FriendFeed
| Back to Home > Bulletin Board > Freelance Marketplace Forum > Topic: What's your computer setup? |
Topic: What's your computer setup?
| Author | Message |
| Chitownwritergal | Posted – 6/25/2009 12:52:37 PM | show profile | email poster | flag this post This is primarily for working-from-home freelance writers, copy editors and proofreaders. (If designers want to post, too, feel free to!) Please ID your job role. What's your at-home computer setup? Do you use a laptop? If so, is that your only computer, or do you have a desktop as well? Mac or PC? What size monitor do you have? Do you make use of external hard drives? What security measures do you take? DSL/cable or wireless? Do you take your laptop off-site (away from your home office)? What do you think are the most important things a freelancer should look for in an at-home computer/office setup? Thanks much. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 6/26/2009 1:49:17 AM | show profile | flag this post I use a laptop, primarily because I work out in coffee shops a lot. I go with a Dell. Apple is a better computer, but it isn't worth the extra cost to me. Nothing fancy -- DSL at home, standard firewall, free spyware software. I use Carbonite offsite backup. For $50 a year everything on my harddrive is continuous backed up. Well worth the cost. For writers, the needs are limited. You want a screen and keyboard that are comfortable for you. As much speed and memory as you can afford. i am a great believer in large harddrives, because I keep everything on my computer (if someone sends me paper documents for an article, I scan them into digital formats and throw the original away). That way I can keep files forever and easily search them. |
| Wolf Shadow | Posted – 6/26/2009 10:15:26 AM | show profile | flag this post I am still a relatively new freelancer (6 months), but.... I agree 100% with Dribble re: as much memory as possible and hard drive. I have a laptop and most clients send me pdf articles -- my laptop barely has any memory left so I either need to upgrade or purchase a desktop. Backup - I have an external, but i will do an online version, too (if your computer goes, it will take days to catch up. Augh!) Internet - DSL - it is fast and good enough for me For the future: Just pondering...my writing business is doing very well, and I am considering purchasing the following in the next month/few months: 1) A desktop - because I need a backup in case the laptop blows up, and I plan to have my data backed up on both computers 2) 2nd large screen for the desktop (I do read the PDF in document 1 but need to simultaneously read the paper) and 3) Good, fast printer (I got a cheap printer...it prints too slowly, and I don't want to read PDFs on the screen, and I have to constantly buy ink) |
| Wolf Shadow | Posted – 6/26/2009 10:15:54 AM | show profile | flag this post I am still a relatively new freelancer (6 months), but.... I agree 100% with Dribble re: as much memory as possible and hard drive. I have a laptop and most clients send me pdf articles -- my laptop barely has any memory left so I either need to upgrade or purchase a desktop. Backup - I have an external, but i will do an online version, too (if your computer goes, it will take days to catch up. Augh!) Internet - DSL - it is fast and good enough for me For the future: Just pondering...my writing business is doing very well, and I am considering purchasing the following in the next month/few months: 1) A desktop - because I need a backup in case the laptop blows up, and I plan to have my data backed up on both computers 2) 2nd large screen for the desktop (I do read the PDF in document 1 but need to simultaneously read the paper) and 3) Good, fast printer (I got a cheap printer...it prints too slowly, and I don't want to read PDFs on the screen, and I have to constantly buy ink) |
| Righter | Posted – 6/26/2009 11:04:04 AM | show profile | flag this post I'm a freelance writer and use a Macbook laptop, 13 inch. Though I rarely leave my office I do like the flexibility of taking my work with me, like on planes, trips, etc. I use a cable internet service and a separate landline for business calls and back up on a hard drive. My favorite thing about my office is my laser all-in-one printer. Mine's a brother printer/fax/scanner/copier and it now saves me SO many trips to kinkos and ink cartridges. Love the fax capability because it's nice to have for the random times it's required. For the fax, I use a MagicJack to create a dialtone through my computer when I need it since I can't hook it up to my landline at home. I think the most important thing is to really have a dedicated space for everything work-related. Before I had my office, I was working on my dining room table, and it had to be cleared every night before dinner. Getting organized really increased my productivity. And even though I only travel to the next room, it's nice to GO to work in the morning, into a separate room, and be able to leave when I'm done. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 6/26/2009 12:57:11 PM | show profile | flag this post 1. I believe in using both an external harddrive for backup and a remote service. The external harddrive is handy for immediate recovery. The remote is ultimate protection -- a fire that detroys both my harddrive and backup; the ability to immediately backup my files if I am working in a coffee shop, so it won't be a tradgedy if my laptop is stolen. 2. I think a scanner is more important than a print these days. I hardly ever print out anything on paper. I usually either email Word piles or turn documents into PDFs and email those. I often won't use my printer for business in the entire year anymore. |
