Do you use a couch/sofa as a workspace?

[Will Curran]

More than a desk? Or Do you use a bed? Well, I'm talking about if you have a laptop but if you have a desktop..well..I'm impressed. Well, just thought I'd get some opinions flowing because I'm planing on moving my room into our attic, and my mom's an interior designer so she'll get me what I want =/.. I was wondering because I like desks, but I thought with my wanting a powerbook 17" I didn't know if a couch would be better than a desk. Speak out!

Feel free to talk about podium like things, and other couch liking accessories.

[JeDiBoYTJ]

depends. I have a powerbook and sometimes I perfer to sit at a desk (like I am now) if I am editing in FCP or photoshop or whatever and such. I also tend to lay on my couch or bed if im typing up a report or anything.... but i'd say 70% of my time at home, my the powerbook is on desk.

I would say get both a desk and a couch if you have the room. :)

[Will Curran]

Yea see that's cool, I mostly do chatting surfing, but my main work on the comp is work with photoshop.

[homerjward]

right now i'm in my favorite easy chair up in my room. i use that and my bed for my computing needs, except when gaming (posture/heat/ergonomics) and cd burning/installing (levelness, heat, eerie vibrations). no couch in my room though, but when i'm in the living room (for about 45min at a time :() i use the couch.

[yoda13]

I am all about laying on the couch or reclining in the lazyboy :D

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says....mostly I compute while sitted at my desk, be it at work or home. But once in a while I take the latop over to the sofa and sit back but I can';t do that for too long as I don't really find it that comfortable.....oh yeah!

[PlaceofDis]

yeah i use my powerbook all the time on my bed, couch, all over the house really, but the most use that it gets is at the desk really, its just more convenient for me i guess, and im not totally used to doing a lot of typing on it with it in my lap laying down, i have to work on that

[stylum]

I do use both places (desk and couch) but i´m trying a special table/support for my 17" for when i´m at the couch. I design furniture for a living
and this came to me once at the "as is" section at IKEA:

Buy only the wheeled base of a Jules chair .
Fix a 16" x20" piece of 3/4" plywood just off center of the base (make sure it's fancy: :organic shapes nice colors)
that's it.

I'm am writing on one prototype of this design right now.
it turns, is height adjustable and helps to avoid the heat...!
35 dollars and 1 hour

my 2 cents

[annk]

When in my recliner or on the sofa, I use one of those lap-tables things. It's a sort of pillow filled with bean-bag filling, and it has a flat, hard table top on the top. That way, the "table" is on my legs and conforms to however I'm sitting (it can be tilted easily because the bean-bag filling is so easily adjusted), but the PB gets a hard, flat surface. The table has a loop sewn on, so when not in use I just hang it on the wall.

[Blue Velvet]

Desk. A long wide one... imagine a door turned on its side.

Room for (glances around) 2 x monitors, coffee, stereo, papers (e.g. roughs & design briefs), CDs, full keyboard & mouse with wrist rests, phone, lamp, printer, etc.

A good office chair is one of the best 'computer' equipment purchases I ever made. Hydraulic, fully adjustable, chunky seat... that sort of thing.

[brap]

I guess it depends on your persuasion.

I generally write essays and reports, and always, always, always work on my bed. Plenty of room around for books, journals, documents etc, and it's soft and comfortable.

Can see it hardly being ideal for CAD, or video editing though ;)

[neilrobinson]

at work we use benches you can stand at or use high chairs, thats really good cause i move around changing stocks ect a lot, at home i have just a ikea table and crap chair, i should get a better one cause i spend so much time in front of it. BUT this could be good... especially after beer, curry and related foodstuffs (mmmm kebabs)

http://www.funnyjunk.com/p/pctoilet-jpg.html

[cluthz]

90% at desks.
I use desks at the university (no choice.. :p)
At home i mostly use the desk, because:
1. I'm often using a second screen and an ext. keyboard
2. I don't a have Airport base station. (i don't want to have cables allover the place.

But if the weather is nice I'm often sitting in the garden and do work on my laptop.

[jdechko]

http://www.funnyjunk.com/p/pctoilet-jpg.html

MWSF '05 - New from Apple, it's the iJohn G5 and the PowerJohn Dual G5. Both include advanced liquid cooling features. :p

[SpaceMagic]

I have sofas in my living room which have very wide arm rests which my iBook fits on perfectly. I did all my surfing and chatting on there... until... i got my G5.. which unfortunatel I cant put on my sofa :D

When it came down to it, when I was doing school work, the laptop on a really hard surface (i.e. a Desk) with all my school papers around me was the only real option.

If you get a desk... then you have the option to use it or not. Best of both worlds.

[rueyeet]

If I'm just surfing and emailing, it doesn't really matter where: sofa, bed, chair, papa-san, whatever. Even with iTunes going for background noise, the TiBook doesn't get hot enough to bother me...in some situations the heat's actually soothing.

But if I'm doing something requiring some degree of actual work, like Photoshop stuff with my graphics tablet, ripping CDs (I type everything out as I'm too anal to trust the CDDb), or doing more extensive writing, I prefer to put the TiBook on something more steady and roomy than my lap.

