Skip to main content

Why you should pay attention to your home office’s décor

Blog provided by Wicker Paradise

Have you decided to take on the work-from-home lifestyle? Doing remote work has a number of positive benefits, but also some unique challenges associated with it. In a survey for Buffer’s 2019 State of Remote Work report, work-from-home employees described some of their biggest struggles, including unplugging after work, loneliness, distractions at home, and staying motivated. These problems may be inherently tied to the remote work environment, but there are things you can do to overcome them.

One thing you can do to keep yourself motivated while working at home is making your office environment more comfortable and welcoming so that you feel more motivated to start work every day. We can expect a dull, suffocating office building to amplify employees’ stress and put them in a negative mental state. The same is true for your workplace at home.

If you don’t look forward to working at your home office, it’s important to choose furniture and décor that looks aesthetically pleasing and puts your mind at ease. Make sure your furniture and decorations are arranged in a way that’s eye-catching, but not distracting. Since you’re not working at a traditional office, you have the freedom to choose unique furniture styles and arrangements.

Wicker furniture is one furniture style you might want to try implementing in your home office. Wicker Paradise has a robust collection of indoor and outdoor wicker furniture sets for use in living rooms, bedrooms, patios, and home offices. Browse through their wares to find something perfect for your workplace at home.

An intro to data center cooling

Summary: Modern data centers are complex systems that mostly use cold and hot aisles to cool equipment. The recommendation is to maintain a temperature of at least 70 to 75 degrees although Google now runs its servers at 80 degrees.

The modern data center is a remarkably complex system that runs hundreds of thousands of servers. Keeping the running efficiently and safely requires maintaining the correct temperature at all times. Any drastic increase in temperature can cause the formation of condensation which can lead to moisture and damage to the equipment.

Most data centers place racks in a particular method to form cooling corridors. Cold air runs along the intake of the servers which is usually on the front and extract the hot air from the rear. It is important to maintain proper rack hygiene and avoid hot leaking to the cold intake lane.

There is a recommendation to maintain a temperature of between 70 and 75 degrees in data centers to prevent any issues. However, there are some studies to show that 70 and below might be a waste of energy. The only reason to maintain a lower temperature is if the latency to backup cooling is high.

Companies like Google maintain servers at 80 degrees and others are now following suit. However, it is important to note that this is only applicable to large data centers and to the expected life times of the equipment.

Basic data center cooling infrastructure

The data centers that power all the cloud services that you use contain thousands or sometimes even tens of thousands of servers. All these servers, the network switches that connect them to the internet and the UPS systems that keep them powered generate a lot of heat. All of this heat needs to be removed as quickly as possible. An increase by as much as eight degrees in ambient temperature in the room can trigger an automatic shutdown. This is where data center cooling comes in.

Data center cooling equipment is physically located in the same space as the equipment it cools. How the air gets to the server and how that air is expelled vary from installation to installation. The most popular method now is to use ducts to send cool air out from directly underneath the front of the servers. This works because IT equipment airflow starts at the front and goes out at the back.

Another take on this method is to only cool the area immediately in front of the racks. This is done by placing two rows of racks facing each other w\ith cooling coming from adjustable vents from the floor of the corridor. The two racks are then enclosed so that no cool air gets out. The hot air exits the back of the servers. This has another advantage.  In the event of an a/c failure, a rental portable air conditioner can be used in each of these enclosed rack sets, rather than trying to cool an entire data center space.

This is just one of the many ways basic data center cooling infrastructure works.

How to Buy a Safe for the Home

Purchasing a safe for the home isn’t quite as simple as it might appear. It’s important to understand that safes can have several different ratings related to tool resistance, fire resistance, and construction. The common safe found in sporting goods stores is actually termed a “residential security container” and lacks many of high security safes.

Some safes have a burglary rating. As an example, tl 30 safes are rated against the use of common hand tool, drill, punches, and hammers for a period of 30 minutes. A safe of this rating must also be constructed of 1-inch solid steel.

The most important step is to determine your needs and budget. Are you interested in protecting firearms, jewelry, documents, magnetic media, photos, or cash? Certain types of safes are more appropriate for a particular purpose. A safe designed for firearms wouldn’t be the best choice for protecting photos.

What is your budget? Safes can range from less than $100 to well over $50,000. How much can you afford? How much are the items you want to protect actually worth? Determine a price range and limit your search to safes that fit your budget.

During your search, you’ll undoubtedly find many used safes for sale. While it’s possible to find a bargain, consumers should be cautious. It’s challenging to accurately determine what you’re getting. Most importantly, find a safe that fits your needs and budget.

Benefits of portable air conditioners

 

2There are some situations under which we can’t install window or split unit air conditioners. Sometime we are not allowed to due to homeowners or lease agreements. Other times there are issues of access and location. The answer is to use a portable air conditioner. Here are a few benefits of these portable units:

Portability

In a situation where putting a window air conditioner in is not allowed, this is the perfect solution. You can have as many as you want without any protrusions from the house. In addition you can place them anywhere in your home. This way you can take the cooling to where it is need the most, when it is needed.

Size

These units are perfect for smaller spaces. In addition, in these smaller spaces, lighting and window space can be at a premium. In that case, even if you were allowed to install a Window unit, you would probably like to avoid it.

Installation

Portable air conditioners are very quick and easy to install. On top of that, they are also non-permanent, so even removal is fast.

Spot Cooling

Even in places where there is central air conditioning, portable units have proven to be useful. Central a/c can be very expensive to run, so a couple of portable units to spot cool specific areas can be a lot more economical.

 

Setting up a Plex environment at home

techicatedThere are many people that buy their movies. This can be either DVD’s or Bluray discs. The problem is when you want to watch a movie, you have to find the disc, put it in the player. In some cases you even need to change discs when the movie has more than one. This gets worse when you have hundreds of movies. There is however an easy way around this problem, and that is to convert your entire library into digital files and then you can stream it. One way to do it is to setup a plex environment at home:

Plex

The first thing you will need is a computer with storage to function as the plex media server. This is what will convert and stream your video to any device in your house. Once you add videos, it will download the cover art, and category information automatically.

Rip

Now you will need to rip the video and audio from the entire library. This is usually the most painful and time consuming part. There are plenty of tools that will do this for you. You insert the disc and it will do the extraction and conversion. Power users can even change the settings so that they get bigger files and a little more quality.

Targets

Now that you have a full digital movie library you can figure out where you want to watch these movies. Smartphones and tablets are covered with the plex apps. Newer televisions will come with smart software which will allow you to install the plex app on it. Alternatively if you are comfortable with browsing the library on the phone you can use Chromecasts and cast video directly to your TV.