Hi, I travel alot between two places, and the laptop, while convenient, just isn't powerful enough to do the job, and most are limited to one display in win2k. It occurred to me that it may be easier (as I already have extra monitors in both locations) to downsize my PC and haul it on the plane by swapping in a smaller case, so I've been hunting for really small ATX or micro-ATX cases (I could just pop for a micro-ATX board and ditch my ATX also). Any suggestions are welcome...
Thx for the links...I saw the mini-PC's that are the size of a CD player, but I want to have a full-blown Athlon XP with g550's in it...so I need to have either an ATX or micro-ATX board... Those little PC's are truly cool... Thx again for the links, please keep 'em coming...
Why not have two identical computers at each place, and simply store everything, OS and all, on an external Hard Disk and just carry that? nitro
I would've done that, but it's actually 3 places, and then I'm going to go crazy trying to keep all of them (somewhat) synched, you know, latest versions of trading "crap"-ware , keeping e mails and execution reports, files, etc... They also have USB memory sticks now (I'm getting one as soon as I have time to shop) which is easier than burning CDs...but still, swapping files around is a pain...I should get into the habit of using briefcase...
have you taken a look at the shuttle ss40g (amd) and ss51g (P4) cases/motherboards? they look great, and are small with all types of connectors. i think you have room for one or two pci cards. http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=shuttle if you want something really small, check out mini-itx.com, uses only a 800mhz processor and possibly no pci cards allowed, but some of the cases are 12"x12"x3"!
What I don't get is why shuttle is selling motherboards to the public...I haven't been able to find any tiny cases to match them except for the barebones kits shuttle's selling...?
now that i look more closely, the boards they're selling are ATX boards... that explains it.. maybe I'll just build a small case...
How much monitor space do you want to have and what do you consider to be too low as far as processing power? I'm supposing that you don't travel with your monitors, so if you have monitors where you are going, why would you not have a PC already? Just wondering. I have traded on the road on occasion on my laptop (Toshiba Portege, 800MHz P3, XP Pro), and I find that the biggest obstacle is not so much processing power but bandwidth. Aside from the lack of screen real-estate, the bandwidth restriction on dialup forces me to limit the number of tickers being watched to a couple plus low bandwidth indeces. Under XP Pro, I can hook a 2nd monitor at 1280x1024 with no problem, and have been known to remove the stand and stick a flat panel LCD into my rolling carry-on for this purpose (it just fits). Find a hotel with some kind of broadband/WiFi, and you're all set. --Derek