Last Updated: October 27, 2006
 
We often get requests from students and parents regarding what computers, software, and other technology items they should purchase at home. We are not in the position of being able to recommend specific brands, models, software titles or exact specifications, but we can give some general guidelines about what to look for. Please be aware that Arapahoe High School and Littleton Public Schools are not telling you what you have to buy – we are simply giving some general recommendations - and we are not liable for any decisions you ultimately make.
 
What Computer Should I Buy?
We can’t make specific recommendations, but we have had good luck over the years with computers from Dell and Apple. From Arapahoe’s standpoint, the specifications – and the warranty – are more important than the particular brand.
 
What Operating System Should I Get?
In general, when you purchase a new computer you will get the latest and greatest operating system that runs on that platform. We use Windows XP Professional on the Windows side (although if you're ready for Microsoft Windows Vista that would be fine), and recommend the latest version of Mac OS X on the Macintosh side. There are a variety of versions of Linux available for those who are more technically oriented and want to go that route, but we do not have any experience with Linux. From Arapahoe’s standpoint, the operating system is not as important as the specifications and the software that you purchase.
 
What Specifications Should I Get?
This depends a lot on what you want to do with the computer. Unless you want to do something like video editing or high-end gaming, you don’t always need the fastest, most expensive equipment. The standard-sized hard drive (currently around 40 GB) is adequate for most people’s needs (if you want to do video editing you will want a much larger hard drive). You’ll usually save some money by getting a processor that is a couple of notches below the fastest processor available – the differences in speed are usually negligible. As far as RAM, we would recommend a minimum of 1 GB on either platform, and more if you can afford it. We would urge you to consider buying extended warranties for all manufacturers. If you have broadband Internet (see below), make sure you include the necessary networking equipment (often referred to as network adapters or network interface cards).
 
What Software Should I Get?
Again, this depends on what you want to do with the computer. Littleton Public Schools currently uses Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel - and Access on the PC) – a copy is on every computer – so it would be very helpful if you had Microsoft Office – or a program that is Office compatible – at home. Students can buy a student edition of Office for much less than the retail version – around $140 (or less). If you want to use some other software, it would behoove you to know how to save your documents in Office format if you want to edit or print them at school. Most programs will have a choice of file formats under the Save As option that is compatible with Office. This includes Microsoft Works, which ships standard on many Windows machines but whose native file format is not the same as Microsoft Office. There are also several pieces of free, open-source Office-compatible software available for local installation or on the web. (ThinkFree , OpenOffice , GoogleDocs  to name a few).
 
What Other Hardware Might I Want?
Students often need to work on documents both at school and at home, so they need a way to transport those documents back and forth. One possibility is via email – either through your ISP or via a web-based account. If it’s through your “regular” ISP email account, you will need to make sure that the web access is activated and that your student knows how to access the account via a web browser. Most web-based emails have recently increased their size limit for attachments (they were typically 2 MB, but now are often 10 MB), and files (particularly PowerPoint) are often larger than that.
 
In addition to email, we would recommend you consider some type of portable media that the student actually carries back and forth. There are currently two affordable solutions we would recommend – CD burners and USB Flash Drives. Most computers come these days with a CD-burner (usually known as a CD-RW drive), allowing you to burn approximately 650 MB of information on a CD. If you use a CD-R disc, you can only burn the information once. If you use a CD-RW disc, you can burn multiple times (most suggest less than 100 times). In either event, this works well since all of our computers have CD drives.
 
A better option would be a USB Flash drive that plugs into a USB port on the computer and then acts like a hard drive, allowing you to simply drag and drop files onto the flash drive or onto the computer. These come in a variety of sizes (and prices) and will work with most of our computers at school. The sweet spot currently appears to be the 1 GB flash drives, which usually can be found on sale for less than $20. Please note that you will want to make sure the flash drive does not require any specific software to be installed on the computer – since we can’t accommodate that on all of our computers – but simply works with the operating system out of the box (most of them do work this way).
 
We do not recommend floppy disks.
 
If you or your student would like to do any video editing, you will want to make sure your computer has a Firewire (IEEE 1394) card, appropriate software, and a DVD burner. You would also probably want to get a larger hard drive.
 
What About The Internet?
The Internet is a key resource for students and we highly recommend having access. In addition, we would strongly urge you to consider broadband Internet to facilitate their research and other online work. Most people in this area have a choice of DSL through Qwest or Cable Internet through Comcast, but you have to check with them regarding availability and pricing.