Welcome to the first installment of Small Business IT for Non-Geeks.  In this post, we’ll discuss the computers you and your employees use everyday and how to make better choices.  Let’s get started…

Computers come in many shapes and sizes.  There are full tower cases with tons of space for extra hard drives and CD/DVD drives all the way down to nettop boxes that are about the size of a hardback book.  You can get small laptops (netbooks) and you can get gaming laptops with all the bells and whistles.  But, what do you really need?  How important is integrated graphics to you and the job you are trying to do?  To answer that, let’s first take a look at desktop computers and go from there.  For the sake of this series, let’s focus on computers that you buy, not build (or have someone build for you).

Desktop computers

Desktop computers most often consist of 3 main parts; a case where all the cool computer stuff is located, a monitor, and input devices (a keyboard and mouse).  Cases can be big for extra storage or small for tucking away and saving space.  There are pros and cons to every hardware and case setup but keep in mind that cool computer stuff costs money.  If you are buying a computer that is not suited for the job it will be doing, you are wasting money, either by over-buying or under-buying, resulting in more frequent upgrades.

When it comes to small business IT, you need a computer to do a particular job.  The good news is that finding a computer that will handle most jobs is very easy.  We can get into a discussion about how AMD is better or worse than Intel, why ASUS motherboards are popular, the importance of having the right graphic card, and on and on but really, none of that matters for the average small business computer.  What you as a small business owner needs is a basic computer that is fast, has enough storage, and won’t break the bank. [Read more…]