GregHowley.com

Events have conspired recently to make me completely rethink the setup of our home network. Now, I know close to nothing about networking. I've got our two home PCs set up through a router, and we share documents regularly between the PCs, but there's no server.

We've known for a while that Linda wants a laptop. Her current PC (a Dell) is about 4 years old, but it's got a 2.4ghz processor, so it's not a bad machine, and is very upgradable. I've also got an older machine up in a closet (our other Dell) which has a 1.4ghz processor, two 40gb hard drives, two CD drives, and only 256mb of memory. Seems to be an ideal server, with some nice network storage potential.

My plan for that machine had been to set it up as a Linux-based DVR, using Freevo or MythTV, but since we were forced to get DirecTV (no cable wired to where we live) we got the TiVo, and love it. I just wish the DirecTV version of TiVo wasn't such a piece of shit. I'd love to get a TiVo that wasn't a DirecTV TiVo. When we eventually get a HDTV, I want to hook it up to our computers so that I can play internet video on the television. I've seen some stuff on YouTube recently that's really nice, and it would be nice to watch BSG webisodes on a good TV.

This past weekend, Linda's office moved, and they offered us two massive desks, which can be set up in a L-configuration. I would love that. We could clear out that room, make it my PC room, sell Linda's old machine (I imagine $500 wouldn't be unreasonable) and buy her a laptop, so that she'd usually use her PC from the couch. We'd also get a wireless router and set up wifi at home.

On top of all this, my brother Sean called me yesterday, and one of the things we were chatting about was the fact that he needs a computer. I started talking about Vista coming out soon, and DirectX10, and advised him to wait. But he needs the PC for school, although he'd like it for games. If he's gonna spend the money, he should of course get something that's going to do everything he wants it to, and be as future-proof as possible. So I've been considering setting up that PC I've got upstairs for him and shipping it off as a substitute until a product becomes available that would be worth his money. I know that shipping the box might cost $100 or more, and that he'd still have to buy a monitor, but I'm still seriously considering it. My only reservation is that the machine is old at this point, and I'm not sure that it would do the job well enough for him to be worth it.

So tonight, I plan to unhook our computers, clear out the room, and bring the desks in. We'll set up my machine, and then Linda's machine as a temporary until she gets her new laptop. She wants a tablet PC, so she can sketch directly on it. I wonder if Autocad has any tablet-specific features.