As mentioned previously I spent a lot of this last weekend working, some of it from home. This is the first time that I’ve really spent time working when not in the office, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Working from home is an interesting experience for a number of reasons. The most obvious is the difference in surroundings, which brings about a whole different mindset. I found that it was a lot more relaxed working at home, and despite the distractions (such as the xbox and my DVD collection) remarkably productive. Perhaps this was because of the lack of other distractions (workmates asking me questions), or perhaps it’s just because I knew I needed to get stuff done.
Due to my desktop being hooked up to my TV, I actually decided to use my EeePC as the thinclient through which I would remote desktop into my machine in the office. This works remarkably well, especially once an external monitor and keyboard are connected, as I’ve just plugged in the Eee, removed the battery, and have a near-silent machine to use for work.
Unfortunately remote desktop, especially over Citrix, isn’t the best thing in the world; especially not for programming. A number of issues seem to be prevalent, especially with modifier keys such as shift. This doesn’t make things particularly easy, although I am getting used to using caps-lock again for writing things where capital letters are required. The latency on the connection isn’t always great either, with a noticeable lag between hitting a key and it appearing on the screen.
Of course being in the office has the advantage that you can more easily communicate with the people you are working with. Sure, I may have listed the lack of distraction from them as an advantage above, but there’s a bigger one in being able to quickly chat with someone and draw a diagram on a bit of paper – as opposed to either trying to describe it over the phone, or find some software to sketch it out on the PC with.
All in all, being able to work from home is a fantastic tool – especially in IT where things can go wrong at any time of night, and getting into the office might not be so easy. Of course, I’m hoping that that I won’t have to do that any time soon, but it’s always a useful ability to have. Admittedly living twenty minutes from the office means that I can get in quite comfortably, and for the majority of situations I’ll prefer to go into the office and use a real machine – if only to get around the aforementioned problems with latency and RDP over Citrix. I’m equally sure, however, that this weekend won’t be the last time I do a decent amount of work from home as something will inevitably come up that will ensure I need to.