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Subject:Re: Hardware Requirements for a New Job From:"Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher5 -at- cox -dot- net> To:TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 6 Oct 2006 15:00:21 -0400
Whether you need to have Visual Studio installed is moot, but you do need a machine with the same processing power and memory that the devs have. And whatever you do, grab as much memory as you can and then ask for more. When they tell you that you don't need it, remind them that you'll be running alpha and beta versions of the software that you document and that these versions are not always well behaved.
I like the writers on my team to have laptops that they can drat off to meetings or to a dev's desk to take notes or go over docs. But if you get a laptop, a docking station, ergo typing setup and large monitor are all essentials - don't get talked out of them.
My two cents.
-Sue Gallagher
---- John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
> Maybe, maybe not. I can see environments where a technical writer may
> need to whole Visual Studio suite along with all Microsoft and
> Borland tools, and in that case, Gene's statement is true...I for one
> am not one.
>
> However, if your management knows that you aren't a developer and yet
> you ask for a development machine, your request for what you REALLY
> need may hit a credibility snag.
> > Get the specs for whatever the developers are using.
> > Then ADD the requirements for your authoring tools.
> > Since you are documenting their projects, you will
> > need enough power to run their programs and yours
> > at the same time.
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