Not so expensive way to increase productivity

My desk

A couple years back I managed to get two identical monitors. At 130€ a piece it wasn’t so cheap to get, but now I think it was the best buy in ages.

Since then, my productivity increased 10-fold. That, allied with Windows 7 and Compiz ease of putting windows side by side, gave me the ability to put 4 windows side-by-side allowing me to see all the information that I needed to do my work.

Unfortunately, the main downside is that it takes quite some space from my desk. 2 20 inch screens are quite big! However given that my computer is my main working tool, it’s well worth it!

Retro Look – The clock (Part I)

Retro Clock, without cover

Today’s post is about reusing old parts from broken or otherwise useless things (and it’s my first post in english… lets see how it goes).

I had this electromecanic clock (also known as flip clock) lying around for quite a long time… Never knew what to do with it, but I didn’t want to trow it out as it was still in quite good condition.

Had ‘thousands’ of ideas of what to do with it, but none was good enough. But one day it finally came: Why not add a piece of wood underneath to make it look retro?

Asked a friend of mine (whose father is a carpenter) if he could give me some wood leftovers, and so he kindly did.

After rounding the corners, securing the clock with dual-sided tape (the design isn’t final) and adding a power-cord it was a hit! For me at least.

Plugged into the grid and until now it’s still giving me the correct time!

So… If you have a lot of useless or somewhat broken gadgets around and you’re dead wishing to throw them out thing that you could create something out of it before destroying it and filling the landfills.

Cheers!

BOINC

Faz uma bola saltitona. É também a sigla de um projecto de computação distribuida – Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing.

Quem já não pensou que gostaria de contribuir para um mundo melhor? Mas pode ser complicado… Muitas vezes se pensa que 1€ é uma quantia insignificante, e provavelmente é, e como tal em nada vai ajudar o mundo…

Mas então, porque não doar processamento? Há bastantes projectos que precisam de bastante processamento para resolver problemas complexos, como análise de sinais de rádio ou estudo de comportamento de proteínas, para o qual nós podemos de maneira simples contribuir.

E com a nossa contribuição não só ajudamos quem quer tornar o mundo um sitio melhor, como também rentabilizamos o nosso computador pois… quantas vezes está ele ligado sem fazer nada?

Um computador, uma consola, ou mesmo um telemóvel podem ajudar! Investiguem e participem!

P.S.: Por cada ‘trabalho’ concluído ganhamos créditos, o que não tem qualquer valor monetário, mas dá-nos a sensação de estarmos numa competição