The first and perhaps most important step in planning your technology purchase is defining what you want to do with your system. Think of it as "products". So ask yourself, and the others in your household, what kinds of tasks you will be performing and how often will you be doing them. What do you want to create or do; word documents, presentations, slideshows, listen to music, surf the net, send and receive email, and so on? Once this step is complete then we will talk about things like; How many users? How many different machines/devices? Will all or some of them be connected in a network? And then finally, is there existing hardware and programs that you currently use that will continue to be used in conjunction with the new equipment?

To begin, use the following check list to track the demands and then try our scoring system to identify the key elements of the system that may best suit your needs. Each of the categories is incremental, that is it includes all elements listed in the earlier group(s). Each box you tick equals number of points associated with each category. (This approach will work equally as well whether you want a desktop computer or if you prefer to have the convenience of portability associated with a laptop.)