I have been using a Viewsonic VA721 monitor with a Power Macintosh G5 tower for light graphic work and web design/programming. On a typical day, I will work on sites built upon the LAMP architecture (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) and use the G5 for development and testing purposes. As far as 17-inch monitors go the Viewsonic VA721 has a typical 1280×1024 resolution and I try to build pages that still fit within 800×600 for those with smaller monitors. I usually have Firefox, Word, iChat, Photoshop, Navicat, Yummy FTP, Apple Server Monitor and the Apache, MySQL and PHP architecture on Mac OS X open at all times and this monitor could use some more real estate.

After purchasing the Mac Mini and collecting quite a few USB peripherals, the two USB ports built into the machine wasn’t cutting it especially since the keyboard/mouse use one of the ports. I needed a USB hub and I didn’t really care for the units that were made to match the Mac Mini. I figured if I ever got rid of the Mac Mini I could actually use a universal hub with another machine and it wouldn’t look out of place. I came across the IOGear GUH284R and figured that I was a great idea to have a card reader built into the hub with 6 USB ports. I had been collecting quite a few items such as digital cameras and phones that used removable media so I figured I could put the card reader to good use.