What technology gear you should consider for your home office

By Andy Walker, Cyberwalker Media Syndicate

Looking for good places on the web to buy gear to outfit your home office? Try these:
For computers,	Dell computers
For printers, scanners and other tech gear: Amazon.
For computer memory:	Crucial (USA), Crucial (Canada), and Crucial (UK/Europe).
For handheld computers, Handspring
For hard to find items	eBay.com, eBay.ca, Ebay.co.uk

Question: I'm starting a home business and am outfitting my office with technology to get me started. First off I'm buying a computer, but what other equipment is out that that I might need?

Answer: Well here's a primer of the kinds of things you might consider. It will depend on what business you are going to run, but hopefully this column will be general enough to get you started. For those out there that are just keen on tech, it might be helpful too.

1) Personal Computer. It's hard to get buy without at least one computer in the office these days. Chances are you are going to want several machines, perhaps one for
each employee. There are a lot to choose from and systems today have never been cheaper. While it's impossible to explain which to computer to buy for you business in only a few words, here's a quick overview. Your first choice is decide if you need an Apple Macintosh machine or one of the computers known as an IBM compatible. It's best to stick with one or the other in your office so that it's easy to share data files.
IBM compatibles, or PCs as they are more commonly known, are unified by their operating system - the software that makes them run. PCs most commonly use the Microsoft Windows operating system. Business users usually opt for either Windows 2000 or Windows XP (either the "Home" or "Professional" edition). These operating systems are very stable and will not crash with the same frequency as Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me.

When buying a computer the rules of thumb for small businesses are: buy second or third best. Find out what the fastest system on the market is (measured in Gigahertz) and buy a system that is 75 to 85 per cent of that speed. That will give you a price break on the newest technology, but enough power to stave off obsolescence for two to three years. The other option is if you do not have in house technical support, buy an extended warranty and technical support option so you can get help if you run into problems.
Manufacturers to look at include: Dell, Hewlett Packard, IBM and, of course, Apple. However you can also consider a "white box", a non branded machine built by a local or regional computer company.

2) Printer. Despite our best efforts, paper still rules the office. One of the key devices in your office should be a printer. When shopping for a printer you have three categories to consider.

Inkjet printers are the most economical option. These are printers that usually run under $500. They produce near photo-quality color output if you use photo paper. They also generate decent monochrome prints. One tip: Avoid a low purchase price. These printers are designed for occasional use and produce prints at very slow speeds. Ink cartridges, especially for colour output, run perhaps $60 to $100 a month.

If you don't need color and do a lot of business document printing then a laser printer might be the preferred option. Their purchase price tends to be a lot higher than inkjet printers, however the toner costs per page are far less than inkjet printers. Colour laser printers are also an option, but they run into the thousands of dollars and toner replace can cost hundreds.
If you need cheap color output, go for inkjet technology. If you want fast monochrome output choose a laser printer.

A third option is a dot matrix printer. These are pretty much obsolete for general office use, however they are useful for high volume, low quality output on rolls of paper.

There are also devices called multi-function printers. These are printer that use either laser or inkjet technology, but also double as scanners, photo copiers and even a fax machine. When you build all these features into one machine you will be force to compromise on speed and performance, however they are an economical way to get a small office equipped quickly and they also take up less space than the standalone machines they replace.

Recommended manufacturers: Printers: Hewlett Packard, Lexmark, and Epson. Multifunction printers: Hewlett Packard, Lexmark and Brother.

3) Laptop computer. If you travel a lot or like to carry your computer been home and office then a laptop or notebook computer is a great tool to have. Expect to pay about double the amount you would pay for a desktop computer for the same power and features.

Ultra thin laptops can weigh only a few pounds and have bigger, crisper displays than ever before. However they also have external CD and floppy drives that you will need to tote around if you want full functionality.
Heavier notebooks with these drives onboard are sometimes a better option, however if you travel a lot, they may become onerous to carry through airport terminals.

The other option to seriously consider is wireless networking capability. Using this technology, you can connect to an office or home network or link to a high speed Internet connection using radio waves instead of a cable.
Recommended manufacturers: Toshiba, IBM and Sony.

4) Handheld Computer. These devices, also known as Personal Digital Assistants (or PDAs) have come a long way since their first incarnations. Today's PDAs offer a wide array of features including colour screens, larger memory storage, fax and e-mail capability through wireless or dial-up Internet connections.

If you're still keeping contact lists and agendas in leather bound binders or on small scraps of paper you'll find switching to a PDA will make a huge difference in your productivity.

