SOHO, Saipan

It’s no surprise that Saipian’s Micro Beach is a common setting for advertisements. Its white sands and coconut trees pretty much define “paradise.” In recent times paradise, not Micro Beach specifically, but any generic paradise, has gotten a high-tech gloss, as magazine ads feature photos of yuppies merrily using laptop computers on tropical beaches.

That’s the carrot. Here’s the stick: In the U.S. economy, and Saipan is a sub-set of it, the traditional corporate opportunities are vanishing. People with skills are getting squeezed out and have no choice but to try to strike out on their own. I’ve seen this recently with accountants, financial analysts, insurance billers, magazine editors, logistics experts, technical writers, and computer programmers.

So a lot of people are going independent and are confronting the SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) thing for the first time. Which pulls us back to the glossy tech ads with the beach yuppies. So just how much tech does a SOHO newbie need?

Answer: Not much.

In fact, once someone has a computer, an Internet connection, and a cell phone, and I think any SOHO candidate is already up and running on those counts, the other bare essentials can be had for less than $500 total.

I’ve been a SOHO guy, one way or the other, for decades now. I accumulated quite an inventory of computers, copiers, scanners, laser printers, color laser printers, inkjet printers, optical drives, fax machines, and office machines. I had a retail-level business office on Saipan, which I have since closed.

It’s obvious that this gear soaks up a lot of money. What’s less obvious is that it absorbs a lot of space. Anyway, with all the benefit of retrospect, I have picked out the most essential, bare-bones tech.

So here’s the essential tech trinity: portable USB hard drive, laser monochrome printer, and flatbed scanner.

I’ve mentioned portable USB-powered hard drives before, so I won’t belabor the point. Well, not much, anyway. We’re talking backup, of course. I know a CPA who lost all of his clients’ data, every bit it of, because he didn’t back it up. What a mess. No, wait: What an unnecessary mess. Enough said.

And now we really get to the star player of SOHO: the monochrome laser printer. Mine does more heavy lifting than all my other printers added up.

As for color, well, there’s nothing wrong with it, but unless someone is doing desktop publishing or graphics, I don’t think that festooning a page with every crayon shade looks clever. It’s likely distracting, if not downright irritating, at least if the recipient is literate.

So is color a nice touch? Maybe. Essential? No.

Meanwhile, ink jet printers, as opposed to lasers, can be very cheap to buy. Over the holidays I saw one for $19 in a discount store. For grandma to print out a picture of the kids, well, that’s probably just the ticket. But for churning out a professional volume of letter-quality documents, everyone I know considers laser the standard.

Well, there’s just one more bare essential left on the list, and that’s a flatbed scanner. These things handle a thousand miscellaneous chores. Furthermore, for light SOHO duty, a scanner can replace a photocopier.

Indeed, to match my unwieldy inventory of printers, I also have quite a motley collection of scanners going. Lucky me. The only one I consider essential is a very small and thin Canon “LiDE” series that’s well over a decade old now. It’s USB-powered and it fits in my travel bag. Neat, eh? If I had to go SOHO from scratch, I’d try to find something similar.

One last scanner note: There’s a nifty program called VueScan. It tames otherwise cranky drivers and helps tweak the graphics side of things. The program cost about $40 at Hamrick.com. It works well, it’s unobtrusive, and I’ve used it for years.

Well, we’re done! With these three essentials, combined with a notebook computer and cell phone, the whole schmear can be fit into a single cardboard box. So if you’re looking for minimalist, and a lot of people are, well, there it is.

Of course, you can see for yourself that Micro Beach isn’t overflowing with happy yuppies using laptop computers. After all, there are a lot of obstacles to living such a lifestyle. But the cost and size of technology sure isn’t one of them.