Cyber café management software – how to buy machines and install your cafe software

Computers & TechnologyInternet

  • Author Chris Huera
  • Published January 7, 2011
  • Word count 1,117

Since you got here, I am assuming you run or want to run a cyber café and you are asking yourself, what cyber café management software you need.

I mean, it’s only logical to give your clients access to the Internet…

You already got them sitting at your place and most of the time you do have Internet connected to your place anyway for all sorts of reasons. So since you have it, why not get some extra money from it, right?

Let us start by asking ourselves exactly what do we need cyber café management software for? What do you have to manage and why?

Of course, I am not talking about billing your clients for their meals and purchases, that is a completely separate area.

Many computer users are not computer literate enough and can do damage to your operating systems out of pure curiosity, or sometimes even intentionally. To restrict access to your operating systems, it is important to make certain that you protect all the computers and that you control access to any important features in some way.

Also, it would be a very nice feature, if you can charge your users for the time they use your computer. Some, just do a flat rate. A one-for-all charge, that gives you unlimited time at a computer.

This, however, will not solve the following problems:

  1. Fair use. I mean, it’s only fair if somebody uses your computers more, they should pay more, right?

  2. This is a biggie… You cannot maximize this area of the business. You have a limited number of computers. Once they are all taken, a person can sit there all day, because he paid once. You may have some other people in line, but what do you tell them? "Sorry, we do not have any free workstations. We have nowhere to fit you". A good, paying customer is gone.

  3. You have no way of predicting when any workstation will become free. You have a café, so your clients can wait a minute or two, no problem, since they are eating anyway. If you know, that a certain PC will free up really soon, you can tell it to the client, but if you do not have any cyber café management software installed, you will have no way to do it.

  4. You cannot control what web sites your clients visit. This is a public environment. There could be kids there. If they go and visit whatever they want, you as the owner may have problems.

Cyber café management software will solve these problems for you as an Internet café owner. Granted, that is not all it will be doing, but these are the major 4 components. Now, let me show you how to start with turning your PCs into a money generating machine.

First off, let us bust a myth, that you need special computers for that. A lot of my clients do use just any regular PC. PC’s they found at an auction or bought cheap in a bulk.

Let me tell, you… unless you are specifically running a gaming Internet café, your clients will not need any horse power from your machines. Think about what do you do in a day-to-day activity.

You browse the Internet; write some documents, spreadsheets or process pictures. That’s about it. It’s not so different for anybody else.

Lots of companies replace old computers with new ones and sell out old lots for peanuts. These are still good, solid computers. Most of them are 2-3 years old.

Here is one ninja trick to buy good, used computers. Go to eBay, then navigate to Buy > Computers & Networking > PC Desktops. Now, type "computers lot" or "computers bulk" in a search term, press enter and feast your eyes on a lot of cheap computers. Of course, you need to use discretion when buying. Ask the seller if they have checked every one of the machines individually. Most of them do, so you will not have a problem.

This tip alone will save you a lot of money and time, but we can take it further.

If possible, find something local. Limit your eBay search to your locale. What you can do then is:

  1. Go and inspect your computers yourself before you buy them and,

  2. Save good money on shipping charges. Packaging and sending 20 computers to you will come to a pretty large sum, which you can easily avoid if you just go local.

This in itself will save you a lot of money, but that is not all, let me also help you save some time in the process. Your computers will arrive mostly empty. It’s just boxes with nothing installed on it, save perhaps the operating system.

If you have 20 boxes to install all at the same time, it will take you a week. Today, we do not do things manually. Since you listened to my advice, all your computers are now the same.

Now, all you need to do:

  1. Take just one computer out of your pack

  2. Install the operating system if it’s not there

  3. Install café management program

  4. Install all the software you need for your clients (click on a link below to get suggestions on what you need and where to get it for free)

  5. Make sure you have everything set up and updated to the latest version. Once you are happy and everything works…

  6. Use an "image" software to create "image" of your disk on one computer and burn it to DVD, flash drive or hard disk (also explained in the link below)

  7. Now plop this DVD into every one of your computers and "roll out" your "Image" to all 20 computers in a matter of minutes.

  8. Save this "image" DVD somewhere safe. Any time you buy a new computer or your old computer breaks down, you just overwrite everything from the fresh image and it’s just as if you have just installed it fresh from the press.

If you spend 5 hours installing one computer, installing 20 will take you 100 hours to do manually. This way, you can do each one it under 10 minutes, which will take you a total of 3 hours or less (savings of 97 hours) and you will also have a "clean image DVD" which you can use anywhere at any moment.

And now that you know how and where to buy your machines, go and get all the rest of information about cyber café management software like what programs you need and how to get them free, how to do your backups and why you need them and many more in my free lessons.

Subscribe to my email series course http://www.cafesoftware.co/cafe-software-secrets/

I give a rundown of challenges and solutions to very common problems faced when setting up Internet cafe computers and talking about good cafe management software. Resolving common problems like backups, anti-viruses and general protections for your computers. Check out http://www.cafesoftware.co/

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