For the past seven or so years I have been using an office in the back of my van, which is a Mercedes Metris passenger van. The Metris is about the footprint of a minivan, but about 10 inches taller and the rear seat has a seating position not far off of a dining table chair. I have been mounting an iPad Pro 2nd gen cellular enabled to the passengers front seat headrest, had a fold down tray table on the back of the passengers seat, and I place a keyboard on it to type with. This has worked well with some limitations for the bulk of what I do; book keeping, youtube watching, story writing, internet browsing. My wife is a maid, I drive her to work, park nearby, and do what I do.
The Metris, which is a 2016, is getting up in mileage, I have fallen so far into this pattern that I have decided I want something a bit better suited to it. I have just ordered a new Sprinter van in 144”, high roof configuration that will better suit my needs and allow me to install in it an office with a 42” wide desk, a desk chair, a sofa/bed I can lay on, a portable toilet, a roof mounted vent van, vent windows, etc. I will now have space for a much more comprehensive office set up. The van arrives in approximately October and I have some conversion work to do on it, and anyway I can jury-rig with what I have for a time anyway.
Here’s my computer situation: I have a 15” MacBookPro from approximately 2012 that I got as part of an insurance settlement because somebody stole (among other things) a PowerBook G4 titanium; I used it briefly in my business and it spent most of the time between 2015 and now sitting unused on my dining chair because I am not much of a laptop person. (I had a 1400, a G3 iBook, and the powerbook, the first ended up being given to my dad in quick order, the other two were used during college and then also not used). I have the iPadPro I mentioned before, an iPadAir 2nd gen I think that my wife uses for NetFlix, and a 2019 iMac base model that I am pretty sure came from the factory with something wrong with it because it is infuriatingly slow with basic tasks (it struggles with Audacity, for example).
I had originally been planning on simply replacing my iPad Pro with another one, but I priced out the MacBook Air with 16GB/1TB and found it $200 cheaper than a cellular equipped iPadPro, I got to thinking that I could get a cellular Hot spot for the van, use my iPadPro (cellular now disabled), and a laptop with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and be more productive, and also use it at home to sort of replace the iMac.
The big problem I have with computers in my house is that most of the house, including the room used for computer and stereo, do not have grounded wiring. This means that surge protectors do not work, because they can’t send to ground; the wiring in my house dates to about the time it was electrified, which was approximately 100 years ago. This means that when I am done using my desktop I have to shut it down, and unplug it. This worked fine for me until iCloud became a big thing; it spends god-knows-how-long syncing up ano booting up and whatever and it drives me crazy. Also I use my computer during a thunderstorm at considerable peril. No, I am not considering having my house or the room rewired; it would trigger a complete rewire of the house, can’t afford it, and since I am something of a Luddite, all I would get out of it is the ability to use my desktop on, and the only things I use the desktop for is playing Transport Fever and digitizing analog audio, typically a few times a week.
I would plan on running either the iPadPro or MacBook Air with a 27-ish inch display and a full-size KeyChron keyboard in the van, with the display being mounted on a stand to make it similar height to the set up I have now and left in the van at all times. I intend to power it with a large, 120-volt capable battery, that I will charge at home. At home I would probably also leave a set up in my computer room to use the laptop the same way; if I bought the tablet I would probably keep using the desktop until I get fed up with it (getting there already).
Tablets obviously need replacing (they are both kind of overdue as it is) but if I am not using them for serious spreadsheet work, I don’t need anything like that; the lesser of the current ‘iPad’ series units would suffice just fine. iPadPro plus a new iMac or MacMini plus display is a lot more money than a MacBook Air plus one or even two $379 iPads.
What I’m not sure about is how good the idea is of a Wifi hotspot (probably AT&T) powring all these things verses a iPadPro with cellular capability built in, or how long I can realistically depend on the laptop providing 8-hours of battery life, possibly a lot of it spreadsheet oriented. (That can be surmounted with the use of the type of battery I was discussing earlier, though). Here’s a picture of my current set up:
All and any advice is welcomed. I picked this forum because it seemed closest but if it belongs elsewhere, it is welcomed to be moved there.
Edit: I forgot to mention, if it is going to serve to replace the iMac as well, it needs to be able to do digitizing work. I currently use an ADC to connect it to the RCA tape-output of my receiver (currently a Nakamichi RE-2, but I had plans until the car purchase and will eventually engage on this, to replace it with a Marrantz 1150 or something quite similar - 70-watts or so 1970s receiver or integrated Amplified, most likely Marrantz) in order to digitize Compact Cassettes (Nakamichi BX-2) and 33, 45, and 78 records (Audio-Technica ATLP120), and I hope to add reel-to-reel and 8-track capability eventually. I use an Apple external CD drive to pull ALACs off of CDs. If it replaces the desktop it must be able to do this.
