IT equipment

What IT do I need?

Almost every homeworker is going to need some IT equipment. For most people this will include a PC, printer, scanner, fax machine and a backup device or service.

For most homeworkers a laptop PC is going to be the most appropriate for working at home. They take up very little room and can be used in other locations such as a clients property. Don't become obsessed by the fastest and best machine on the market. For most office activities, e-mail and web browsing a fairly low spec machine can be purchased. You might find a good second hand or refurbished machine for a couple of hundred pounds. Have a look at the internet auction sites. If you are going to be sat at the PC for long periods of time then invest in a docking station, separate screen, keyboard and mouse. Its worth the extra money and health wise you are more likely to work in a DSE compliant manner.

Next comes software. You can easily spend a great deal of money, my advice is look for Open Source Software which can be found very cheaply or even free of charge.

You can get a full office suite for nothing. Take a look at OpenOffice. This is a great suite of programs that will open and save in the leading office formats. This is absolutely free and no catches.

For web browsing I recommend Firefox, it is again free of charge and does not suffer the same security problems as some other leading web browsers.

E-mail is going to be one of the most important pieces of software you own. I recommend that you look at Thunderbird. Again its free and very easy to use.

You must have a good data backup strategy in place as your business could die if you lose all of your data. Do not under any circumstances skip this area. I recommend a two stage approach. Buy either a DVD writer or external hard drive and copy all of your important files on to it. Then lock your copy away in a small fire proof box. Then as a second line of defence consider an on-line back up solution. There are a few around such as XdriveStreamload. Do some internet searches and find the best service for you.