Chapter Thirteen
Technical Requirements
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You need to
follow two primary “technology” rules if you want your online MBA
experience to go smoothly: Get the fastest Internet connection available
in your area; and purchase the most efficient, well-built notebook
computer system you can afford. If you follow these two rules,
everything else will fall into place.
Of course, you will have days when your computer seems to have
changed its personality, or when your broadband Internet connection
seems to have gone totally under the weather. However, these nasty
inevitabilities of living in the Digital Age will be lessened if you
follow these two rules.
In this chapter I’ve provided some general action items and
advice regarding hardware and software ownership and manageability.
Most online MBA programs require that students purchase their own
computer equipment (hardware and software) and list the minimum hardware
and software requirements.
“Have access to a computer you will enjoy using. If you are going
to spend hours of your free time in front of a computer, you want it to
be as enjoyable as possible,” advised Linda Couch, University of
Maryland University College online MBA graduate. “While it wasn’t
necessary, I bought a new system that had nothing but my schoolwork and
related programs loaded on it. When I traveled and needed to do work, I
transferred necessary files. I also printed quite a bit of materials.”
As a guide for when and if you decide to purchase a computer
system, the University of Florida’s Notebook Computer Requirement for
Graduate Students (enrolling Summer 2008 through Spring 2009), plus some
of my personal suggestions, are listed in this chapter. In my opinion,
every MBA student should have a notebook computer, simply because they
are mobile and part and parcel of today’s business world. If you follow
these requirements, you should be adequately armed and ready to go.
Minimum Hardware:
• 1.8
Ghz processor
• 60 GB
hard rive
•
2 GBs of RAM for Windows Vista
•
DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive
•
10/100 Base-T Ethernet LAN adapter (wired network card)
•
Wireless (802.11b/g/n) LAN adapter (for wireless networking)
Minimum Software:
•
Microsoft Windows Vista
•
Microsoft Office with Access (for database projects), Excel (for
spreadsheet projects), Outlook (for e-mail), PowerPoint (for
presentations), and Word (for word processing).
•
Latest Internet Explorer (for free at www.microsoft.com)
•
Latest Sun Microsystem’s Java (for free at www.java.com)
•
Latest Adobe Flash Player (for free at www.adobe.com)
• Other
multimedia plug-ins (explained later in this chapter).
•
Antivirus software
The University of Florida (UF) provides the following “tricks of
the trade” (paraphrased here) for keeping your computer system healthy:
•
Install Windows updates regularly. Go to Internet Explorer, click on
“Tools” from the top toolbar and “Windows Updates” from the drop-down
menu. Follow the directions. UF advised to perform this action once each
week even though your computer may be set for automatic updates.
• If
your computer has Windows XP (Professional or Home), update it to
Service Pack 2 (SP2) by following the instructions listed above.
• Make
sure your computer is running some form of antivirus software and that
it is consistently kept up to date. In addition to ensuring that your
antivirus software is updated weekly, run a full virus scan of your
system every week (explained later in this chapter).
• Go to
www.download.com and download Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad Aware, to
combat spyware, adware, malware, etc. (explained later in this chapter).
•
Install the most current Adobe Acrobat Reader (for free at
www.adobe.com).
• Every
now and then I like to perform a disk cleanup of my hard drive.
Right-click on your C-Drive and under “General” properties click on the
“Disk Cleanup” button and follow the prompts.
A printer was not listed in the University of Florida package,
but you are going to need one. My recommendation for this is pretty
straightforward and somewhat biased: Purchase a used black-and-white
laser printer, preferably a Hewlett-Packard Laser Jet 4. If you can’t
find a used one, the cost of new black-and-white laser printers has gone
down dramatically in recent years. An excellent HP LaserJet P1500, for
instance, runs about $149 plus tax (2008 price).
I purchased a work-horse Hewlett-Packard Laser Jet 4 printer for
$200 from an accountant more than four years ago and have abused it on a
daily basis, printing many thousands of pages for all the research I do
in my work as a professional education writer. Before I purchased this
printer, the accountant abused it for about two years, printing out
reams of tax forms. I have not really performed any maintenance on this
printer since I bought it. The only thing I do is purchase a new
cartridge every few months.
Because your printing requirements as an online MBA student will
be limited pretty much to journal articles, case studies, and a variety
of other business-related documents (e.g., spreadsheets,
research-related web pages, PDFs, and various research-oriented tomes),
you do not need a color printer. For that occasional paper-based
presentation with the spiffy graphics that you want to have printed in
full-blooming color, it might be more economical to go to your local
copy center instead of investing in a color printer that has relatively
costly ink cartridges.
First and foremost, you’ll be supplied with a student account
that includes a special username and password that you will use to
access your course management system over an Internet connection. To
access the Internet, you will obviously need to have an Internet service
provider account (ISP).
