Technology and Productivity
I have found that the most productive computer for me in day to day use is actually an old fashioned desktop computer.
This gives me two important things:-
1) Performance and 2) Multi-Monitor support.
This ageing Desktop Dual Core Dell Precision Workstation is more than capable of managing my daily business needs. The specification is modest by today’s standards.
On this PC I have all the various accounts and settings required to manage services for my clients. From e-mail Catch Alls/ to FTP website access and VPN remote access to customer sites.
So when I am office bound I have access to everything I need. The multi-monitor is the real big productivity boost.
Then when I go out on the road, I have a laptop equipped with Vodafone 3g Mobile broadband and I securely tunnel (VPN) back into the Office based PC and carry on working as normal.
This has been really useful in the following scenarios:-
1) I arrive early for a client meeting, I just open my laptop, connect and carry on working on the PC back at the office. There is always something to do.
2) I am out of the office and need to carry out remote VPN support on a clients site. All the configuration settings are on the Office PC, so I connect to that first from the current location then tunnel back out to the client site but over my Office Broadband (so bandwidth is never an issue).
Me > VPN to Office > Office VPN to remote Site.
This sounds like a long way round but in reality it works perfectly. The major benefit being I don’t have to worry about configuring VPN clients and I can utilise a dedicated broadband connection and not eat into my 3g data allowance as I only have a VPN/Remote Desktop session going one way.
So I have bridged the gap between being in the office and out in the world as I technically use the same computer at all times.
I could achieve this with a powerful laptop and have gone down this path before but having worked in this mode for a few months this is definitely the way to go.
