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Computer Office Desks: Purchasing First-Class Computer Desks For Your Work Area

Many of us spend so much time focusing on finding the best ergonomic task chair, but never seem to stop to consider our computer office desks - which are half the equation. Before you buy your next computer desk, read on for what to look for in a quality desk and suggestions on some of the better ergonomic desk solutions available today.

Cable Storage

If you own a computer, you know that all the wires and cables running from your peripherals to the actual computer can be a major eyesore, disorganized mess, and walking hazard. Good computer office desks provide a solution for this - a few holes in the back of the desk that are designed for weaving cables through, to direct them back and up through the desk rather than scattered across your work surface. So, avoid a tangle of wires and look for a desk with pre-designed cabling solutions.

Tuck it Away

Rather than having your desktop tower, CDs, printers and other peripheral devices all out in the open and cluttering your workspace, seek a computer desk that has the storage capacity to tuck it all away. While an open-concept desk may seem like a good idea, you'll soon find your work surface overrun with wiring, papers, files and print cartridges. To keep a clean desk, look for a desk with specific computer and file storage drawers or cabinets.

Posture Perfect

The most important factor when purchasing a new computer desk is to make sure that it properly fits for your planned usage. To be ergonomically correct, you should be able to sit at the desk with your feet flat on the floor and reach the work surface area comfortable. If you like to occasionally cross your legs (which you shouldn't do), make sure you have room to do so. Plan ahead and bring your ideal desk measurements with you before you go shopping.

Desks That Fit the Bill

The "Sit to Stand Desk" - Made by Relax the Back

The Sit to Stand Desk is expensive (almost $1700), but may be well worth it for those suffering from back pain caused by hunching over their desks all day. This desk has a built-in motor and easy controls that allow you to raise or lower it from 25 to 52 inches - making it great for shorter individuals who want to sit or very tall individuals who prefer to stand. By standing for part of your workday, you take stress off your back and alleviate those painful work muscles. This desk also comes with cable passes and optional storage cabinets.

Airtouch - Made by Steelcase

The Airtouch is another of the computer office desks designed as a light workstation solution that's height adjustable. However, it lacks storage, making it either a great desk for a laptop user or someone willing to invest in additional storage. The desk is reasonably priced, well-designed and is also certified for indoor air quality - that means the glues and materials used in its construction are carcinogen-free.

About the Author

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Big Man Chair
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How do I set up lab of 40 computers on 2 campuses located 5km apart?This is for a school project?

Each lab should have 40 computers connected to a network. An additional machine will be used as a server. It is expected that both campuses will be connected to facilitate remote queries. Assignments/grades will be posted for student viewing only. Sharing of workstation files are required. Laptops with wireless LAN to connect to network. Lecturers will be able to have class over LAN with AV presentation. printing will be at the server location. UPS at both sites. Lab should have all conduits in place. A proposal is to be presented for equipping these labs to meet the requirements.

How do I set up lab of 40 computers on 2 campuses located 5km apart?This is for a school project?
Each lab should have 40 computers connected to a network.

First I'm not a professional but since at the time I started this answer no one replied I'll offer what info I know.

Q: Are these actually full functional computers like regular desktops or laptops or are they merely dummy terminals which send their requests through the main server ?

If they are terminals (dummies) then route them all through the main server which handles all the processing.

If they are individual computers then they each handle their own processing and only need server (and likely internet) access.
Depending on your budget and preference, but you'll likely use ethernet to hardwire each desktop computer into the local network by using routers and or switches.

A router is a device that can split one internet and or server feed [data to and from ] into many different computers. (Just like a wireless router except a normal router has wires).
The cable is called ethernet cable and it plugs into your nic card, aka network interface card.

Allowing the computers from one lab to another lab for communications should be done over the internet.

If security and access are issues then you may want to route all lab computers to go through the main server which then contacts the other main server.
The servers can be setup to only allow access from certain machines/IP's, etc.
There are many software and hardware (firewalls for example) settings that help do this.

Allowing students to access view of grades [or their projects] is handled easily enough by storing the grades/student info in a database. If you want students to only be able to view their own grades/records then give each student a password and login ID. If you allow any student to view any other student's info then they all can have the same login info/password.

If you want to allow students to be able to access this information via the net from any computer then it would fairly easy to make a website/web page using MYSQL and PHP to do this.

Your PHP code would control what access the students have, if that's too difficult for you to learn how to do, or you don't have the budget to pay someone to do that (it's not very hard) then you could simply have separate databases one that only stores the 'viewable' grade for the students and not the actual grades used for the teachers. Then disallow student access.

As you can see there are many solutions to each problem so you really should think about this in more detail before you commit to any one solution.

One of the best and most common and inexpensive databases to use is MYSQL.

