Introduction
In June 2011, we decided to give the home office a radical change. Previously, we had black & orange vlees wallpapers. But those are colors you get rid off way too fast. On flickr, we saw a great home office photo with a grey wall and white furnitures. We looked at it pretty often and liked the idea. So we went to the next IKEA and bought some new white furnitures and some grey color and started to remove the wallpaper the next day. Of course, we had to paint the complete room in white before we started to paint the main parts grey.
Present time
In January 2012, we don’t wanted to change much, we just got a bit rid of the same arrangement over the months. We also wanted a bit more freedom in the back.
My desk is on the right side. I’ve mounted 2 Ergotron LX arms on a 2×2 Expedit which is placed behind the Galant glass desk. Both screens are HP ZR24w models, one connected via DVI and the other one via DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort to my Mac Pro. Below the screens sits my MacBook Air (13″ 2011 model) and 2 of my favorite Animé figures (Sasasegawa Sasami & Ikki Tousen). The iPad on the left is connected to the BlueTooth keyboard which is placed in front of it. I use it mostly to watch YouTube videos (keeps my desktop a bit cleaner) or to keep an eye on my servers via SSH and the magical saidar. Oh the black little box next to the iPad is my great Kindle! What an awesome device. On the HP wireless printer/scanner lays another Animé figure, but more on her later.
Sojas desk is on the left – she now also uses one of our 3 HP 24″ screens and so far she seems to be pretty happy with it 
We also mounted a Ergotron LX arm for flexibility. She uses her MacBook white and her iPad to work on her blog.
The next photo shows the cat scratch tree. Willow loves it and often sleeps on the top platform when I work on my computer at the weekend or late night. The blinds are very useful in the summer, but are looking nice in the winter as well. A new carpet was one of the rare things we bought last week to make the home office more comfortable. Willow is a bit scared of it and always walks around it, but that’s just a matter of time
The other wall is covered by 3 wall scrolls – a kind of poster, printed on a textile – and of course, all prints are Animé figures. On the bottom of the Lack rack (on the left) you can see 2 Onnto DataTales, external RAID devices, which started to pop out HDs randomly. Meanwhile I’ve installed a dedicated backup server (based on Debian) which contains a 6TB RAID5 array – secure enough for backups. On top of the 2 horizontal Expedits you will find some more of our figures and some plants.
The other wall is covered with more decorative stuff and my 4 certificates that I’ve reached in the last few months. LPIC-1, 2 Novell Certificates and a Microsoft Certified Professional one.
Some detailed Animé figure photos
Steel Angel Kurumi. Kurumi, Saki & Karinka. Very hard to find – took them 4 weeks to ship from Australia to Germany and better don’t ask for the price we paid!
K-On! A huge Mio and 3 Nendoroid Petit in front – so cute!
A-Channel. Tooru & Run. Got them both for christmas last year from my wife – what a great present 
Seitokai no Ichizon (most left & most right), Hatsune Miku Nendoroid on the drums and Toko Amano Nendoroid.
To Heart 2. Nanako-Chan Sukumize. I saw this cute figure on eBay and again and again I watched the auction and I knew I HAD to buy her. She’s 1/5 – much bigger than our other figures, but well – she’s so cute that she got a special place. The calendar you can see is self collected and edit by my wife – a lot kawaii images are inside
To Heart 2. Konomi Yuzuhara. She sits on my wifes desk and looks what she does when she’s working.
To-Love-Ru. Sairenji Haruna came in two different christmas versions. Very nice for the living room in the pre-christmas time. And of course you see Belldandy “Fighting Wings” and my other Kurumi figure in the background.
Computers
My Workstation
| Name | Kurumi くるみ |
| Model | Mac Pro 2010 |
| CPU | Intel Xeon 2.8GHz |
| Memory | 16GB DDR3 ECC Regged RAM |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon HD5770 |
| Screen | 2x 24″ HP ZR24w @ 1920×1200 |
| SSD | 240GB OCZ Agility E |
| OS | Mac OS X Lion |
| Accessories | Logitech 2.1 Speakers APC UPS CS500 |
Sojas MacBook
| Name | Miku 初音ミク |
| Model | MacBook white “Late 2009″ |
| CPU | Intel Core2Duo 2,26GHz |
| Memory | 8GB DDR3 RAM |
| Graphics | nVidia GeForce 9400M |
| Screen | 13.3″ LED display @ 1280×800 |
| SSD | 80GB Intel X25-M SSD |
| OS | Mac OS X Lion |
| Accessories | Fujitsu ScanSnap Logitech 2.1 Speakers |
My MacBook
| Name | Nyu にゅう |
| Model | MacBook Air “mid 2011″ |
| CPU | Intel Core i5 1,7GHz + HT |
| Memory | 4GB DDR3 RAM |
| Graphics | Intel HD3000 |
| Screen | 13.3″ LED display @ 1440×900 |
| SSD | 128GB Apple SSD |
| OS | Mac OS X Lion |
Computers in the basement
ESXi & Fileserver (click here for a diagram)
| Name | Risu リス |
| Model | Self build |
| Case | Chieftec Bravo Big Tower (black) |
| CPU | Intel Xeon E3-1230 3.2GHz QuadCore + HT |
| Memory | 16GB DDR3 ECC RAM |
| Mainboard | SuperMicro X9SCM-F |
| Graphics | onboard Matrox/IPMI 2.0 |
| Controller | 2x LSI 3081E-R (Intel SASUC8i brand) |
| Expander | HP SAS Expander | Storage |
3x 640GB WD on RAID10e 6x 1TB WD/Hitachi 6x 1.5TB WD/Samsung |
| Network | 2x Intel GBit onboard 1x Intel GBit PCIe x1 1x IPMI RJ45 Port |
| PSU | CoolerMaster GX 550W |
| OS | ESXi |
| Accessories | APC UPS RS800 NETIO LAN power bar Compaq KVM Switch 4x |
| Name | Hotaru ほたる |
| Model | Self build |
| Case | Chieftec Mesh Midi |
| CPU | AMD Athlon X2 245e |
| Memory | 6GB DDR3 ECC RAM |
| Mainboard | Asus |
| Graphics | onboard | Storage |
1x 160GB WD 6x 1TB Hitachi |
| Network | 1x Intel GBit PCIe x1 1x DualPort GBit PCI-X |
| OS | Debian |
Computer in the living room
Gateway (see “The Gateway Project“)
| Name | Mumble |
| Model | Fujitsu-Siemens Futro |
| CPU | Transmeta 800MHz |
| Memory | 256MB DDR |
| Graphics | no idea Some onboard stuff that is fine for running a terminal |
| Screen | none |
| Storage | 2GB IDE SSD |
| OS | Debian Squeeze |
| Accessories | WH1080 Weather station |
| Power Usage | max. 15W |
In the basement, the servers are working. The big black box is the ESXi server which hosts the fileserver, a web server (http://wetter.klein2.net) and some internal used VMs like a virtual VCR for HD TV (Sat DVB-S2). The grey one behind the ESXi is Hotaru, the backup server. In the rack is currently no running server, but the massive (weight) APC RS800 UPS and a 4 port Compaq KVM switch.
Both Futro boxes. The top one is my gateway & weather station data collector while the bottom one will become the new router once I will find some time to install pfSense onto the 2GB IDE SSD.
