ANTHONY: PROJECT RESEARCH

Anthony helped us with the Paragon Kilns press releases whilst studying Technology And Design at university. Most of his work was done in the studio on a university desktop computer or on his own notebook computer but, sometimes, he worked in the photo lab, at home, at a friend's home, at his parents, or at an internet cafe on holiday.

As the course involved understanding different technologies, he soon had to re-arrange his workspace and use several hubs to provide more sockets, because:

The computer had four USB ports, permanently used by his mouse, the ADSL modem, an A3 printer, and a multi-port hub. The hub served a scanner, a back-up disk drive, a digital camera card reader, and a second hub.

To tidy up his work area, he put the hubs on the floor. Then, some of the devices needed extensions: he wanted the USB disk drive and card reader nearby, but wanted to move the printer and scanner to the next desk.

He needed to think about a fax-copier, a webcam, a digital tv tuner, and a floppy drive. And leave a few spare sockets for occassionally hot-swapping a flash memory stick, an i-Duck, a GPS receiver, a headset adapter, a digital camera, a photo printer, and a transfer cutter.

The course has now introduced video capture, wireless links, fingerprint devices, and number key-pads. Fortunately, the problem is not how to connect them, just where to put them.

When he travels, he takes his digital camera and his USB disk drive. Generally, he doesn't take his computer as he can use any computer with a USB port.

To make sure that he can work conveniently, he takes a hub and a few extensions: especially as the extensions can be joined together up to about 5.0 metres.