The device in the foreground is a moderately powerful general-purpose computer, including 40Gb of storage and an optical drive. The device behind it, occupying approximately the same volume, is a cable modem.
The cable modem is the most hated device on my desk. Everything else was chosen by me, to be an efficient part of my lifestyle. The modem was supplied by my cable company, with the most likely motive of shaving a few bucks off the cost of each new subscription.
I see no reason the cable modem couldn't be small, unobtrusive, and (pet peeve) USB-powered so I don't have to add yet another power-adapter under my desk. No reason aside from the fact that in this market the major purchasing decisions are made by a middle-man working for an effective monopoly (there are two cable companies here, and one refuses to run cable into apartments), not the end-user.
ugly! My cable modem was a 3com "Surfboard", which looked like a giant curvy sharkfin. It was huge and, given its curvy shape, did not easily fit with my other equipment. Fortunately, my new cable modem is a small simple box. It looks just a like a power supply. :)
Half a world away, and I've got the same exact one .. ugly and annoying (and don't accidentally press the button on top ;-)
I got a different one off the same provider years ago and it lives in a shelf in the back room attached to a wireless router. But a nice square box still would have done it more unobtrusively.
Incidentally, what do you use the Novation Remote 25 for? Is it the controller+audio or just the controller? I have the controller-only model. I use it with Live! and my Nord Modular.
The Novation is the controller-only model. Mostly, I use it to control Reason. It's neat, but the two-octave range is just a little limiting. :)
Yes, I have that model also. I was using the 'demo' of Reason for a while but I gave up with it and went back to using Cubase for midi and basic audio recording (tracking) and mixing and looping audio only in Live. I've started to abandon using a lot of computer-driven synth stuff for music and gone back to recording guitars and mic'd up things and processing them. If they sold that Roland-style drum machine from Reason as a standalone VSTi I would buy it in a flash though.
I just put my computer, cable modem and what have you in the basement and ran a usb cord and the monitor cable up through the floor to my desk. All I have on my desk is the monitor and a usb hub that the keyboard mouse, and a couple drives plug into.
I say build cable modems into Ether-cards.
I just got my mother hooked up with DSL, and was quite surprised that the "DSL modem" that they shipped was a modem/router/wifi unit all in one. That really cuts down on the cabing and such. A nice surprise for once.