Telecommuting pc?

[zonkie]

Wife needs a pc to telecommute from home. She logs into a virtual desktop and needs to use 2 monitors, but other than that, everything is handled by her work. What is the minimum she'd need? Celeron? C2Duo?

I'm not used to underbuilding a pc.

 

[DSF]

There's probably very little that she needs other than a functioning computer with two monitor outputs.

Do you know what software package she uses to connect to work?

 

[Phynaz]

Pentium anniversary edition would be perfect.

 

[zonkie]

There's probably very little that she needs other than a functioning computer with two monitor outputs.

Do you know what software package she uses to connect to work?

I do and it has no requirements other than at least windows xp.

She's been using my A6 AMD equipped laptop with no problems, but it's been very awkward to have connected on the desk. It's pseudo quad core and less than 2ghz. I prefer not to get refurbished because I don't know of any reputable sellers. Best thing I can find is dell outlet for $239.

 

[DSF]

What's the machine at Dell Outlet?

Again, it's almost certainly A-OK as long as it has two monitor outputs. If you already have two monitors you can pretty much get any cheap, recent computer.

 

[zonkie]

Inspirion 3647. it has vga and HDMI so that should work. Celeron G1820 Proc.

 

[vbuggy]

I don't really understand why nerds have to spec a piece of crud for work always. My all-purpose machine of choice (including telecommutes for staff) are SSD-outfitted Z230's or Optiplex 90x0's. Unlike some piece of crap that's being whipped within an inch of its life while even opening an Excel sheet, it has enough headroom for general OA duties without waiting around. Something goes wrong, on-site (as long as - of course - there isn't a knowitall 'I'm an IT expert' around who tries to fix it and then gets upset when the OEM won't bend to his every misguided whim).

Even for basic duties a half-decent machine will keep on trucking for a long time without issues. And on the flipside, it's more likely that a piece of crap in the first place will give you issues even when doing something basic.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Inspirion 3647. it has vga and HDMI so that should work. Celeron G1820 Proc.

Should be fine. The G1820 isn't total crap.

Of course, with telecommuting, the important part is the network connection and the environment. You should probably spend more on the office chair then you spend on your computer.

And NO CATS IN THE OFFICE!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I don't really understand why nerds have to spec a piece of crud for work always. My all-purpose machine of choice (including telecommutes for staff) are SSD-outfitted Z230's or Optiplex 90x0's. Unlike some piece of crap that's being whipped within an inch of its life while even opening an Excel sheet, it has enough headroom for general OA duties without waiting around. Something goes wrong, on-site (as long as - of course - there isn't a knowitall 'I'm an IT expert' around who tries to fix it and then gets upset when the OEM won't bend to his every misguided whim).

Even for basic duties a half-decent machine will keep on trucking for a long time without issues. And on the flipside, it's more likely that a piece of crap in the first place will give you issues even when doing something basic.

It depends on your telecommuting workflow.

If you sign into the VPN and RDP into a desktop computer or VM at work - your computing experience is 99% reliant on your network connection and the hardware running at the other end of the pipe. Your local machine is a virtually irrelevant near-thin-client.

But, if you sign into the VPN and access work LAN from your local machine (so you're running Office and other applications from the local disk and using your own CPU for CPUing) then the box you're running on locally is much more important.

If you're poor, but you're also lousy at computing and want to make absolutely sure that your weird porno doesn't get saved to a work file server, then speccing out an el-cheapo computer is insurance.