I needed to purchase a computer that would satisfy all the needs and wants of the family. I needed a system that could run accounting software, my wife needed the ability to run graphic programs and the children needed educational software. In addition to having a system with sufficient power to handle these tasks, I wanted the ability to expand the system at a later date, if necessary. Finally, I needed a sufficient warranty. After listening to the advice of friends and sales people, I was no better off than when I started. So I decided to go out on faith and buy what I thought was the best deal for my money. I researched Compaq, Dell, Gateway and some no frills machines. The no frills systems were immediately ruled out; the price was right, the warranty was not. In some instances the warranty was ok, but I was not sure if I would ever see the person who built the system again.

Printer resolution is measured in two directions horizontally and vertically, also known as dots per inch (dpi). Which shows how many dots of ink the printer can lay down in a square inch of paper. The more dots per inch means finer detail, which makes text appear sharper and cleaner, and color images more sharply defined. A resolution of 1440 x 720 dpi means that 1440 dots are placed horizontally across one inch of paper, and 720 dots are printed vertically down an inch. This gives a total of 1,036,800 dots in that single square inch of paper. Before purchasing any printer get a sample of various models to determine what is suitable to you. Don't forget to check the printers memory size, cost of cartridges, interface connections (USB is the preferred connection); and duty cycle (dc), average number of pages printed per month.

· Bus: Path data travels between devices. The PCI bus connects the PCI expansion card slots to the memory and the chipset on the motherboard. Data can travel at a fast rate along the PCI bus, up to 132MB per second. However, there is an even faster data bus that is designed specifically for graphics cards, the AGP bus. There are three types of AGP: AGP 1X, AGP 2X, and AGP 4X. AGP 1X, is twice as fast as PCI, with a transfer rate of 264MB/sec. APG 2X, is four times as fast as PCI; and with AGP 4X, data travels up to 1056MB/sec or eight times faster than PCI.

· Less than half the power consumption of CRT monitors

· Video Decoding: If you have a DVD-ROM drive and wish to play DVD movies on your computer screen. Your computer needs to be able to decode the video data on the DVD disc, and that can be done either with a software program or a special hardware-decoding chip.

Memory: Main memory, Primary storage or Random Access Memory (RAM), is the place where computers store information for immediate access. RAM is measured in millions of bytes or Megabytes, (MB). Most systems tend to come standard with 32-64 MB, and while still sufficient, I would pay the extra money for 128 MB. With video graphics and digital music becoming more popular, I feel the extra memory would be beneficial. I would also ensure that this memory is not shared with the video system, as this would decrease the memory available at all times. Systems generally have 8 MB for video, with the advancements in graphics and my specific need to run graphic programs, I would spend the extra $30-$60 to increase the memory to 16-32 MB.

Video/Graphics Adapter: The most expensive cards are geared towards power "gamers" and offer the highest level of 3D acceleration as their main feature. While other cards geared towards the budget PC market utilizes a more broad entertainment appeal, providing moderate 3D acceleration as well as DVD and MPEG video decoding, and the occasional extra feature such as TV output. When considering a new sound card one should consider: bus type, memory size, fill rate; and video decoding.

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