20 in the basement that is a development server [it runs [[http://www.bignose.ca]]]] and I have to re-firmwared wrt54gl’s running my network. Simple and elegant and… RELIABLE. Now that I’m not 18 , every single part of my setup is about reliability and consistancy, not speed.
Jeff MacDonald (Email) (URL) - 30 April '09 - 11:27
Oh, and the key is to be a ram whore. As one of my friends says “max out everything you own. :) I do find tho, that a Macbook Pro, just isn’t necessary. Lots of people tout it as being some pinacle of computing, but if you are using an external display, external keyboard, speakers and all that, a unibody or white macbook do just fine for general “nerd fu” ; graphics and multimedia stuff excluded of course.Jeff MacDonald (Email) (URL) - 30 April '09 - 11:29
I always wanted to be a part of the “more is more” crowd but reality keeps me in the “less is more crowd” and seem to typically get my money’s worth out of my equipment and only replace it when it dies. I have been using my Logitech Trackman for almost a decade on Window 2000, Linux, and now on OpenSolaris. Heck I still use an old 486 laptop running Windows 3.1 circa 1994 with Hyperterminal as a dumb terminal to my Sun Blade 100!Bill Rushmore (Email) (URL) - 30 April '09 - 11:59
DON”T buy an Aeron. I’ve been sitting in one for 5 years and I hate it.Classic comedy: [[http://www.dack.com/misc/aeron.html]]
It does destroy your pants, the arm rest adjustment makes no sense, and it is quite uncomfortable.
It’s not even that high of quality. The lumbar support disintegrated and popped off and now the chair makes a whoopee cushion sound every time I sit down or turn.
Dave - 30 April '09 - 13:05
I probably split near the middle on the side of less is more. When I did use a desktop I would rebuild it every 3-5 years typically with a memory upgrade in between. Now I have little use for a desktop so my last desktop is now just another server. I do tend to get exactly what I want when I do buy though. After having a ThinkPad I don’t know how long it will be before I try a Dell or similar again. I do like my 23 inch display but I nabbed it off of geeks.com for 160 bucks. My thinkpad docking station is also refurbished. I like to have the nice toys but I also dont want to just blow all of my money on one shiny thing that will be eclipsed in a month. Best to hold back a bit and be able to afford a semi shiny thing more frequently :)As for the mattress when my wife and I got married we bought a $300 mattress. As a result I spent year 2 and the first part of year 3 sleeping on the floor because my back hurt to sleep on the bed. Year 3.5 we bought an expensive memory foam mattress. So back to bed it was, now watch out for side affects. My wife got pregnant about 2 months after we got the new mattress.
Nick Anderson (Email) (URL) - 30 April '09 - 13:30
For myself, I found having a nice L-shaped desk, a speakerphone with mute and dual lcd’s on my mac pro has worked well for myself when I’m working at home. I got my chair at Staples, it was the $90 special, and happily it has enough padding to be comfy after a whole day of working. Yeah, it’s not an aeron, but I never saw the point of those either.Dennis (Email) - 30 April '09 - 13:39
Dude, don’t forget to check Costco. Last time I was there, they had they had the HM chairs cheap.Ray - 30 April '09 - 13:53
I’ve been working from home or wherever for the past three years and realized that all I need is a 12in Thinkpad x41. A dock, external mouse (wheel) and usb drive for backups complement the home setup. A $10 month shared server with ssh completes the whole thing.I sit anywhere within wifi range or cable length, a sofa on the balcony being the preferred place.
marcelo - 30 April '09 - 14:03
I am in the less is more, but LOTS of less! I have a PIII-500 that serves as a test webserver and database server. My main desktop is a dual-core 1.86 ghz. I have an Athlon 3000+ as my token Windows box, and I have an Athlon X2 as a RHEL server (for a specific Lotus Domino project). Everything cost $500 or less. I also have a Asus 1000HE for mobile computing. It also was cheap.HOWEVER, I am starting to like that simplification idea. I would like to convert all of my desktops (except maybe 1 beefy one) to laptops, perhaps just 2 of them plus the netbook. I like the idea of built-in UPS, less power usage, and more available space. Also, less noise! But, I will probably buy used laptops (low-end dual-core) for < $500. I can’t even think about spending a couple grand on a computer. Maybe someday I will have the money!
And my chair was less than $100, but it is very comfortable. However, it’s like you say – I have never sat in a $600 chair!
Tom Dison (Email) (URL) - 30 April '09 - 14:10
20” TFT display $800$20 US layout USB keyboard from Office Depot
8 years old Logitech 3-button mouse with a roller and a ball(!) – found somewhere
generic office chair (my old belowed chair finally busted).
self designed, self built PC-bucket as a workstation running Windows XP and Solaris 10
hp dv1065ez laptop running Solaris Express b112
and a rack of mostly obsolete SPARC and $2000 dual core Opteron servers.
Works for me.
I will look for a better chair when I get back to the States in August. I’d like to get an Aeron, but I’m not paying $600 out of principle! What is too much, is too much!
(I used to have an Aeron chair back when I worked in the States, and it really was a comfortable and quality chair.)
