PUBLISHING YOUR OWN MAGAZINE

HOW TO GET STARTED

PAGE NINE

THE EQUIPMENT YOU NEED TO BEGIN PUBLISHING A COMMUNITY MAGAZINE

Surprisingly no specialised equipment is required to compile and publish your own community magazine and as you are currently reading this article then you almost certainly have everything you need already – a computer and associated software.

The purpose of the information published and presented on this website is to show you that you can begin publishing your own community magazine or newsletter without any initial investment and it is assumed that everyone reading this page will have access to their own computer.

Almost any computer can be used to begin compiling a newsletter or magazine and I believe that the vast majority of people will own a personal computer running a version of the Windows operating system. Most fairly recent computers will provide sufficient specifications to enable you to compile a newsletter or community magazine.

Much of the work on a number of my earlier magazines was compiled entirely on a very basic, low specification Acer laptop and when the time came to upgrade my standard tower model I simply looked for the cheapest available option using the specifications listed below as a guide.

Unless your aspirations go way beyond a small community magazine then the following are what I believe to be the most important points to consider regarding specifications.

Hard Disk Space

This is not such an important factor as it was some years ago.  Most computers these days are supplied with ample storage space and you can expect that any recent tower model will comprise a hard disk with a minimum of 80Gb storage space, which will be more than sufficient for your requirements to begin with and possibly for some time afterwards. A laptop will normally contain a minimum of 40Gb, which again is quite sufficient for your needs. Additional storage, if required, can be obtained by making use of the integral CD/DVD drives for storing photographs and images on disk or from any of the multitude of alternative storage devices now available.

Memory Size

As always, the more physical memory (RAM) your computer contains the more efficient it will be able to operate. 512Mb is considered the minimum standard for today’s computers with some having 1Gb or more. Don’t skimp in this area as memory is much cheaper now than it was some years ago and it is also the most cost effective ways to enhance the operating potential of your computer.

USB Ports

This might seem unimportant to you but in my experience, the more USB ports you have the better.  It seems that every accessory we buy these days operates from a USB port. Printers, scanners, wireless networking, storage devices – all operate from USB, so to save from having to constantly unplug some devices before you can use others, ensure you either have a sufficient number or can accommodate extra ports being added.

As you can see, my list of recommended specifications makes no mention of processor’s or graphics card as I believe that if you have a computer containing the specifications listed above then you will also have sufficient processing and graphics capabilities.

Remember, we are going to publish our community magazine on a limited budget and at this stage we are going to do so using only the equipment we have currently available to us. Even if your present computer doesn't meet the above recommendations there is no need to worry - for a community magazine almost any computer will suffice at this stage.

Michael Norfolk.