Blade Edge

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

Well I almost managed to get everything done tonight that I wanted to get done. I didn’t even start tweaking out XP yet, because after I finished my maintenence (see previous entry) I got down and dirty (literally – there’s sooo much dust in my room) and reorganized my desk and wiring to account for the new laptop, as well as for some other items I shall be adding in the future. Yep, I have a grand plan in mind here – must be prepared for the future .

So I’ve decided that my old laptop will be a file server, whereas my Aunt’s old desktop I’ll make into a media server. I saw a review of #1 DVD Ripper in MaximumPC’s most recent issue and with that in hand I shall go forth and copy my DVDs onto hard drive for streaming. It’s only got a meager 20 or so gig hard drive in there now but with hard drives costing only like a buck a gig these days, my storage woes shall be short lived indeed. Farther into the future (probably not until the end of this year) this’ll hook up to my 37″ TV (dunno exactly what kind yet – I only know that’s the biggest screen I can fit in my room).

So anyways here are some pics:

Just an establishing shot – the overall architecture 😛

Closer look and a peek under – I moved the subwoofer over to the right for better sound – it was thumping into the wood and wall on the left and the bass wasn’t getting out as well as it could.

Yep, all set up with dual monitor output courtesy of ATI’s HydraVision. MaximumPC to the rescue again letting me put up two desktop images.

I now need two power strips to feed juice to all the crap I have. Awright!! The empty socket on the right strip is there for a reason – that’s where my KDS CD storage tower will go when it gets here this week

I’ll be using this hub and XP’s internet sharing to give the old laptop and desktop some limited connection to the net to install updates and whatnot. Other than that of course it’s needed for the file/media sharing. Right now it’s just hooked up to the laptops, but an ethernet card from Ebay ($6!) is arriving in the mail soon for the desktop.

Yup, there’s the old girl in her place of rest. I’ll have to take her out over the weekend to reformat her, and then she’s going back there to stay

The laptop serves also to hide the mess of cables behind it. Those are two stacked Belkin hubs. I needed the extra ports for my new KDS CD tower. Ironically when I build my new desktop I’ll prob have enough ports in the thing to not even need a hub. Go figure.

So yea. My other plans include getting a second 172x, which will go in the empty space to the right of the laptop. In the short term it’ll be the output monitor for the old laptop and desktop via a KVM switch (also with the keyboard and mouse on the tray below the desk). In the long run however when I build my new desktop (probably not until after the summmer) I will use both monitors for the new desktop and keep my laptop as a single monitor – possibly use MaxiVista to make it a third monitor.

So hopefully in a year and a half I’ll have everything I want. Not a bad timescale.