For this new year it’s back to basics. Without a solid tech foundation, your home office is not going to be productive or secure. Here are two recommendations — we’ll have two more in our next column.
No. 1: Upgrade to two monitors on your desktop. At first it may seem like overkill, but as a productivity tool it’s unbeatable. Here’s an example: You can work on a Word document or surf the Net on the right screen while you run your email program or a spreadsheet on the left. The upshot: You’re not distracted, and you’re not wasting time switching programs and tasks. (You’ll never go back to just a single screen.)
Most video cards have the capability to run two monitors at the same time, so it’s super easy to set up. Bigger is better. Prices of monitors have dropped substantially, so the current industry standard size (23 inches) is quite affordable.
We looked at two options.
The 23-inch Hewlett Packard x2301 Micro Thin LED monitor got kudos from CNET, and we agreed. It’s elegant, with a bright, clear screen and fast response time. Resolution was crisp and the monitor is incredibly thin. Set up was a snap — pretty much plug and play. The panel tilts back 10 degrees — pretty standard, but for a low-priced monitor, it’s what you’d expect. The glossy screen means there’s some glare, but that’s not a deal breaker. You can buy them for as little as $180. If you can’t find one for sale (they are tough to find), the Pavilion 23xi, at $149, is also a good bet.
The second monitor we looked at was the 27-Inch Samsung S27C750P "Tilt and Pivot" model. It differs from the HP not only because it’s larger, but the stand raises the bottom of the bezel (covering panel) six inches off the desktop. This offers sufficient clearance to flip the screen 90 degrees to portrait mode — hence the "Tilt and Pivot" moniker. It didn’t come assembled but setup was easy. You’ll need to tweak the contrast and brightness, but the buttons are well marked. Image quality was very good — as good as you can expect from an inexpensive monitor of this size. It also has a nonglare screen that I really liked. At around $330 if you want a big monitor, it would be tough to match features that Samsung has for that price.
No. 2: Make sure your security software is current and solid. Sounds like a no-brainer, but recently I got a call from a friend, frantic because his home office machine had been infected by malware. His security software had expired, and in an effort to save a few bucks, he hadn’t bothered to renew it. Big mistake. The snafu cost him the equivalent of a new computer, and he was lucky it wasn’t worse. The solution is the Norton 360 suite from Symantec, a company that has been in the security business since Day One. There are quite a few similar programs on the market, but you’re not going to do much better than the 2014 editions of Norton Antivirus, Norton Internet Security and Norton 360. The suite covers the entire waterfront: online protection, parental controls, online identity protection, anti-malware capabilities as well as PC tuneup tools and an online backup with 2GB of storage. This will cost you $89.99 for one year for three PCs. If you want the basic package without the tuneup tools and the backup, the Norton Antivirus goes for $49.99 for one PC. We found Norton 360 easy to set up, and, unlike earlier editions, this won’t slow down your system. For a safe 2014, you’ll want Norton covering your back.