When shopping for these items you'll have two main choices. The leader of the pack is made by Palm. (Early on they were know as Palm Pilots.)
Palm has also licenced its operating system to other vendors, so you can get a Palm like device from companies such as Handspring, Sony and others. If the product runs the PalmOS, then it will work with the same software as the Palm brand-branded devices.

The competition is known as the Pocket PC. These are devices that use Microsoft's Windows CE software. Makers include Casio, Hewlett Packard, and Toshiba. Compaq also makes Pocket PCs though their fate is unknown now that HP has acquired Compaq.

A third option is also emerging. Some new devices use the Symbian operating system for their handheld computers. The Nokia Communicator 9290, a cellular phone/PDA hybrid, uses this operating system.

Recommended manufacturers: Palm, Handspring, Sony, Hewlett Packard and Toshiba.

5) Cell phone. A mobile phone is perhaps the most useful device you can buy if you need to stay in contant contact.

Today's phones are lighter and smaller, have greater battery life and clearer reception than their ancestors. Many have built in organizer function and more and more have web browsing capability.

Let's not forget SMS messaging which allows you to send short text messages across cellular networks. There are four national providers in Canada and perhaps as many as a dozen brands of phones. Old phones use wireless network technologies called CDMA, GSM or TDMA. They allow phones to be used as wireless dial-up modems that can move data at up to speeds of 14.4 Kbps.

Newer phones use GPRS or 1XRTT technology. These phones offer a potential 114 Kbps always-on data connection (which is the real world is more like 56Kbps) for faster web-browsing and messaging. When in data mode, they also bill according to the amount of data you send and receive and not minutes connected.

Recommended manufacturers: Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and Ericsson. Also look at the Handspring Treo, a PDA/phone hybrid.

6) Digital Camera. If your business requires the use of photographic images why then a digital camera may be of interest. These devices allow you to snap high quality pictures and store them on your computer or print them out on color printers. The key here is to look for the megapixel rating. A two megapixel camera will give you good printouts. The higher the megapixel rating, the better the printout capability. Anything lower and you'll find the camera only useful for taking pictures that can be viewed on a computer. Look for a camera with a mini-screen on the back so you can preview a shot after you've taken it. Some photo stores will allow you to take the storage cards from the camera to do printouts on photo paper.
Recommended manufacturers: Hewlett Packard, Olympus, Nikon, and Kodak.

7) Digital recorder. Need to take notes at a meeting or transcribe a document? The perfect tool is a digital recorder/transcriber. Not only do these little wonders have no need for clumsy micro-cassettes they also have longer recording times and with certain models the capability to transfer your recorded information to your computer via special software.

Recommended manufacturers: Sony, RCA and Panasonic.

8) Scanner. If you're not taking your own pictures digitally perhaps you need to scan images or documents for use in brochures, proposals or even your Web site. This is another category where prices have fallen while quality has increased. New models can scan in colour documents at resolutions as high as 4800 dpi. The rule of thumb is the faster the scan speed the higher the price. However, a good scanner shouldn't cost much more than about $300. You can also easily acquire a model that can scan from colour negatives or transparencies.

Recommended manufacturers: Hewlett Packard, Agfa and Epson.

9) High speed Internet modem. If your work requires you to spend any time online you owe it to yourself and your staff to get a faster connection than dialup. The two most dominant technologies in the high speed arena are cable and DSL (or Digital Subscriber Line) which works across a phone line without interrupting voice calls.
Both work on a similar principal and offer comparable speed somewhere in the ballpark of 10 to 20 times faster than a 56 Kbps dialup modem. Most big cities have several high speed service providers with a wide range of packages and prices for both the home user and the small business operator. Your Internet service provider will rent or sell you a high-speed Internet modem that works with their service.

Recommended manufacturers: Typically look to you local phone or cable company for these services. However there are some independent providers that may offer more competitive pricing and better service.

10) Internet gateway: These devices allow you to share a high speed Internet connection among multiple computers. They also create a small office network so that you can move files between computers and share printers and other devices. Some routers offer wireless connectivity too, so you can use your laptop or a PC with the network (within 300) feet without hooking up cables. Internet gateways, which cost between $150 and $350, also have a built in firewall which protects your network from Internet snoopers.

Recommended manufacturers: D-Link, Linksys and 3Com

If this column still doesn't fully help you with questions about gear for your home office or if you need personalized help with a problem, please see: Emergency Help.

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