Articles where someone ’s given a set budget and told to outfit an agency or studio or place amusement organisation with the latest and greatest Mac equipment are near and devout to my kernel . That ’s in part because I redact one of the early permutation of this feature for the August 2004 yield ofMacworld , in which we handed Adam C. Engst and Christopher Breen $ 6,000 each in Monopoly money and told them to do some shopping . ( How long ago was that clause written ? So long ago that Chris ’s shopping list admit a $ 789 Dell Dimension 4600 , which Chris admit in social club to do cross - platform computing ; these Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , Chris would have saved himself some dough by just buying a copy ofParallels Desktop — and a copy of Windows , too . )
The other reason articles like this are penny-pinching and beloved to my kernel ? genuine - life experience . From October 2003 to August 2005 , I was exiled fromMacworld ’s San Francisco headquarters , work out of my apartment in Los Angeles . While my employer was kind enough to keep me supplied with all the computer hardware and software I needed , the experience still made me acutely aware of the challenge of stocking a home office from scratch .
And apparently , I ’m not the only person keenly concerned in these type of story . Considerthe reactionto Chris Breen ’s latest foray into equipping a Mac - centric home office . In this clause , Chris selected hardware and software package for three very different budget — $ 1,500 , $ 3,000 , and a unembellished - no - expense $ 6,000 limit .
Those spending caps seemed to capture readers ’ mental imagery , with a few proposing shopping lean of their own . Here ’s a $ 6,000 office fromhmurchinson :
That occur in at around $ 5,080 ; hmurchinson direct his remain $ 900 and change for an external memory gadget , Web software package likeCodaorCSSedit , a .Mac account , and some accessories like a prissy bag or more peripherals .
My take : The most interesting thing about this tilt is that hmurchinson went with the Windows version of Office rather than the prove - its - age Mac version . I wonder if that glide slope would change later this year should Microsoft come through with the Intel - indigene Office 2008 for Mac that it promised at Macworld Expo .
Here ’s another $ 6,000 list , fromLslugger :
If you ’re scoring along at menage , that ’s $ 5,739 , give or take some sales taxation .
My take : congratulations to Lslugger for remember to include a backup program like SuperDuper . I recover the deficiency of a photograph - redaction program an interesting omission , peculiarly given that the Pixma MP960 is a photo inkjet multifunction pressman , but perhaps Lslugger plans to use the version of iPhoto pack with the new ironware .
