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While laptops are becoming the default PC these days, don't let the need to take your laptop on the road for a week a year or an hour a day in meetings dictate the need that your tech writing interface be a laptop integrated mouse, CRT, and keyboard. If you spend the bulk of your time pounding on a laptop, your writing career will likely be short lived.
I've found that the laptop isn't as important as the docking station equipage. I found out the hard and expensive way that buying different brands of laptops (I have five: 17" Sony Vaio, Fugitsu LifeBook T4215, 17" MacBook Pro, Dell D620, and Thinkpad T43p) isn't the definitive answer. (Although I prefer and mostly use the Thinkpad.) A docking station with a comfortable keyboard, oversized monitor, and comfortable mouse make my 10-12 hour days survivable.
So focus on solving the problem of the environment in which you do most of your keyboarding. Make that environment the most ergonomically correct one you can. Then discipline yourself to use that set up and contain the writing marathons in bed in the middle of the night to a few times a month. Your carpal tunnel will thank you.
Oh and max out your RAM. Publishing apps and Vista are memory intensive (read: hogs). I'm going with 2Gs minimum. Hard disk size and multiple cores are nice too, but your biggest bang for the buck is RAM-centric.
Good luck,
Paul
673 Silver Lake Drive
Danville CA 94526
925.735.8771 voice
925.735.8770 fax
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+paul=farleytech -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+paul=farleytech -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]On
Behalf Of Yves Barbion
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 4:07 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Hardware requirements for a tech doc laptop?
Hi techwhirlers,
I'm about to buy some new laptop computers for my technical writing
activities. So I'll be using the typical tech writer's toolset: Adobe
Creative Suite + Adobe FrameMaker, WebWorks Publisher 9.x, XMetal, Madcap
Flare, AuthorIT etc.
What do you think I will need in terms of hardware (processor, RAM, ...)? Of
course, I'd like the laptops to be "Vista-ready".
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Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include single source authoring, team authoring,
Web-based technology, and PDF output. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList
Now shipping: Help & Manual 4 with RoboHelp(r) import! New editor,
full Unicode support. Create help files, web-based help and PDF in up
to 106 languages with Help & Manual: http://www.helpandmanual.com
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