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Back to Basics Ready to outfit your home office with the tech essentials? Here's what you need.

By Amanda C. Kooser

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Congratulations-you've taken the big step and decided tostart your own business. You've also figured out that a homeoffice is right for you. You've selected a room or space towork in, but now you're faced with a wide expanse of empty deskspace. It's time to fill in the blanks with some home-officetechnology basics. The hardware and software you choose will be thetools that help you run your business smoothly, so there areimportant decisions ahead. We're going to look at thebare-bones items you need to get up and running on a budget.

The logical first step is to buy a computer. Before the merger,Compaq Presarios were popular home-office desktop machines. ThoughHewlett-Packard now owns the Presario line, they're still hotitems. What's especially appealing about the HP Compaq PresarioS6000 is that you can configure it online at www.hp.com to fit yourneeds. The basic S6000Z model starts at $359 (all prices street)with a 2GHz AMD Athlon processor, 128MB RAM and a 40GB hard drive.Those specs will handle most light jobs like Web surfing and wordprocessing. If you plan to use more demanding applications andexpect to network PCs eventually, you'll want to customize yourcomputer with higher-end components like Windows XP ProfessionalEdition and more RAM.

Just because you have a desk doesn't mean you must have adesktop computer. A pricier but more flexible laptop may be theticket. If you'll be doing a lot of business traveling or willneed to take your computing power with you on sales calls, then alaptop is something to consider. They're also nice for gettingout of your office for a while, even if it's just to sit on theback porch. The eMachines M5312 comes in at an affordable $1,249and has desirable features like a CD-RW/DVD combo drive, a 60GBhard drive, a 15.4-inch screen and built-in 802.11g wirelessnetworking. At 6.6 pounds, it's not a featherweight, butit's not bad for the price.