I also feed all audio (games included) from the computer to a DAC, into my receiver, and out my Yamaha speakers. I would use it at home that way; I doubt I’d wire that kind of sound system in my van because being a bit inconspicuous is desirable.
The Metris, which is a 2016, is getting up in mileage, I have fallen so far into this pattern that I have decided I want something a bit better suited to it. I have just ordered a new Sprinter van in 144”, high roof configuration that will better suit my needs and allow me to install in it an office with a 42” wide desk, a desk chair, a sofa/bed I can lay on, a portable toilet, a roof mounted vent van, vent windows, etc. I will now have space for a much more comprehensive office set up. The van arrives in approximately October and I have some conversion work to do on it, and anyway I can jury-rig with what I have for a time anyway.
Here’s my computer situation: I have a 15” MacBookPro from approximately 2012 that I got as part of an insurance settlement because somebody stole (among other things) a PowerBook G4 titanium; I used it briefly in my business and it spent most of the time between 2015 and now sitting unused on my dining chair because I am not much of a laptop person. (I had a 1400, a G3 iBook, and the powerbook, the first ended up being given to my dad in quick order, the other two were used during college and then also not used). I have the iPadPro I mentioned before, an iPadAir 2nd gen I think that my wife uses for NetFlix, and a 2019 iMac base model that I am pretty sure came from the factory with something wrong with it because it is infuriatingly slow with basic tasks (it struggles with Audacity, for example).
I had originally been planning on simply replacing my iPad Pro with another one, but I priced out the MacBook Air with 16GB/1TB and found it $200 cheaper than a cellular equipped iPadPro, I got to thinking that I could get a cellular Hot spot for the van, use my iPadPro (cellular now disabled), and a laptop with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and be more productive, and also use it at home to sort of replace the iMac.
The big problem I have with computers in my house is that most of the house, including the room used for computer and stereo, do not have grounded wiring. This means that surge protectors do not work, because they can’t send to ground; the wiring in my house dates to about the time it was electrified, which was approximately 100 years ago. This means that when I am done using my desktop I have to shut it down, and unplug it. This worked fine for me until iCloud became a big thing; it spends god-knows-how-long syncing up ano booting up and whatever and it drives me crazy. Also I use my computer during a thunderstorm at considerable peril. No, I am not considering having my house or the room rewired; it would trigger a complete rewire of the house, can’t afford it, and since I am something of a Luddite, all I would get out of it is the ability to use my desktop on, and the only things I use the desktop for is playing Transport Fever and digitizing analog audio, typically a few times a week.
I would plan on running either the iPadPro or MacBook Air with a 27-ish inch display and a full-size KeyChron keyboard in the van, with the display being mounted on a stand to make it similar height to the set up I have now and left in the van at all times. I intend to power it with a large, 120-volt capable battery, that I will charge at home. At home I would probably also leave a set up in my computer room to use the laptop the same way; if I bought the tablet I would probably keep using the desktop until I get fed up with it (getting there already).
Tablets obviously need replacing (they are both kind of overdue as it is) but if I am not using them for serious spreadsheet work, I don’t need anything like that; the lesser of the current ‘iPad’ series units would suffice just fine. iPadPro plus a new iMac or MacMini plus display is a lot more money than a MacBook Air plus one or even two $379 iPads.
What I’m not sure about is how good the idea is of a Wifi hotspot (probably AT&T) powring all these things verses a iPadPro with cellular capability built in, or how long I can realistically depend on the laptop providing 8-hours of battery life, possibly a lot of it spreadsheet oriented. (That can be surmounted with the use of the type of battery I was discussing earlier, though). Here’s a picture of my current set up:
All and any advice is welcomed. I picked this forum because it seemed closest but if it belongs elsewhere, it is welcomed to be moved there.
Edit: I forgot to mention, if it is going to serve to replace the iMac as well, it needs to be able to do digitizing work. I currently use an ADC to connect it to the RCA tape-output of my receiver (currently a Nakamichi RE-2, but I had plans until the car purchase and will eventually engage on this, to replace it with a Marrantz 1150 or something quite similar - 70-watts or so 1970s receiver or integrated Amplified, most likely Marrantz) in order to digitize Compact Cassettes (Nakamichi BX-2) and 33, 45, and 78 records (Audio-Technica ATLP120), and I hope to add reel-to-reel and 8-track capability eventually. I use an Apple external CD drive to pull ALACs off of CDs. If it replaces the desktop it must be able to do this.
I also feed all audio (games included) from the computer to a DAC, into my receiver, and out my Yamaha speakers. I would use it at home that way; I doubt I’d wire that kind of sound system in my van because being a bit inconspicuous is desirable.
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