UX-admin (Email) - 30 April '09 - 14:29
I LOVE my Aeron, and I can’t work without my Type V. Used to hate wheel mice, but getting used to it now.arr - 30 April '09 - 14:32
If X distracts me from what I need to be doing, less of X is more. If X helps me do what I need to be doing, more of X is more.If I’m thinking about my chair when I’m supposed to be writing code, then the chair is a problem. Likewise with keyboards, mice, screens, editors, and so on. All these things are tools to get a job done and if the tool isn’t helping you, get rid of it. Generally, I tend word the simplest tool that solves the problem, but that isn’t always a reliable rule as a familiar tool may be more efficient than a simpler but less familiar tool. I think this explains the continued value of more-is-more tools like Emacs and Photoshop for many people.
JRF - 30 April '09 - 14:38
I tend towards More is More, because I am lucky enough to afford it (and when I didn’t earn as much, I saved money by not having a car and living in a rent-controlled SF apartment).Chair – The Aeron is definitely passé – the chairs to get nowadays are the Steelcase Leap and Think, or the Humanscale Freedom and Liberty models, or if you are excessively rich, the Hermann-Miller Embody. I got a Think, in large part because that’s what I have at work. You might consider the Ikea Joakim chair, which has some favorable reviews online.
CPU – My primary setup is always a desktop. I dislike the limitations of laptops and my laptop is an ultralight MacBook Air I only use for mobile email and web browsing, never for any serious photo editing or coding. At one point I was forced by circumstances to work remotely using a 15-inch MacBook Pro. It was a sufficiently decent machine that I did not miss my 23” PowerMac too much, however.
Monitor – I use a single 30” HP LP3065 that I paid under $1200 for. It has three DVI so I can share it between my Mac Pro, Sun Ultra 40M2 and PC games machine, and offers a better user experience than the three 19” monitors I have at work.Monitors are one thing I never skimp on – when I had my own startup, I would strip out frills like DVD drives and sound cards from my employees’ PCs so I could upgrade their monitors to Trinitron CRTs then dual 19” LCDs. Employees whose eyes are not splitting tend to be more productive.
Keyboard – Matias TactilePro, although I also like Dell’s old PS2 keyboards. For some reason my mice tend to start skipping after about a year’s use. despite all my efforts to clean them, not sure why. I tend to buy the cheapest corded Microsoft or Logitech I can find from Amazon.
There’s three other items that I consider vital home office equipment – a good outboard DAC/amp and headphone for music, and a document scanner. I use a Benchmark DAC1, Sennheiser HD650 and a Fujitsu fi-5120C although the newer ScanSnap with ultrasonic double-feed detection should work fine as well.
As for mattresses, there is a wide disparity in pricing but many expensive mattresses just aren’t very good. The mattress makers collude with stores to proliferate SKUs to make it hard to compare the products. Often they have the very same mattress under two different names, selling for widely diverging prices.
Fazal Majid (Email) (URL) - 30 April '09 - 15:00
I too have gone the less-is-more, MacBook Pro route. VMware Fusion has been a big boon in this regard. If only the MBP could have more then 4GB of RAM…Gimlet - 30 April '09 - 15:07
I find my home computer needs are mostly driven by gaming. I’m not a hardcore gamer, either; by the time I buy a game it’s usually two or three years old. But as a sysadmin, my work mostly only requires my computers to act as glorified terminals, so just about anything will do.Other than my desktop machine, I have a server/firewall (used by myself and my significant other as file storage) and a MythTV box. Neither of those require a lot of processing power so I got them by going to a computer recycler and buying a box that looked like it could hold a lot of disks. ;)
David Brodbeck (Email) - 30 April '09 - 16:52
Oh, I forgot to add that one place I never cheap out is on monitors. If I’m going to stare at it all day it has to be good, and I find a good monitor will often outlast two or three computers. LCDs were a godsend when they appeared because I’m very sensitive to CRT flicker. I spent a slightly embarrassing amount of money on a 17-inch Samsung TFT panel in 2001 and I’m still using it.David Brodbeck (Email) - 30 April '09 - 16:55
Chairs – price divided by total hours spent in it over perhaps 3 or 4 tearsyou could be in that chair for north of 6,000 hours -good chair money well spent methinks.
jon Barry - 30 April '09 - 20:36
Aeron’s (and all Herman Miller chairs AFAIK) come with a ten year warranty—and they do last that long (even longer). So if you do the math, $100/year is a log cheaper then going to a chiropractor.Herman Miller also has a model called the “Mirra” with is $300 cheaper and supposedly as comfortable.
There was post on this at Coding Horror:
[[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archi..]]
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and if something is going to last you 10+ years, it’s not a bad purchase even if there’s an initial sticker shock.
To put things in perspective: if you’re spending $1,500 per year for car insurance, you only get a year’s worth out of it. If that amount, for that product isn’t a big deal, why would spending $1,000 for a product that lasts ten years?
David Magda - 30 April '09 - 22:33
I just bought this chair a few weeks ago:[[http://www.staples.com/office/supplies..]]
