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Contact me at david@geercom.com, via this form or at 440-964-9832 (Fax:440-964-2172). Lakestyle magazine Remote Working, Lakestyle!By David Geer Catalogs team with office equipment, software and services that can help you work more effectively. Here are some crucial technologies for working from the lake. The Internet Most people can't imagine working without the Internet. If you don't have service yet, check cable and phone carriers for high-speed Internet first. If neither is available, look into fixed wireless, satellite and dial-up. Pros/Cons Cable is the fastest, but may require rewiring. DSL is fast but you must be within 18,000 feet of the carrier's nearest Central Office. Fixed Wireless beams a signal from a tower to your fixed "dish". Line of sight between the tower and dish is required. Satellite is more expensive (prices vary widely) and can be affected by conditions like weather. Dial-up is cheap but slow. Purchase two services and you are nearly guaranteed a connection should one go down. Connecting and Protecting Computers On your end of your cable or DSL "modem" you'll want a hardware firewall, a device used to keep hackers out. A desirable firewall is the SOHO TZW from SonicWALL. At $595 (list) this piece of hardware connects your wired and wireless computers together, and protects them. Connect with your laptop wirelessly while working by the dock (up to about 300 feet). Get the NETGEAR MR814 Cable/DSL Wireless Router instead and save some bucks. This wireless router also joins wired and wireless computers (using the 802.11b wireless LAN technology) and comes with its own internal firewall at $79.99. ! - Most new computers come with anti-virus software. Learn to use it! A software firewall adds extra protection in addition to your hardware firewall. 1. Zone Alarm Pro 4 software firewall keeps hackers out ($49.95 per year, includes needed software updates and support). 2. A more effective program is Sygate's Personal Firewall Pro 5.5. Though this product is cheaper ($47.95 a year), it can be more complicated to use. Inside your laptop there's a hard drive with a long-term memory of your work. One of the best means of securing this information is to back it up to an additional, external hard drive. Iomega makes two great external drives - models 32659 and 32660. The 32659 has 120GB of storage (a lot) and USB 2.0 and FireWire inputs (similar technologies) for connecting to your computer. It offers fast 7200rpm-disk speed and comes with an on/off switch. At $230, the 32659 is a small price to protect your data. The 32660 offers 80GB of storage space (still plenty), the same speed and USB 2.0 connections ($160). Protection from hackers, data loss, oh, what about power loss or surges (lightning!)? An Interesting Note: If your house is grounded according to legal code then your risk of damage from surges is negligible. However, a good Universal Power Supply lets you save your work before shutting down in an outage. The APC Back-UPS RS line offers the models 1000 and 1500. The model 1000 lists at $249.99 and provides enough power for you to keep working for several minutes in an outage before safely shutting down equipment. With the model 1500, plus an additional battery (total cost about $450), you can work up to four hours in an outage before losing power. Going Mobile, Lakeside Wireless computers need wireless PC cards to connect. NETGEAR's WG511T 108 Mbps Wireless PC Card ($89.99) is very fast and highly compatible with other wireless LANs (except 802.11a). If you just need 802.11b, the MA521 802.11b Wireless PC Card from NETGEAR is compatible with 802.11b and g hardware ($59.99). At this point you'll need a Laptop. Important! If you will be using technology near the lake, have insurance that covers dunking your laptop (if you can get it, or wait till your equipment is safely put away before rewarding yourself with that Corona). The IBM ThinkPad R40 line comes with built in 802.11b technology and weighs about 5.6lbs. The Intel Celeron 1.6 GHz processor model ($979) is a great choice with plenty of available memory and storage to meet your needs (memory can be added when ordering). From my favorite maker HP, comes the Pavilion zd7000 Notebook PC ($1799). This model has the best combination of technologies whether your work requires digital entertainment, photography or simple Internet computing. With a 17-inch screen, DVD, CD read/write, and a variety of wireless connections so you can travel with it too, you're well on your way to a remote worker's laptop paradise. Memory and storage are more than ample. Connecting to Other Offices For those working remotely who need to connect to an office or distant computer, remote access software is quick, secure and easy to use. At the top of the list is Symantec's pcAnywhere version 11 ($199.95). With pcAnywhere on both computers, you can connect securely from one to another and work on the distant machine as if you were right in front of it. Work with software, hardware and files on the other end or retrieve files and return them when you're work is done. GoToMyPC is a cheaper solution at $14.95 per PC per year. This service is compatible with Microsoft Windows and Mac, Linux and Unix for users familiar with those systems. Other features include access from handheld devices and remote printing. Everything Else Space permitting, I'd love to have recommended desktop and tower computers, printers, faxes, phones, copiers, scanners and other items (which most of us who have worked in an office are probably already familiar with). If you stick with makers you know and trust, and those like HP, IBM, Dell, GE and Nokia, it will be hard to go wrong. To save on most items, check out secure, trustworthy online discount sites like TigerDirect. Above all, make sure the technologies you use are compatible with each other and shop where you can return them if they aren't. |
