Tour the Office

 

This is Schnitz Technology's international headquarters. It was originally built in 1919 as a general store. The Macs on the center table are being repaired or upgraded. Much of my work is at the customer's site, hence, I don't maintain regular hours at the office. However, if you'd like to drop off a repair or just want to stop by to talk, I'm happy to schedule a time for you.
The iMac G5 at center is used for training and software demonstrations. On occassion, it also serves as a loaner unit for a customer whose computer is being repaired. The PowerBook G4 sitting behind the iMac controls the stereo.

The shelf contains the most common parts and peripherals that we sell: hard drives, enclosures, docks, networking equipment, etc. Less commonly needed parts are stored in the back room. Cables are on a shelf underneath the table. We stock almost every variety of USB, Firewire, audio, video, or network cable you can imagine.

The poster above the desk commemorates the "first generation" of employees at Apple (1976-1984). It was given to attendees at an early reunion. Beside it is the press plate from Apple's first ad in the Wall Street Journal: December 23, 1980 (thanks Frances!).
If I'm not on the road, I'm most likely sitting at this desk. From here I perform remote support, server maintenance, and web development. A 13" MacBook Pro with external monitor, keyboard, and trackpad provides a great compromise between portability and usability.

The desk is more interesting than it looks (if you're a computer geek, anyway). It was made in the 70's by Digital Equipment Corporation. Instead of desk drawers, it has a built-in rack for mounting a PDP-11 minicomputer. Now it hosts a prototype Marathon RackMac, a homemade rackmount Apple IIgs, and a Power Mac G5 running OS X Server. The G5 serves as my backup and file server. We also have a colocated Apple XServe running 10.6.
This is the workbench. Repairs and data recovery jobs that don't require a clean room environment are performed here (see the clean box).

The eMac is used for looking up documentation and for data transfer. It's is a great computer for this task: it has both Firewire and USB2 for fast data transfer, but it's old enough that I don't hesitate to connect a damaged hard drive to it.

The LCD in the background is an older Dell display. It supports DVI, VGA, S-Video, and Composite, which makes it perfect for bench work.

The netbook in the corner is an original Eee PC. All I really use it for is prepping CF cards for use in embeded Linux systems.
This Jamestown Pellet Stove keeps the shop warm through winter and povides a comfortable place to discuss projects with customers.

In the background is an original Mac 128k from 1984.

We have servers at data centers in Seattle, Chicago, Scranton, and Harrisburg, but the ones pictured are right here in the office. At the top is an old Firewire enclosure that now houses a pair of backup drives. Below that is a NewerTech Voyager S2 hard drive dock, for rotating backup drives off-site. The thin 1U server beneath that is a Debian Linux system, which serves as a test box. Next is an Apple Xserve. Its primary function is to handle nightly backups from our other local machines and off-site servers. It also serves as our monitoring station, sending out email and text alerts if any of our services go down.

The last machine doesn't get much use anymore: it's a Marathon RackMac TZ. The RackMac was made by Marathon back in the clone era (1995-1997). This particular unit was their first prototype and the one that MacWorld Magazine reviewed in 1997.