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It Hardware And Software

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There's almost no-one nowadays who doesn't have a computer -- it's more-or-less a given that you've got a computer in your home office, and that you use it almost every day. But are you getting as much out of it as you could be? Here are some things your computer can do that you might not have thought of.

Keep Track of Customers in a Database.

Once you start to get some customers, you'll need to keep track of their contact details, as well as making sure you know who they are in case you forget. You have a choice: you can keep a file for each customer in your filing cabinet, or you could enter their details into a computerised database.

The good news is that if you have some office software, then you should already have a database package. Starting a database of your customers isn't too difficult to figure out, and lets you do all sorts of things -- you can sort them by the area where they live, or list everyone who's bought one of your products but not another, for example.

Graph Your Sales.

Once you've got your database telling you what you've sold to who and when, you can use it to produce all sorts of graphs and other reports that could help you to spot trends and see what works and what doesn't.

Do Your Accounting and Tax.

With inexpensive accounting software, it's not hard to use your computer to keep track of all your incomings and outgoings -- it can even be integrated with your customer database. Since you'll have all your sales data electronically already, it'll be a snap to do your taxes at the end of the year, where for people who have it all on paper it can be a complete nightmare.

Design Your Own Marketing Materials.

Modern desktop publishing software makes it dead easy to design your own logo, leaflets, brochures, and anything else you might want. With a little practise, you can produce things as good as any graphic designer a home business could afford, and save the money for distribution. Make sure you run your design by a few people first, though, to check that it's readable and there aren't any mistakes or flaws that you've been staring at it for too long to see.

Follow Market Trends.

With Internet access, you can read articles from the specialist press of the whole world, and keep up to date with all the latest technologies and trends in your industry. It's worth picking out the top five or so most important sites to your business and spending a few minutes each day checking them. After all, you don't want to get left behind.

Accept Credit Cards.

Many people don't realise, but Internet merchant accounts aren't just for accepting card payments over the web. You can also open one to use as part of your home business over the phone or by post, with you simply entering the card numbers and amounts into a website to process the payments. This is a powerful way of giving your customers more alternatives when it comes to paying you.

Promote Your Business.

Don't underestimate the effectiveness of the web as a tool for promotion. You should definitely take the time to list your business on every directory listing people in your industry -- make sure that someone searching for your profession and the town where you live would be able to find you listed easily.

Pay Your Staff.

When your business gets big enough to employ staff, you'll find your computer is a useful tool for keeping track of how many hours each person has worked, how much they should be paid, and how much of that amount needs to be kept behind as tax. Trying to do payroll manually is a big headache.

Keep Backups!

There's one thing, though, that it's important to always remember: when you use your computer to store any data that you can't afford to lose, make regular backups and keep them in a safe place. It's really not that much trouble, and if you don't do i then a simple computer failure can devastate your business.

It Hardware And Software

Having a stable computer system is crucial to your trading success. Imagine what would happen if your computer hangs in the middle of a trade. What happens if you suddenly get disconnected from the internet? Accidents do occur and these scenarios are very possible, I have encountered an internet disconnection while trading. Such scenarios are potentially lethal to your trading especially when the market can move against you in a couple of minutes in the case of day trading.

Besides making sure that our equipment is up-to-date and reliable, care must also be given to the planning of a backup system. For example, I have 2 internet connections just in case one fails and I always have my laptop on standby should my PC hang in the middle of a trade. This section covers the necessary precautions and minimum set up you need to start trading. It is important to remind ourselves that making money through trading is our ultimate aim. It is easy to fall into the trap of delaying setting up your trading system because you want to fine tune your computer system. Have the basic reliable set up and get ready to go!

Although there are no hard and fast rules to your hardware configuration, I recommend the following minimum configuration.

CPU : at least 1GHz

Memory RAM : at least 512MB ( charting software is memory intensive)

Monitors: at least two 17 inch XVGA monitors (resolution of 1280 X 1024)

Graphics Card: Any graphics card capable to support 2 monitors, usually one monitor will be connected via analog cable and the other monitor connected via digital cable. Hence it is important that one of your monitors support digital output.

Internet Connection Cable or ADSL, try not to connect trough wireless since wireless connections are prone to instability.

A minimum of 2 high quality monitors is needed in order to display all the charts and order management screens. If you only have one screen, you might ALT-TAB in windows to switch between the different applications, however, there is not really much reaction time when the market is moving and I strongly recommend have at least 2 monitors to display all the necessary charts and applications.

What do you need to day trade Emini : Software

After the hardware set up all that remains is installing the appropriate softwares and you are ready to go. Although it is not a must, it is advisable to invest in antivirus softwares and firewall softwares such as Norton or Mcafee. The last thing you want to worry about is whether your system is infected or not.

Real time Data Provider

Day trading imposes stringent conditions on data providing services. Although there are a lot of free delayed quotes on the internet, a real time data provider is necessary. Usually the data will come together with software to display the data as candle sticks in real time. Some brokers provide real time data but lack the necessary software to display the data in a meaningful format.

Qcharts off good real time stock data with a state of the art charting software that you can run from your computer.

Novice traders should strart from the Qcharts subscription which costs $95/month. Besides this, you will also be required to subscribe to data from real time exchanges, for example, if you chose AMEX ($2/mth), NYSE ($2/mth),NASDAQ ($2/mth) and CME EMINI ($15/mth). This will constitute a total cost of $116/mth to Qcharts.

Interactive Brokers

There are many brokers out there in the market. Interactive Brokers which offers one of the cheapest commissions from trading Emini. ( $2.40 per trade) also offers good support and I have never failed to get a response from their help desk.

You will also be required to choose which market data to subscribe. For trading Emini, subscribe to ? US Securities and Commodities Bundle Non-professional - Level I ? which is free. However a charge of $10 will be imposed if the monthly commissions is below $30.

$2000 is the minimum required to open an account. However, a starting minimum of $5000 would be desirable, since IB restricts you from trading once your equity falls below $2000. IB provides several trading platforms including web based and downloadable software versions. The software version is more stable. One caveat here is that you need to install a Java plugin before you can run the software.

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About Author

Both Sam Weston & Michael Taylor are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Sam Weston has sinced written about articles on various topics from Pets, Multi Level Marketing and Writing. Discover How YOU Can Profit From Your With Every Way Possible - From The Moment Your Subscriber Visits Your Lead Capture Page Until He Receives E-m. Sam Weston's top article generates over 60500 views. to your Favourites.

Michael Taylor has sinced written about articles on various topics from Day Trading, Stock and Day Trading. Michael Taylor is a professional trader and webmaster of He regular updates his trading blog at. Michael Taylor's top article generates over 8100 views. to your Favourites.

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