I’ve had the same chair for years but had to get a new one for back issues. It has three adjustments: up/down, rock back/forward, lumbar/push forward or back. The last one is the one that really helps if you have back problems because it forces you to sit up straight. It is the only one I found with as much adjustability for the price.
Derek Crudgington (Email) (URL) - 01 May '09 - 16:02
My experience in cars, at least, has been the more “ergonomic” the seat, the worse it is for my back. I think my back must be relatively flat, because anything with lots of lumbar support makes my lower back hurt in no time. I find “ergonomic” is usually code for “a big wad of padding stuffed against your lower back.”David Brodbeck (Email) - 01 May '09 - 16:53
Hmmm, that URL really needed the trailing / to work:[[http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/..]]
Richard Kunert - 03 May '09 - 03:43
Wacky preview function :)The Aeron pretty much requires the optional PostureFit lumbar support. The standard lumbar support is pretty uncomfortable. Also, the chair comes in 3 sizes, you must get the correct one.
My wife and I have Aerons at work but recently bought these for home:
[[http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/..]]
I hated to buy Chinese made chairs rather than American but these are very comfortable, very adjustable and only $300.
Richard Kunert - 03 May '09 - 03:55
I’ve got an Aeron. I got a great deal on it during the dot-com bust, so it didn’t cost me a lot. I had one while working for an Internet company, and I fell in love, so I bought one of my own.I really like that the surface is non-foam, so it doesn’t hold stains and smells like most other chairs. It’s also super comfortable. I bought my mother one as well since she has lots of back problems and she loves it.
You do spend a lot of time in your chair, so it makes sense to get one that works for you, whether it’s $1000 or $10. Aerons are quality chairs, mine has lasted 8 years so far, and it’s still in the same shape I bought it in.
Tony - 03 May '09 - 19:44
How much do you spend of your life in that chair? In my case… a LOT. Worst stretch I experienced was when we had a massive malfunction situation at work, the kind of disaster you never wanna see. 32 hours straight (with minimal pauses) in that chair repairing and fixing – and I could still get up and walk home after.So yeah, my chair costs over $1000 and it was worth every darn cent, I bought the identical one to use at home even.
Screens? Well, one 30 inch and two 20 inchers next to it. Increases productivity and is much much nicer to work on.
Quality is never a bad idea if the money is available. Cheap crap will always be cheap crap and prone to breakage or just not letting you work optimally.
Croft (Email) - 04 May '09 - 17:57
Ben,Get the Aeron, you’ll thank yourself many times over, long after the sticker shock has faded. Mine came from a dot-bomb, and has held up well for almost 10 years already. Very nice for 8, 9, 10+ hour days of sitting at the keyboard, and not that bad at 28+ hours trying to get a remote server put back together. They are comfortable, and they last. Do it! You’ll be glad you did.
Actually, you may not. After Tamarah tries it, you may have to get two!
Gene Beaird (Email) - 06 May '09 - 13:45
I don’t think I’ll ever own an Aeron chair, no matter how comfortable they are. Sticker shock aside, I’d have to ask myself, “Am I that guy? The guy who buys a trendy chair worshipped by self-important dot.com-ers?”This is also why I will never own a BMW.
David Brodbeck (Email) - 06 May '09 - 17:31
“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler,” said Einstein, and its decent advice. Workplace is important, but shirk toys, and know that there are often stellar deals on premium gear.My own environment:
Fantastic uber-minimal Hon L-desk: craigslist, $160.
Humanscale Freedom chair: ebay, $270 shipped.
HP LP2465 24” monitor: ebay, $260 shipped.
Viewsonic VX2025WM 20.1” monitor, in vertical layout: old, $280.
Tyke Quad Monitor Arms (upper pair of arms for speakers1): $100.
Energy RC10 Speakers: $300 shipped.
Sonic Impact T-Amp: $50 shipped.
Razer Lachesis mouse: $60.
I have one desktop, a mid-tower colo, and the original netbook a fujitus p1120, all scrounged together and progressively upgraded on the cheap. The one conveyance to luxury is the AMD 4870×2, after years of living off the most value oriented gaming video cards I could purchase (Geforce SDR, Ti4200, & 7950GT). I’ll spend whatever it takes to get good gear that will last me a long time, but I try to do it wisely and with the intention to use it for a long long time.
Dont buy aerons, they’re crappy phenomenally overpriced plastic toys. Buy yourself a real chair.
[1] picture of desktop [[http://thefowle.livejournal.com/381368..]]
rektide@voodoowarez.com (Email) (URL) - 24 May '09 - 01:20
It probably says something about me that my comment concerns keyboards, not chairs.Have you looked at the Sun Type 7 country kit? (X3738A) The new keyboard is essentially a Type 5 keyboard with a USB interface, and it’s a vast improvement over the lousy Type 6.
Zac Stevens (Email) - 07 June '09 - 23:56
World is revolving fast man especially the tecnology field today you have type 7 today 8 will come out tomorrow the best option would be to keep devices relevant top your workpaper shredder (Email) (URL) - 27 June '09 - 05:05
what will you say , if i tell you that my monthly salary is less than 100$i’m a UNIX Solaris Sysadmin
i’m no kidding
buying a chair like yours is extravagance for me
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