In addition, you’ll need to purchase the obligatory Microsoft
Office package, if you don’t already have it, and you’ll be supplied
with some additional software packages that are typically free, such as
the multimedia plug-in players, web browsers, e-mail clients, Adobe
Acrobat Reader, and compression utilities such as WinZip for the PC and
StuffIt for the Mac. You’ll be able to download these from the school’s
web pages that feature technical requirements. You’ll also typically get
a CD-ROM loaded with all the software you need to install. When
downloading software from a web page, be aware of the following:
As noted earlier, and worth repeating, make sure you have virus
and personal firewall protection, as well as spyware and adware
protection.
In addition, if you don’t have a “temporary files” folder on your
desktop, create one for downloading the software installers, which are
self-extracting .exe extension files, into this folder. After you have
downloaded the .exe extension file, click on it and follow the
directions until the software is installed on your desktop. To save on
disk space, you can delete the .exe extension file after you have
finished the installation process.
Hopefully, you won’t have too much trouble downloading all of the
software you will use. It can be a relatively time-consuming process for
the downloads and installations to fully take place, so be patient.
Overall, however, it is a simple process that requires only a few simple
mouse clicks to complete.
Plug-ins basically expand your computer’s ability to play audio
and video files from an Internet connection. Four plug-ins you may need
are Windows Media Player, RealOne Player, Adobe Flash or Shockwave
Players, and QuickTime. If you want to experience all the sights and
sounds that many schools provide online, you’ll need some, or all, of
these plug-ins installed on your computer. You’ll also need a video card
and sound card with speakers.
You’ll obviously need to have a web browser for connecting to the
Internet. Most schools recommend that you use the latest version of
Microsoft Internet Explorer, and you’ll be asked to configure your
browser to accept cookies. Other browsers, such as those provided by the
dedicated Internet service provider companies such as AOL, CompuServe,
and Earthlink, are typically not recommended. For e-mail services, the
Microsoft Outlook or Express clients are generally recommended.
You’ll need to be familiar with the Adobe Portable Document
Format (PDF), which is the standard format for displaying and printing
documents, including colors, graphics, typefaces, and photos, on any
computer platform. Some of the required readings in your courses will be
provided in the PDF format, and you’ll need to install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader application in order to view and print them..
If you work on a PC, you’ll more than likely need WinZip software
(see
www.winzip.com),
a compression utility that crunches large amounts of data into smaller
packages. It will come in handy when downloading software, which is
usually formatted in data-compressed files, as well as for attaching
large files, which are more reliable if compressed, to more easily
transmit over an e-mail correspondence.
Protecting and backing up everything that resides on your
computer is important as
viruses, spyware, and adware become more commonplace; power surges
continue to fry machines; and hard drives consistently crash. You’ll
need two things: software that identifies malevolent digital bugs, such
as Norton Anti Virus or
McAfee software packages, as well as a means to back up all the files on
your computer on a fairly regular basis (in case you ever lose data).
Spyware is software that watches where you travel in cyperspace.
Unbeknownst to the user, it tracks your clicks and typically uses that
information to send you unsolicited e-mails. Adware is software that
generates advertising messages that pop up all over your computer screen
while you are surfing the web, or, in some cases, when you are not
surfing the web.
Spyware and adware software are often secretly installed on
people’s computers when they download freeware, or when they click a
button at an unethical website that then installs spyware and adware on
unsuspecting visitors.
For an excellent overview and access to
tools you can download for protection against the nasty underworld of
spyware and adware, visit the
Anti-Spyware Guide website.
Because all this stuff can wreak havoc on your computer, you
would be wise to invest in a backup protection strategy. My personal
preference is an external hard drive that you can quite easily plug into
your USB port, install the hard drive software, and then just copy all
your files to it. They come in all shapes and sizes, and a wide variety
of price ranges. To do some online shopping, type “external hard drive”
into the Google shopping service.
Of course, you might not need to get an expensive notebook and the very latest and greatest software packages. Your current computer system may be more than adequate.
However, if you need to do some shopping, have I gotta deal for
you. Did you know, for instance, that as a matriculated student you can
take advantage of some pretty good computer hardware and software deals?
Most institutions, other than the virtual ones, have retail outlets on
campus where students can purchase their computer software and hardware
at substantial discounts. As an online student, you are entitled to
these discounts, except you’ll have to pay for shipping costs (unless
you happen to live close by and can pick up whatever you purchase).
For software deals, in addition to buying from your school’s
retail outlet, you can take advantage of educational discounts offered
only to students at JourneyEd.com. You must provide proof of your
academic status.
This concludes my spiel about technical requirements. As always, when it comes to anything that requires a purchase, Caveat emptor.
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