| Louisewasnothalfbad | Posted – 6/26/2009 2:38:44 PM | show profile | flag this post More than enough RAM, esp, if you use Firefox as a browser. |
| Chitownwritergal | Posted – 6/26/2009 3:47:55 PM | show profile | flag this post Louise Why do you say that about Firefox? I assume it has something to do with how Firefox operates, obviously, but can you elaborate? (And thanks to all--I'm learning from reading your replies.) |
| JimmyG | Posted – 6/26/2009 4:39:33 PM | show profile | flag this post I use a 24-inch iMac that I bought refurbished from Apple with 3 GB RAM and have an external hard drive for backups, which the computer does automatically each hour. Also have a Canon printer-fax-copier, and a 12-inch iBook I almost never use any more as I hate working in public. We also have a Mac Mini and another Canon MFD in the living room for family use, as as operational backups for my hardware. We have cable modem Internet service, but I maintain a cheap pay-as-you-go dial-up service for $7/month (it also allows me to keep the previous email address) as a backup connection. I use Safari as my browser and MS Word for word processing. It's a pretty basic setup. |
| chucho | Posted – 6/26/2009 6:40:54 PM | show profile | flag this post The key is whether you want to design or write. Designing requires more RAM and storage. In either case a desktop/laptop combo is most ideal. Also: it depends on what you are used to. Don't switch platforms if you don't need to, especially if you already have software for one platform over the other. |
| westsidestory | Posted – 6/26/2009 7:14:09 PM | show profile | flag this post Magicjack? Righter, how do you like the Magicjack? I've been thinking about getting one so I could jettison the second land line; I also have the fax/printer/scanner/copier that I use all the time (although it eats cartridges) |
| SPF 30 | Posted – 6/26/2009 7:43:19 PM | show profile | flag this post At home, I'm a freelance copy editor and writer. This is my setup: Macbook 13" HP 24" flat-screen LCD monitor (model W2408) Canon iP6600d printer HP fax machine/copier/backup printer (unsure of the model number) Vonage phone/fax line iPhone Cable modem Wireless Mighty Mouse Backup system: external hard drive to be implemented, er, shortly... |
| SPF 30 | Posted – 6/26/2009 7:44:37 PM | show profile | flag this post Oh, and I take my laptop with me when I travel or need a local change of scenery. I've sent in assignments from many states and countries. I think I need a real, no-work vacation! |
| Righter | Posted – 6/26/2009 8:07:36 PM | show profile | flag this post MagicJack I really like the majicjack for the fax line, since I mainly send out faxes rather than receive. Wouldn't recommend it for a phone line if you have a laptop since it shuts off when you shut off your computer, and I don't always leave mine on all day long (or opened, at least). But for faxes it's perfect. The few times I do receive faxes, I know ahead of time so I just go ahead and plug it in. And it's so cheap. Just renewed for $20 this year. (I think 4 years is $60). |
| Chitownwritergal | Posted – 6/29/2009 4:06:33 PM | show profile | flag this post Chucho, I think my OP makes clear that I am most interested in how editors and writers work. For those of you who use a remote backup service, do you mind sharing which you use and how much it costs? For hard drive backup, it makes sense to have your computer do it automatically, I would think. To manually save each one to another source would be awfully time-consuming. I'll have to learn how to set up the auto backup. |
| dribbledrive1 | Posted – 6/29/2009 6:13:54 PM | show profile | flag this post there are a number of online sites. I use Carbonite, which costs about $50 a year. Once you're set up, it just continually backs up your computer whenever it's idle (and you're connected online). you can also get an external harddrive with software that will automatically backup your computer at intervals you specify (once an hour or once a day or whatever). With both online and external backup, you can also backup anytime you want by clicking a button. None of this is manual in terms of you having to select files to back up. You want a system where you automatically set what types of files you want to back up and then the system takes care of it. |
| Chitownwritergal | Posted – 6/30/2009 2:07:35 PM | show profile | flag this post Great info, dribbledrive. Thank you! |
| EuroWriter | Posted – 7/1/2009 8:25:02 AM | show profile | email poster | flag this post Less is more but not enough? Fascinating to see how other folks arrange things. The tech side of the business is one of the biggest frustrations. Keeping up with developments (though that can be fun), keeping systems running (not fun) and trying to get costs down. I used to have a desktop and a laptop -- mainly because I had a home desktop and the paper I worked for provided a laptop. When I was laid off and went freelance I had to buy a laptop and then on my next computer acquisition a couple of years later switched to laptop with docking station. Near-term goal: migrate to hosted software and online backups. Would be interested to hear from others about their experiences. The most important guidelines for office tech for me: 1) technology should be tailored to your work requirements. There are lots of cool things you can do, but what do you need to do to get your work done? 2) If you're not a tech geek, you need to have reliable (and affordable) external assistance when (not if) something goes wrong. 