I'd initally bought a Corras rolling side table from Ikea for this, but then I found an old dictionary table on castors, which works really nicely in the bedroom as it puts the TiBook at exactly the height where I can sit on the bed and work. The Corras table is currently being used as a printer stand, but I'm thinking of another one for when I don't feel like working in the bedroom, or when I need somewhere to put the Ti while printing something.

[kylos]

Couch, bed, and desk in relatively equal proportions.

[EGT]

Desk. A long wide one... imagine a door turned on its side.

Room for (glances around) 2 x monitors, coffee, stereo, papers (e.g. roughs & design briefs), CDs, full keyboard & mouse with wrist rests, phone, lamp, printer, etc.


What kind of door are we talking about here? Your standard door door or a draw bridge of some sort!?

I use my laptop on my desk at home. It shares the space with my PC which is rarely used these days.

When I’m travelling i use my laptop on my lap, naturally. Wouldn't want to be hauling a big desk around with me. :rolleyes:

"Are you checking in any baggage today, sir?" "Well ..."

[Pomme]

I'm a college student, so I don't have many options or much space. That said, I do most of my work at a desk. Definitely, definitely, definitely get a desk. I find I'm more like to be studious and serious at my desk. When I want to surf the internet or catch up on email, I'm more likely to spread out on my bed with my iBook. But it's difficult to get any extended typing done like that--at least it is for me.

If you can get a sofa and a desk, go for it. But if you have to choose between the two, I'd recommend a desk. Your bed can double as a sofa in a lot of ways--you can lay down, stretch out, or prop yourself up with pillows. It's the best of both worlds, that way.

[bigandy]

for some odd reason i've spent more time using my pb in the bath than anywhere else.

the g5 sits on a desk, naturally, but the pb goes from the sofa to the bed to the bath etc.

oh the joys of wireless routers!

[Solafaa]

I use a lazyboy and have a a table that looks like one set of legs (2 closest to me when sitting) are shorter so that the table is tilted. That was i can relax on my lazyboy and enjoy the heat free enviroment.

[maxvamp]

I have on my iBook 600 installed VNC and Remote Desktop Connection.

From there I can remote into work and talk to my windows machines, or work with the two windows machines I have in the house. If I need to get some work done on my PowerMac, I can VNC into it.

This being said, I probably spend 60% of my computing time on my iBook either on the recliner, on the couch, or in bed ( check email and stocks in the AM while listening to CNBC ).

The things I cannot do over the network ( such as games, or editing with FCP ) I do at the workstations..

OOHHHH Life is so hard!!!!

I would buy another ( cheap ) laptop if the iBook died, even though it is rarely used for little more than a dumb terminal.

Max.

[slipper]

sitting on the ground with my back against the couch bottom with my iBook on the coffee table works for me. i hate working on my desk, i seems to crowded and cramp

[wPod]

i use a desk to get things done. like school work, or playing around with photoshop or such. but if im just surfing around and chatting i enjoy the couch! (like right now!!!) i cant concentrate on the couch enough to get work done. plus i like using a mouse for photoshop which kinda requires a desk to use.

[homerjward]

i wonder if anyone ever uses their laptop on the john? :eek:

[ghostee]

I'd say about 90% of the time I use my iBook on the desk. Sometimes if I feel like watching TV or just want to lay down I'll use the bed, but I'm always afraid I'll fall asleep and roll over on it.

And I have taken it into the john a few times, when I reallly couldn't stop computing but really couldn't hold it any longer... :cool:

[revenuee]

I have a powermac and a powerbook -- when i'm doing something more intensive that i need to use a larger, color accurate screen then i sit at my desk in my ergonomic chair and work away.

I tend to do most of my work at my desk on my powermac, on occasion however i pull out my power book and either work in bed or on the couch, or in my car. If weather permits, i like to sit under a tree, or on the edge of some rocks near the lake and just type away --- i don't have wireless internet on the powerbook (G3) so if i need to interface with the internet or things like that i'm out of luck -- because it is so old that i can't really do much work on it, and most of my work is either writing articles and essays or color correcting and manipulating photographs

[timnosenzo]

Duff-Man says....mostly I compute while sitted at my desk, be it at work or home. But once in a while I take the latop over to the sofa and sit back but I can';t do that for too long as I don't really find it that comfortable.....oh yeah!
I agree. Mostly I'm using my PBook at my desk, but sometimes I wander around the house. Using it on the couch or coffee table for too long is just uncomfortable.

[saabmp3]

I moved cross country for a job, and because of that I had to leave nearly everything behind. Got myself a wireless router and now I just use my 2 laptops on the couch all the time. Couldn't beat it with a stick.

Note: I don't do much work at home, pay some bills, buy stuff online and talk on AIM. If I had to do something more serious at home, I'd get myself a desk.

BEN

[slipper]

at work we use benches you can stand at or use high chairs, thats really good cause i move around changing stocks ect a lot, at home i have just a ikea table and crap chair, i should get a better one cause i spend so much time in front of it. BUT this could be good... especially after beer, curry and related foodstuffs (mmmm kebabs)

http://www.funnyjunk.com/p/pctoilet-jpg.html
holy smokes, i want one!

