My Trading Hardware
Because I trade for a living, needless to say, it’s important to cover all the bases! While I do not continually buy the latest and greatest gear, I do my very best to be sure that I can rely on my equipment and have peace of mind.
I have 3 PC’s, two are desktops and one is a laptop, and all are made by Dell. I have found Dell to be extremely reliable and their service is excellent. Plus, they are located right up the road from me! All of these PC’s are Pentium 4’s with 2.6GHz on up. I find that RAM makes the biggest difference in operating speed, so go with 1GB if you can – you will certainly see a difference. Each of them has an ample hard drive, although I do not find that of greatest importance. The desktops have video cards which support two monitors each, so I have a total of 4 19” Dell LCD’s in addition to my laptop screen. I want plenty of screen space so that I do not have to open and close windows throughout the day. This is all on one big bow-front desk, so it is a lot of screen space in one place. My wife refers to it as “geek world!” The LCD’s are excellent monitors and take up far less space than the old school CRT boxes. In the upper corner of the room I have a wall-mounted television so that I can watch premarket news and unfolding events (but it’s usually on mute).
I have two internet connections: cable, and a DSL line. The cable connection consistently has tested 5 times faster than the DSL line, making it my primary connection and the DSL a backup. What’s great is that DSL works in the event of a power outage, so I can still place orders when the lights go out from a storm or nearby construction. More importantly, I have a pair of backup batteries which my machines can run on for about 25 minutes if the house loses power, giving me plenty of time to exit positions or place protective stops. They are called UPS backups, or uninterruptible power supply, and you can find them anywhere from Amazon to Office Depot. When the power goes out or surges, my machines never know the difference and my money is not at risk. I run each modem through a router, which allows me to connect multiple PC’s through the same internet connection wirelessly. It’s great to be able to take a laptop into another room to monitor positions or outside in the back yard to play Frisbee with the dog (he learned to catch it in the air last week, so I’m proud!). The routers also serve as hardware firewalls, helping to protect my PC’s from all the bad guys on the internet. If you don’t have one, I highly recommend one. Mine are made by Linksys and Netgear, and I have no complaints.
Generally, I will login to my trading account on the primary desktop, and use the other desktop for working on my stock picks website. The secondary PC is also where I run Trade-Ideas.com’s real-time streaming stock alerts software, as well as TCNet charting software. I use the laptop for financial news sites (like Briefing.com), e-mail, and travel.
I should mention that I own two external hard drives, one for each desktop PC and I scheduled the backup software to run nightly. This way, any changes I may make to my trading platform layout, the website, and everything else always has a duplicate copy. I have made the mistake of not backing up frequently enough in the past, and am determined not to lose the data which is so important to me. Pick one up, you will someday be glad you did!
Sitting at a desk so much of the day requires a comfortable chair, and I bought a Herman Miller Aeron. It is a little pricey, but offers ergonomic solutions which many others don’t. When I get up from my desk at the end of the day, I want to feel just as good as when I sat down.
My hardware may be slightly behind cutting-edge, but in the field of technology that will almost always be the case. I sleep much better at night knowing that if a hard drive were to fail, not only do I have the data stored elsewhere, but I have at least one other PC I can use while I seek a replacement. If trading is your business, don’t short-change yourself with the hardware you select when your trading capital is on the line! Eliminate worry and you are one step closer to focusing on finding profits.
Have a great week!
The Stock Bandit
thestockbandit@thestockbandit.com
www.thestockbandit.com
I have 3 PC’s, two are desktops and one is a laptop, and all are made by Dell. I have found Dell to be extremely reliable and their service is excellent. Plus, they are located right up the road from me! All of these PC’s are Pentium 4’s with 2.6GHz on up. I find that RAM makes the biggest difference in operating speed, so go with 1GB if you can – you will certainly see a difference. Each of them has an ample hard drive, although I do not find that of greatest importance. The desktops have video cards which support two monitors each, so I have a total of 4 19” Dell LCD’s in addition to my laptop screen. I want plenty of screen space so that I do not have to open and close windows throughout the day. This is all on one big bow-front desk, so it is a lot of screen space in one place. My wife refers to it as “geek world!” The LCD’s are excellent monitors and take up far less space than the old school CRT boxes. In the upper corner of the room I have a wall-mounted television so that I can watch premarket news and unfolding events (but it’s usually on mute).
I have two internet connections: cable, and a DSL line. The cable connection consistently has tested 5 times faster than the DSL line, making it my primary connection and the DSL a backup. What’s great is that DSL works in the event of a power outage, so I can still place orders when the lights go out from a storm or nearby construction. More importantly, I have a pair of backup batteries which my machines can run on for about 25 minutes if the house loses power, giving me plenty of time to exit positions or place protective stops. They are called UPS backups, or uninterruptible power supply, and you can find them anywhere from Amazon to Office Depot. When the power goes out or surges, my machines never know the difference and my money is not at risk. I run each modem through a router, which allows me to connect multiple PC’s through the same internet connection wirelessly. It’s great to be able to take a laptop into another room to monitor positions or outside in the back yard to play Frisbee with the dog (he learned to catch it in the air last week, so I’m proud!). The routers also serve as hardware firewalls, helping to protect my PC’s from all the bad guys on the internet. If you don’t have one, I highly recommend one. Mine are made by Linksys and Netgear, and I have no complaints.
Generally, I will login to my trading account on the primary desktop, and use the other desktop for working on my stock picks website. The secondary PC is also where I run Trade-Ideas.com’s real-time streaming stock alerts software, as well as TCNet charting software. I use the laptop for financial news sites (like Briefing.com), e-mail, and travel.
I should mention that I own two external hard drives, one for each desktop PC and I scheduled the backup software to run nightly. This way, any changes I may make to my trading platform layout, the website, and everything else always has a duplicate copy. I have made the mistake of not backing up frequently enough in the past, and am determined not to lose the data which is so important to me. Pick one up, you will someday be glad you did!
Sitting at a desk so much of the day requires a comfortable chair, and I bought a Herman Miller Aeron. It is a little pricey, but offers ergonomic solutions which many others don’t. When I get up from my desk at the end of the day, I want to feel just as good as when I sat down.
My hardware may be slightly behind cutting-edge, but in the field of technology that will almost always be the case. I sleep much better at night knowing that if a hard drive were to fail, not only do I have the data stored elsewhere, but I have at least one other PC I can use while I seek a replacement. If trading is your business, don’t short-change yourself with the hardware you select when your trading capital is on the line! Eliminate worry and you are one step closer to focusing on finding profits.
Have a great week!
The Stock Bandit
thestockbandit@thestockbandit.com
www.thestockbandit.com
posted by The Stock Bandit at 8/08/2005 06:31:00 PM
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