3) Mobility. It depends on your business model, but I need to be able to work anywhere. Workplace: home office, a 25 sq m office with a door I can close. Computer setup: I lease a Dell Latitude laptop with a docking station. It's a 3-year lease with excellent insurance. Once, I was having some memory problems. I called Dell and the repairman was in my office within a couple of hours and replaced my motherboard and RAM right there. Within four hours I was back up and running. Don't mean to advertise here for Dell. Have found the leasing/insurance model convenient, keeps me up-to-date with the technology and knowing that I don't have to be an IT geek to get my work done. Drives: a USB drive for back-up (though I am considering online service for convenience and less clutter), I keep all my files, notes, recorded interviews on the hard drive on my laptop, backing up to the external USB drive. That way I always have everything I'm working on as well as my archive when I am on the road. Monitor: a 22" flat screen. Software: Windows XP, and still using an old version of MSOffice, but will eventually switch to online productivity programs. Telecommunications: DSL/ISDN flat rate, which gives me three phone numbers: office phone, fax (believe it or not some folks still use them, which is why I have one), home phone. Flat rate includes all major countries around the world, so my phone bill is very predictable. WLAN at home. Blackberry for email/twitter/blog/FB on the road, backup to file if no WiFi available. For office phone would an IP-based PBX be a better (cheaper) solution? Firewall/antivirus: there's one on the router, then there is Windows firewall, and I use McAfee antivirus, spyware etc. Printer: one monochrome laser printer for big text print jobs and an all-in-one color printer/scanner/fax. I get the most use out of the scanner (documents to my pc and receipts for expense reports) and the laser printer. Audio/Video: I have a Canon HD handheld camera, good enough for Web video and short documentary, Sennheiser microphone, and for audio a Marantz PMD660. Edit video with Pinnacle, but it's a resource hog, so I am considering setting up a separate editing station in my office with a dedicated PC with more resources. That doesn't help when editing video on the road, though. New laptop outfitted for video production may be better solution. |
| Chitownwritergal | Posted – 7/1/2009 5:03:31 PM | show profile | flag this post Great detailed post, EuroWriter. I'm a newbie to freelancing (perhaps obvious by now) and am posting these questions to learn what might work best for me before I go out and make any new purchases. While I've certainly heard the terms "hosted software" and "laptop docking station," I'm embarrassed to admit I don't really know what they mean. I've since Googled them but am left with a few more questions. Are there any security risks to using hosted software? Is payment made on a monthly basis? Who are some of the top hosts? EuroWriter, you say you have a 22-inch monitor. Do you mean this is at home, and you connect your laptop to it so you have a larger screen to work from while at home? Or does your mobile laptop actually have a 22-inch screen?! For any writers and print/Web editors who wish to answer, I am interested in knowing how much GB you have for memory and hard drive. Thanks in advance. |
| EuroWriter | Posted – 7/3/2009 10:58:22 AM | show profile | email poster | flag this post Glad to be of help. As I mentioned, I find this part of the freelance scenario the most frustrating because you are so often left on your own to deal with all the IT troubles. >> you have a 22-inch monitor. Do you mean this is at home, and you connect your laptop to it so you have a larger screen to work from while at home? Or does your mobile laptop actually have a 22-inch screen?!<< A basic docking station is like an electronic link between your laptop and a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Instead of plugging keyboard, mouse and monitor into your PC, you plug into the docking station. Then when you work in your office, you place (or dock) the laptop in the docking station (without opening the screen) and it enables you to use your laptop like a desktop. The advantage is that you only need one computer for working in the office or on the road and you always have your files with you. But it?s even more important to make sure you back up your hard drive to an external drive because should your laptop get stolen, fall off a boat into the ocean or down an elevator shaft, all your files are gone. I?m not a gamer, so I don?t miss having a souped up PC to play with and laptops have become very powerful. There are also high-end docking stations that allow you to attach additional peripheral devices without having to build these into your laptop, so you can use them in the office but leave them behind when you travel. For example, some people work with two monitors and each monitor needs a graphics card. It's not too practical to put two graphics cards in a laptop -- that's easy on a desktop -- but there are docking stations that have slots for a graphics card so you can still use two monitors when in the office. Not all laptops are able to be used with a docking station. You need to check that out before you buy. The standard office laptops like Dell, Toshiba, Lenova (previously IBM), HP, Acer should all have models for docking stations. I?m not trying to do advertising for Dell, it?s just the laptop that I use and am most familiar with. If you look at the configuration of their Latitude models (that?s the one that I use) on their web site, you?ll see the various options available. They also now have a line for small busineses, called Vostro, but I don?t know if it works with a docking station. In any case, shop around because there may be better deals now. The market changes constantly. >> Are there any security risks to using hosted software? Is payment made on a monthly basis? Who are some of the top hosts?