[Applespider]

Sofa - with PB perched on a fairly wide arm. I got rid of my desk when I got the PB to give me more space in the room.

I do want to get something to put it onto. I like the IKEA seat base + plywood idea. Habitat UK have a 'surfing table' which looks OK but at £69 I think it's a little overpriced.

Staying at one of the Hampton Inns last month, they had a really nice laptop 'desk' in the guest rooms so that you could sit on chair/bed with your laptop. But haven't seen anything similar over here.

I'm sure stylish laptop accessories (bags, laptrays etc) is a market waiting to burst open. Most things currently (at least in the UK) seem to be black, bulky and ugly.

[abc123]

i do everything from my bed or the sofa,my desk is just more storage. i'm going to have to stop soon though because i'm probably doing all sorts of bad things to my spine.

[Davito]

I use my desk as a bed sometimes.

[advres]

I use my PB at my desk about 95% of the time. Video editing/compositing and graphics work don't work too well for me anywhere else. I need the extra 19" monitor which is on my desk for doing this type of work. Also, since I mainly only use the wacom tablet pen (get rid of your mouse kiddies! ;)) it is kind of hard to use anywhere that isn't very flat and stable.

I do on occasion lay in bed or on my couch when I am surfing the net and posting in forums. This is of course in the small percentage of my time where I have no REAL work to do! :rolleyes:

[wordmunger]

I used to write sitting at the couch, but lately, more often than not I've been finding myself seated at the kitchen counter. No battery worries then, and no "hot lap" either. Many days I'll spend a couple hours working in a coffee shop as well.

[Solafaa]

i wonder if anyone ever uses their laptop on the john? :eek:

Only once for me, well i was taking a bath and needed a to watch a movie :) works great in my opinon.

[fingers]

I work from home - so when I am at 'work' I am usually at my desk. After work I like to lounge on the sofa and occasionally in bed with my pb - perched on an ilap stand. I used to use a Simpsons (Homer) tv dinner tray with padded base which provided great protection of my genitalia.

[emw]

i wonder if anyone ever uses their laptop on the john? :eek:

I am right now!

Nah, just kidding, but wouldn't that freak you out a little bit?

Anyway, I tend to prefer solid surfaces. When I use the sofa or bed or whatever, I can never get comfortable for any length of time. And, of course, my lap burns up from the heat (Remember, we're talking about computer use here ;)).

[aus_dave]

You guys using your PBs in the bath - are you crazy? Several thousand dollars worth of hardware, inches away from becoming submerged and totally wrecked? The mind boggles as to what you are balancing it on :eek:.

Let's have some pics to show this isn't just a bold claim (please, tastefully done :D).

[Littleodie914]

You guys using your PBs in the bath - are you crazy? Several thousand dollars worth of hardware, inches away from becoming submerged and totally wrecked? The mind boggles as to what you are balancing it on :eek:.

Let's have some pics to show this isn't just a bold claim (please, tastefully done :D).Yea... I'd also like to see some pics... How ARE you supporting the laptop? Do you have something flat set across the gap that the laptop sits on? I can only assume that's how it's done... Wow... My iBook hasn't been within 5 feet of water! Let alone a powerbook if I had one! :p

[jackieonasses]

I am right now!

Nah, just kidding, but wouldn't that freak you out a little bit?

Anyway, I tend to prefer solid surfaces. When I use the sofa or bed or whatever, I can never get comfortable for any length of time. And, of course, my lap burns up from the heat (Remember, we're talking about computer use here ;)). Just for your guys's enjoyment i walked over to the Mr. John, and just plopped down on it! hahahahah it is surprisingly comfortable!

[palusami]

i have a powerbook and find myself using it anywhere and everywhere. sheesh, i even use it on the toilet. most of the time though i just use it on my computer desk. i bought a leda computer desk a couple years ago. it doesn't have much in terms of general desk space but its enough to accomodate my powerbook.

[thinkofthestars]

First, wordmunger, I want your kitchen. Red counters, awesome looking bar stools, and Kitchen Aid appliances. I could cook up a storm in there.

Anyway, onto the real topic... I use my iBook in bed about 98.3 percent of the time. Right now, as I type, I have it propped up on my legs while I'm laying down. I wake up in the morning and think to myself, "Awww, crap. I have to work." So I roll over and reach under my bed for the laptop, lay back, and begin my work day. Talking to people, I'm probably sitting up in bed or laying down. General surfing, same. The other 1.7 percent of the time is on the off days I actually go into the office or if I'm sitting on my couch.

Oh, I forgot to mention... I even do Photoshop in bed. Never had a problem, although, sometimes I actually have to sit up... but still, I don't have to move to a desk.

[5300cs]

i wonder if anyone ever uses their laptop on the john? :eek:

Nahh, I use my iPaq.

You know, using windows in its native environment

[neilrobinson]

Nahh, I use my iPaq.

You know, using windows in its native environment

so true... maybe i can install my old 233 with windows nt4, who cares if it falls in? :p