Laptop Desk

Ned Bulken

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Lakeport NY and/or the nearest hotel
I have a Dell laptop for my work computer, and every night I have to send data to our servers at HQ. Physically that means connecting a Cat-6 cable to the laptop, or using the wireless connection which is about half the speed. Well, after a year, my laptop's socket for the cat-6 has failed. I just got off the phone with the Help-desk at HQ, and discovered that a) my computer is no longer under the 'fix it now' in the field contract, and b) that while they'd be perfectly happy for me to get it fixed, what other options do I have.

The wireless connection works, but it is much slower than a wired connection, so I ultimately want to hook in that way. I really don't want to lose time for them to get me another laptop, so here's what I'm going to do. The van I work out of was originally set up for a team of 2 researchers, there are two docking stations on my desk, one which has several monitors hooked into it (one large flat screen at the main station up front, plus a remote over the windshield so I can track my location when I'm driving (my large GPS screen I call it), plus the laptop itself), and a second smaller unit which is 'vacant' since I use the van solo.
I'm going to borrow that second docking station and use it to replicate the ports at the house.

Here's where all of this gets interesting woodworking wise.

I now get to build myself a desk to hold the port replicator, going to have to see if I can find a swivel mechanism. I'd like to have the laptop swing over my easy chair in the living room, that way when I'm done with work at night, I can push it out of the way and let it do it's thing while I'm out in the shop. :D;)
 
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