Besides providing printing and network connectivity, at the FRE Support Group, we are here to make sure students own a laptop or office computer that meets or exceeds the minimum requirements for studies at the Food and Resource Economics Department. While FRE offers limited access to computers through its computer labs, most students will want to purchase or lease a computer that is capable of network connection to the Internet, running statistical software, and productivity functions such as word processing and spreadsheet calculation. Costs of meeting this requirement should be included in financial aid considerations.

Wireless network access is available in most of McCarty B therefore most of the student areas including labs are capable of receiving a wireless signal so that you may use your own laptop to access the internet and other network services such as printing.

Minimum Hardware Specs:
• At least a 1.2 GHz processor (includes Pentium M/IV/Centrino/Core Solo/Core Duo/Core 2 Duo, Celeron, or AMD)
• 40 gigabyte hard drive (larger is better)
• 512 megabytes of RAM (more is better)
• Any speed CDROM, CD-RW, DVD, or combination drive.
• Battery - 2hr Minimum Current notebooks run between 1.5 and 5 hours on the included battery.
• A 10/100 Network adapter (for Ethernet and/or cable modem access)
• Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) wireless adapter
• 56Kbps V.90 Modem (for dial-up access)

Minimum Software Specs
• Apple/Macintosh laptops are not supported.
• Windows XP Professional Edition Operating System with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista. XP Home and Windows 2000/NT/ME/98/95 are not fully compatible with our network though may be used. Please note using the latter operating systems may leave you unable to connect to resources such as printing and a home drive for storage and backup. The English language version of Windows XP Professional is strongly recommended.
• A version of Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007, check with the UF Bookstore for academic pricing for Microsoft Office in the event that this is not included with your laptop purchase.
• Registered UF students may download a free copy of McAfee Anti virus from www.software.ufl.edu using their current Gator Link username and password.
• Microsoft Internet Explorer is the College supported browser http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ though others may be used.
• Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook Express are the College supported email applications.