I’ve been neglecting my blog for quite a while now. Super busy with work, and all that jazz.

But I guess the highlight of me being incommunicado would be my forced “revamping” of my room/work area.

It all started when my airconditioner (a/c) of 48 years ¹ In truth, I’ve had it since grade-school finally died. Since I didn’t really want to have to think too much about what new one I should get, I asked my brother in law about it. ² since their family business is installing air conditioners on an industrial/enterprise scale I simply asked what was best for my room assuming 24/7 operation and energy efficiency.

This is what he told me to get:

It’s a 1 horsepower (comparable to a 1.5hp window-type) Samsung split-type inverter powered a/c. Which, as of now, has the highest energy savings rating (I last time I checked it was 60%)

You may be asking what that has to do with me re-arranging my work area, here’s the deal:

There’s a long glass table in our living room which used to be Dad’s “manager’s table” before he retired. I’ve always wanted to use it but couldn’t because it would block the [window-type] a/c then. So I had to settle with tiyr standard office table.

Now that I was using a split-type… that naturally meant that the area the window-type used to take up was now free to be… er… “obstructed.” 😉 So I swapped the two tables, and ultimately came up with this:

On the previous table, most of the wires would run through its opaque back, so all I had to worry about was when they would hit the floor. Getting something like a cable box was enough for those times. But the new table forced me to re-think my cable-management strategy as everything was now transparent (i.e. you can see the cables running through the back as well as the floor).

Here are the fruits of my cable-management labor:

Which is quite an accomplishment given the sheer volume of cables invovled. To put things in perspective, here’s the gear that’s connected in this area:

• (2) Monitors
• (3) speakers (L/R/sub)
• (1) Drobo
• (1) USB self-powered hub
• (1) JBL MSC-1
• (1) PC/Tower
• (1) DSL Modem
• (1) Apple Airport Extreme base station
• (1) Landline unit

And those are just power cords… let’s now enumerate data/audio cables included.

• (4) JBL MSC-1 to 3 speakers (L/R/sub), and to the PC’s soundcard
• (2) L/R out from soundcard (Audiophile 192) going to JBL-MSC1 aux in (secondary source)
• (1) Phone line to splitter
• (2) Splitter to DSL modem and landline unit
• (1) Modem to Airport Extreme
• (2) Airport Extreme to PC and wall (to rout ethernet to Dad’s room)
• (1) Drobo to Airport Extreme (USB)
• (1) PC to wireless reciever (mouse/keyboard)

For a total of 26 wires/cables to be ninja’d

Pros

As you can see, everything turned out quite nicely. There were also a bunch of unexpected “perks” that came out of changing the table/workspace layout.

1. Elegant
   Of course, it’s undeniable that glass surfaced tables have this “world-class” look about them which nothing can compete with. To me it sorta has the aesthetic edge when compared to other tables similar to how Apple products compare to regular stuff.

2. More space
   Both length and width of the glass table was bigger than the previous one… but thanks to the way its frame was constructed, I could afford to move it back till it was practically flush to the wall ³ The old table required some allowance for cable-management and accessibility. This surprisingly had the effect of giving me more free floor space than I had with the older table.

3. Easier to do some jiggery-pokery
   Because of the glass surface, as well as the table base’s “open design,” it’s much easier to make adjustments without having to move the table. It’s also easier to eyeball and evaluate what’s going on under the table before you fiddle with anything.

4. Foot rest
   I liked the fact that one of table base’s beams was perfect for putting your feet on. Kinda like a built-in foot rest if you ask me.

5. Air flow
   It just so happened that all of the “heat-critical” equipment is now located to the left (Drobo, Airport Extreme, DSL Modem, and CPU) – exactly where the air from the a/c tends to hit first once it drops from the ceiling. Every bit helps when you’re running these sorts of things 24/7. Again, the table base’s being open made the flow of air better even at the bottom. Not like it was ever an issue, but at least I can be sure that even the power adaptors [hopefully] won’t overheat.

6. Cleaning
   Cleaning the areas with lots of wires was always a bitch to do – to the point that I usually just leave it alone. But now that it’s really organized and clean, there are very few (if any) wires running amuck. And because of point #2, sticking a vacuum cleaner in there and going to town on would be a piece of cake.

That, my friends, is what you call foresight 😉

Cons

There’s only one drawback I noticed from this setup; glass surfaces do not play well with optical mice.

But I didn’t want to have to use a mousepad as it would wreck the aesthetics. So, to “elegantly” solve this issue, I chose to make a “permanent” opaque area where the mouse is usually located/operated by using one of those self-adhering surface laminates (similar to the decorative vinyl for glass I used to make my DIY wrist rugs – only that they’re now opaque)

This was a much better solution as you could arbitrarily decide the size of the area you want “mouse-able” instead of getting a mouse pad and moving it around ⁴ Because those darn things are almost always too small – which in turn, allows me to have more freedom of positioning myself on the table without having to worry if my right wrist would fall in a “mouse-able” location. That, and it’s super thin (being a surface laminate) – so it’s seamless where the glass stops and the laminate starts.

Having said that, I plan to apply this on my clothing cabinet as well 😉