<< Both Yahoo and Google have the basic tools you need: word processor, address book and calendar, and can be synchronized with a PDA. Each offer basic services for free, but there are subscription services as well. Prices are online. I don?t know of any serious security risks. My question is more about compatibility. MS Word is still the dominant word processor out there and I also use Excel everyday, so I am more concerned about being able to read documents and spread sheets and be sure that other people can work with what I send them. Google Apps can read MS docs and Excel files, but I?m not sure that MS Office can read Google App files. I haven?t looked into it that yet, but would be interested to hear from anyone who has switched entirely to Google Apps or something similar. >>For any writers and print/Web editors who wish to answer, I am interested in knowing how much GB you have for memory and hard drive.<< As much as you can afford. I still have XP running with 2GB RAM, but I think Vista requires a minimum of 2GB. The size of your hard drive depends on what programs you're running and the files you keep on it. Most new laptops will come with sufficient space. I've got a 160 GB hard drive, a 250 GB external drive for backups and a 2000 GB external drive for video. |
| GregWBrooks | Posted – 7/4/2009 7:38:42 AM | show profile | email poster | flag this post Chiming in late We do a mix of things here -- lots of writing, but also plenty of graphic design, including the design of newspaper pages. The setup includes: * Sony Vaio AW290 laptop -- 6 GB RAM/18.4" screen (barely fits the definition of a laptop)/320 GB drive. The screen is large enough that I don't feel like I always need to jack into the external monitor (a 25" ViewSonic flat screen that rotates) to work. * The main desktop in the house (used by my spouse) is also a Sony -- can't recall the model number, but it's one of their flat-screen all-in-one units. 4 GB RAM/250 GB HD. * There's an HP Netbook for writing and email while traveling. Mainly for my wife -- I actually lug the 18.4" Sony with me everywhere and have the shoulder muscles to prove it. I travel a *lot* and, even when not traveling, will have "out days" where I just decide to work away from the home office. * There's an HP laptop (17" screen, 2 GB RAM/200 GB HD) that sits, unused. Its sole purpose is back-up hardware -- it has a full compliment of all the programs we use and is ready to go into service at a moment's notice if either of the two primary computers go down. (We do a lot of stuff on daily or even hourly deadlines and can't afford much downtime.) * We back up at two levels: -- There's a Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ unit with 1.3 TB of RAID 5 storage on the home network. Overkill for most people? Yeah, maybe -- but I love this thing. It's the size of a small toaster and gives us on-network backup for all the computers with the redundancy of RAID. In-progress jobs are checked into or out of the server for work and old jobs are stored there -- so at any given time, if one of the primary computers *does* go down, not much will be lost. -- Because things like email get stored on the primary computers, we use an online back-up service (Mozy.com) for $5,95 per computer per month. In terms of your larger question -- that is, what should you look for -- here are my criteria: * An external hard drive is not a real back-up, no matter what the marketing literature says. If your house burns down, chances are both your computer and your hard drive will perish. House burglarized? Same problem. This is why I'm a fan of off-site back-up. * Hard drives fail -- it happens more than you think. For this reason, I'm a fan of having some sort of RAID solution in place. You could skip this and just go with off-site back-ups *if* you back up often enough. If you back up once every two weeks, are you willing to take the hit of losing two weeks' worth of work? RAID would protect you from that loss if the data loss was caused by a failed hard drive. Hope this helps! |
| Metro Writer | Posted – 7/7/2009 10:20:18 PM | show profile | flag this post I have used a laptop for years and wouldn't consider going back to a PC. I lived in a townhouse where my home office got brutal heat and sun glare in the afternoon. I couldn't work unless I took the laptop to another room that faced east. Also, I'd take my laptop and work at Starbucks while my husband was interviewing for jobs. My next laptop will have a much bigger hard drive and at least 6GB of memory because I'm running out of resources. (I also work on InDesign, Photoshop, PowerPoint and QuickBooks.) My husband, the computer expert, says that Vista takes 1G of memory. Heaven knows how much memory Windows 7 will use. He recommends not skimping on memory. Laptops typically have only 2 slots for memory, so you need to look at two 3G chips to get you through updates in the MS operating system and any other software. We back up with thumb drives and Retrospect. |
| Chitownwritergal | Posted – 7/8/2009 12:06:24 PM | show profile | email poster | flag this post Those who work in coffee shops.... What's the longest you've ever stayed in a coffee shop while working from your laptop? Do you regularly go to to cafes to use as a work environment? How long do you typically stay? And do you purchase refills during your stay? Kind of silly questions, but I am curious.... |
