It’s been an interesting experience setting up my home office over the past few days. I remember my parents going through a similar experience when I was in high school–they bought a copier, a fax machine, a new business phone, waited for the telco to install a new line, dealt with the yellow pages people, and spent a couple days in the car dealing with all of the paperwork and supplies required.

So fast-forward to the modern sysadmin-turned-consultant’s home office:

• Computer: have several. Can produce more from spare parts if needed.
• Copier, fax: have one of those already.
• Office phone line: 5 minutes via the website of my VoIP provider.
• Office phone: dug an old phone out of a box and plugged it into my Asterisk server. It’s nice having a home PBX.
• Advertising: this blog, networking via friends, releasing newer and more exciting open-source software.
• Business email and web server: I already have those. I can create more accounts and sites as needed.
• Business licenses: they’re all available online now, although Washington State’s site requires either IE or Netscape 4, and putting Safari into “lie about your User-Agent string” isn’t good enough.

It’s amazing how easy it is to set up a small business office when your house is already higher-tech then most companies.