Tech Tips for Home Office Beginners

The computer desk next to your bed is fine for getting assignments done and to surf the web. But for the serious ones out there get ready to invest on some good home office equipment. Yes, your clients or your employer (if you're working from home that is) very rarely get to see your workspace, but maintaining a level of professionalism could give a boost to your productivity.

1. THE COMPUTER:

  Speed is very important. If your old desktop takes ages to even boot up, then you'll be wasting a lot of time. Your productivity will be much lower. Chuck it away and invest some money in a new computer. Get a solid workhorse machine with a good processor, preferable 2-3GB of RAM (should be more than enough) and quite a large capacity hard disk. If you have the moolah go for the Solid State Hard Disks (SSDs) as they are more reliable. You won't be needing fancy GPUs as your computer will be tailored to do business work. Many manufacturers out there like Dell, HP etc. have a variety of computers for small businesses. They

should do well. Also don't forget to invest in a good laptop as well. You can complete work on the go and moreover, you can use it as a backup computer. Yes, computers can be UNRELIABLE! So its a pretty good investment considering the fact that your income will depend on being able to complete work within deadlines.

2. THE PRINTER:

Depending on the work you throw at it, calculate the total cost of ownership before buying the printer. Go in for a costlier office laser printer which you find at the xerox shops. The initial cost might be much costlier than the average home-office printer but in the long run you will save much more. The supplies for the home inkjet printers are also very costly. There are many multi-function printers out there with functions such as print, scan, copy and fax. This eliminates the need for multiple gadgets. You save space, wiring and your workspace is less cluttered. Also think about the color printing needs. If you do a lot of color printing go in a for a color laser, otherwise find a good printing shop near by.

3. POWER:

A major issue nowadays is power. Your computer and gadgets are exposed to damage if your power supply isn't good. Varying voltages, power surges and power cuts will only increase the chances of hardware failure. I recommend investing in a solid UPS for your PC. It should have enough power to propel your PC for at least a couple of hours. If you have a deep wallet you can also invest in an inverter to keep you connected no matter what happens 24x7. Both these devices should be more than enough to keep power flowing to your peripherals for hours.

4. DATA BACKUPS:

A simple computer crash would be enough to wipe out all your hard work and data. Power failures and natural disasters (never take a chance) could also wipe it out. First I'd recommend a second hard disk in your PC for backup. Take another external backup on your ext. HDD. There are also many free remote online backup sites available. You can also use this online backup to work on your projects from any PC, or even from any part of the world if you have Internet connectivity. Do not underestimate this.


5. SOCIAL NETWORKING:


The best way to gather a market for your business! A lil' bit of free publicity from these Social Networking websites would only boost your business. Depending on what work you do you could either set up a portfolio on MySpace or a fan page for your business/company on Facebook. You can use twitter to interact with your clients or colleagues as well. You can use Youtube to give your clients an idea of what you can do for them as well. Embed all these on your own site and your multimedia presentation is complete.

6. WEBSITES:

You don't need to spend a penny to design and a run a killer website that generates a lot of traffic and business for you. You can put up everything you need in a blog format or just in static pages with Wordpress or Blogger. Just visit http://wordpress.com org, download the software and install it onto your webserver. Then get your domain and you can get your own website up and running in a day. You can also choose from the various templates available for free. If you are looking for a blog sort of website you can create a free blog @ Blogger.

7. INTERNET CONNECTIONS:

For most home businesses, the Internet will be THE main link to consumers, co-workers and possible clients, Get a business plan from a reputed ISP such as Bharti Airtel or BSNL. You will need a QoS (Quality of Service) commitment: something like 99.99% uptime should suffice. Make sure you get good uplink as well as downlink speeds if you plan to video-conference or use VoIP. If its mission critical get one of those wireless USB internet connections offered by MTS, BSNL etc. They can keep you connected almost everywhere.

8. SECURITY:

Whether or not you're gonna be handling sensitive data, you need security for both your hardware and software. Apart from strong passwords, make sure your computer is thoroughly checked with a good antivirus for viruses, spyware, trojans and keyloggers. If you're handling bills and payments do not take a risk. Get a genuine antivirus with license. You will also be needing those important Windows Updates and patches that fix security issues. Update your browser and everything that you use on your computer pretty regularly. Consider using encryption on your hard disks and external hard disks so that even in case of thefts no one else gets any access to your sensitive data. Make sure that your router is heavily armed -- or neighbors might not only steal your Wi-Fi but poke through your PC as well.