Complete Guide to Outfitting Your Home Office

A computer is a homebased entrepreneur's best friend, but be sure to choose your friend wisely. The most obvious initial question is, laptop or desktop? This may seem cut and dried. Travel a lot? Then buy a laptop. "Laptops are every bit as powerful as almost any desktop computer. Pricing is not on par, but it's very close," says Zbar. He recommends looking for at least a 1.3GHz Pentium III or equivalent AMD Duron processor with 128MB RAM and a 20GB hard drive. Add a docking station and separate desktop monitor into the mix, and you'll compute in comfort wherever you are.

You don't have to be a dyed-in-the-wool road warrior to take the laptop plunge, however. Install an inexpensive and easy-to-set-up Wi-Fi wireless network in your home and add a Wi-Fi card to your laptop's PC Card slot. Then take your work out on the patio or into the living room without missing a beat. A slight change of scenery can really perk up a long working day.

Trainer often travels in her line of work, and a ToshibaTecra laptop is her main machine. It has three qualities she can't do business without: "Durability, durability, durability," she says. "I've got to be able to drop it. I've got to be able to fling it in the back of my trunk." All Trainer Public Relations employees use laptops and work from home as well. The entire business is on a roughly two-year upgrade cycle for keeping their notebook computers up to snuff. Buy a well-stocked machine right off the bat, and you won't have to deal with difficult memory, processor or hard drive upgrades for a while.

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If mobility isn't a factor, you can't beat a desktop computer for pure power and affordability. The mantra here is spend, but don't overspend. "If you go out and say 'I've got to have the latest and greatest of everything,' you could spend three grand easily and not be able to keep up with the power of your computer. Know what you need, and don't try to outpace it," says Zbar. Some specs are worth a bit of investment. For instance, 128MB RAM may get you by, but moving up to 256MB or more will make your computer work faster and with better stability. Tailor your technology to your tasks. Using multiple applications simultaneously, database crunching or heavy graphics work will require a more robust system than would just word processing and Web surfing.

Software is highly subjective, but there are some basics that nearly every office needs. MicrosoftOffice is an obvious choice. The latest version, Office XP, retails for $479 for the standard edition and $579 for the professional edition. If that's too hefty a price tag, check into Sun'slow-cost StarOffice productivity suite, which includes word processing, database, presentation and drawing applications.

A computer isn't going to do you much good without some way to see all that data. With vastly lowered prices and improved viewing technology, it's hard to resist going with an LCD flat-panel display. Fifteen-inch LCDs are shaving in under the $400 dollar mark, with 17-inchers priced around $600. Home offices are often tight on space, and a slim profile display can open a lot of valuable desk real estate. Entrepreneurs operating within very tight budgets might still consider a sub-$150 CRT monitor. But overall, even basic, no-frills LCDs offer a good value and are easy on the eyes.

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