Sharing of work files is solved because you're on the local and remote network already.

You only really need to choose what means of file transfer you'll use.
Which software product or to use a built in method, depending on OS of choice.

For example Mac OS X has ftp, sftp SSH, and probably other means built in for file transferring, or remote login/control built in.
Also, OS X comes with the ability to be a web server via Apache, one of the most of the most widely used web serving software around.

Personally I'd stay away from running Windows or Linux. Windows because it's not very secure and Linux because it isn't very user friendly.
Mac OS X is built upon Unix which means it's completely reliable and professional grade. The Mac GUI (Graphic User Interface) is very user friendly while running Unix under the hood.

It doesn't sound like students should be able to access other students projects at all, or at least directly because this could lead to problems.
(malicious students doing harm to other student projects, students copying/cheating from other students projects,etc.)

OS X is a multiuser operating system where each user can setup his/her own accounts on the same machine and their projects would be 'protected' from other users who don't have the account/password.
Files are protected by permissions.

This makes multiple users sharing the same computer for completely different projects easy and efficient.
Since this is a lab setting I assume there will be more than one class, or one student per machine.

Another strong point to NOT use Windows is because of the lack of security and Window's major vulnerability to viruses and other problems.

Don't take my word for it, take Microsoft's [the maker of Windows] word for it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/microsoftfinds60infectionrateinpcs

Here's a snippet of that article.

"icrosoft scanned the PCs of 5.7 million consumers and small-business owners who used its free scanning tool from January 2005 through March 2006. It found:

• At least one "backdoor Trojan" - malicious computer code sneaked onto PCs - on 3.5 million computers, 62% of those scanned; most functioned as bots communicating over a private messaging channel to a controller.

• About 20% of the PCs checked during one period had been cleaned, then re-infected, most often with a different kind of bot.

• About 35% of the bots were implanted when victims opened attachments sent via e-mail, instant messages or peer-to-peer websites that share data files. Most of the rest spread with no action by the victim required."

Just imagine your administrator for your schools having to constantly deal with problems due to Window's Vulnerability.

No thanks.

Also, all the new Macs have the ability to not only run OS X (the Mac OS) but also Windows if you ever need to, or for whatever reason your school decides to switch operating systems. (Macs can also run various flavors of Linux so I hear).

A 'PC' can't do that. The term PC actually means personal computer but most people misuse the term to mean 'a personal computer that runs Windows'.

Give Apple and Mac a look, they offer many different machines, including eMacs which are designed for schools/educational use.

Depending on budget I like the mac mini's with an LCD screen or an iMac with a built in LCD screen.

If you need tons of power (which you likely won't) then you'll want something with a little more juice, like a very powerful powermac but I suspect you really won't need that kind of power.

Http://www.Apple.com/hardware

Regarding your server needs, if your server's main use is what you're telling me, just simply file sharing to approx. 80 students then just about any new computer should be able to handle that, assuming you get enough storage (hard drive space).

Serving doesn't take much processing power at all in most cases, and only when you have many thousands of concurrent users would you need a high end machine like a powermac or Xserve.

For what it's worth, many people are successfully using Apple's Mac mini's as their business and personal web servers.

For administrative uses you'll definitely want to buy Apple's Remote Desktop 3, unlimited.
Here's a link for you to read about it.
http://www.apple.com/remotedesktop/

The bottom line in choosing is this :

Mac's are far better than anything else on the market, they MIGHT initially cost you a tiny bit more than a Windows or Linux system up front but you end up saving tons of more money the longer you use them because you don't have all the other problems that Windows and even Linux will give you thus you greatly reduce the time spent for administration; the headache of fixing users computers, the downtime from various viruses/worms,etc.
Your students will also be more efficient as the MAC OS is easier to learn and use.

Regarding your AV lectures, again Mac OS X to the rescue.

Read about Mac OS X's quicktime streaming server and quicktime broadcaster.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/broadcaster/
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/streamingserver/

Printing at the server location is not a problem.

You should really spend a lot of time reading about what Mac OS X can do.

A proposal is to be presented for equipping these labs to meet the requirements.

Whoever is to make this proposal needs to do their homework and if time is limited you need to seek an experienced person.

I've given you tons of good info and that's a great start, reading through Apple's website should answer almost all of your needs/questions.

Apple also has a free tech/posting forum where you can ask other experienced users for about the Apple products specifically in real world uses.

Tell them what you're needing to do and learn from what they say.

http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

Btw, I don't work for Apple but I've used Apple computers on and off since the 1980's.

After you do your homework and make your decision please let me know what you've chosen and how it goes.

HTH.

Dell is latest to unveil 'zero client' hardware for VDI
Jumping on the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) bandwagon, Dell Inc. today announced its first "zero client" device aimed at large enterprises.

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