If you are thinking about setting up a computer shop in your home, here are some things that will make your life easier without having to upgrade your home to one with more rooms.
- Work bench: It doesn’t necessarily have to be a work bench, it can be your desk. You just need a place where you can work without anybody touching your stuff. Tell the Mrs. to keep her hands off your stuff.
- Power strip: you’ll need this to plug in your client computers and peripherals as you are working with them.
- KVM switch: Having to unplug your monitor every time you want to test a computer can be a bit of a pain. Especially if you are looking for information while you are troubleshooting. A KVM switch will let you go back and forth between computers without having to unplug and plug things. All you need is one set of Keyboard, Video, and Mouse to do the job.
- Ethernet switch: Some of the problems you’ll have to fix require you to be able to download stuff. Again, you don’t want to be unplugging and plugging stuff in all the time. If you can split your internet connection, it will make your job easier.
- PE disks: You can get the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows or even MiniPE. Some people swear by another variant called BartPE. Whatever flavor you choose, these CDs will be very handy when it comes to getting a PC running when Windows has finally fallen apart. You’ll be able to get it booted and running enough to fix the computer.
- Extra parts: you’ll need a power supply, extra memory, an extra video card, a network card, and even a hard drive. If you can swing it, an external drive would be really handy.
- Broadband: I hate to say it; but you really need broadband to be useful to your clients these days. You can download all sorts of patches, upgrades, and drivers much faster with broadband. Spend the extra money for a decent Internet connection.
This is just a short list of the more useful stuff I have found for the home computer shop. Rather than make it the definitive list, I’d like some more suggestions, if you have any. Did I miss anything?
