Post Christmas Sales.

We timed our move into our new house well. We were in need of purchasing quite a number of items (some required, some just geeky fun toys). We had held out quite a bit over the past year, so it was time to do a bit of splurging. With the post-Christmas sales well under way (and most now continuing throughout all of January) we've managed to get some good prices on a number of items.

Over the weekend it was a 2nd couch, as well as a new office desk for me (a nice 2nd-hand desk that looks brand new!)

The couch will take 6 weeks to make (in the fabric/colours of our choosing -- so we'll see that come the end of February.

The desk is pretty neat, it's the equivalent of two desks side by side, so two people could work comfortably on it... however, it's also the perfect desk for a decent multi-monitor set-up, room for my work lappy, and a range of other gadgets to be within arms reach. The desk is 2100cm wide by 900cm deep. It even came with a matching 3-drawer mobile pedestal, which I'm sure I'll only fill with junk eventually It's the perfect height too to place (eventually) a nice networked laser printer on top of.

We already have a Lexmark c534dn, though it's in Pauline's office (up the other end of the house). I won't need anything near as flash, and a monochrome duplex networked laser printer will do fine (any tips on one that works well with Linux is welcome - none of those crazy MFPs please!)
Current thinking has me looking at a HP LaserJet (which model -- I don't know).

I will take some photos in the next few days so show the layout. It really is a fantastic desk and I'm really happy with the result. (It's amazing it's 2nd-hand, you would think it's new; no scratches, bumps/dents, or even chips out of it). It had a few stickers, but a quick wipe with some Jiff and it's as good as new.

Whilst setting up my new office, I took the liberty to purchase a decent wall mounted whiteboard (1200mmx900mm). Now that's up and in place, it's feeling like a work environment. I still have to hang pictures on the wall, but I'll get to that over the next week (I have to hang the majority of them around the house - to date I've only got the wall clocks up!). Pauline must be thankful now we both have our own offices (I'm sure I drove her made with my MP3s, and leg shaking antics!). Luckily we use Asterisk and Snom VOIP phones so she's only a call away (too far away to yell out to though in this damn house!)

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That saw us through the weekend. Monday we decided to go purchase a GPS navigation system, (whilst the Nokia Maps on our N95 8GB phone is 'okay' -- the idea of the hefty subscription fees to keep the navigation voice active wasn't too appealing).

Strangely, we didn't get the navigation system (they didn't have it in stock, but at another store). However I did leave with a Surround Sound System (much to Pauline's shock!) The Logitech Z-5500 is a dream. It's the only words I can use to describe it. Hooked up to my MythTV machine, it's just flawless.

This morning I needed to head out and find an alternate broadband solution to ADSL (more on that tomorrow), and picked up our new GPS navigation unit. I settled on a Garmin nüvi 760. It's got a nice FM transmitter (so you can actually hear the directions over your car stereo system), bluetooth (look up address, and ring individual on your bluetooth phone), as well as a handy picture viewer and MP3 player (also able to be transmitted via FM radio). Map-wise it's got the latest maps (2009), and I can apparently get free map updates. (Woot!) One thing I like about the voice navigation, is that it actually tells you the street name not just 'right in 300 metres'. It also has all the school crossings listed (I don't want to skittle a school kid!), as well as informs you of the advertised speed limit (hopefully that saves me tickets!). The unit is much zippier than other makes I've seen on the market and actually quite responsive.

Those that don't know, many of Garmin's products actually run Linux. They have released much of the source code for those products, and are developer friendly. So a little hacking of the little beastie may be in order. They also provide an SDK to write your own apps. (That's neat!). One thing I do like, is I can import Google Maps locations/routes straight to my GPS unit.

So with all these new toys, don't expect me to surface any time soon.