Wireless Hot Spots

Pubs, guesthouses, hotels, cafe's - everyone wants to provide free wireless internet access to their customers and I've seen many different solutions employed.

The most basic method is to remove the security from an existing wireless router to let your customers join your existing network. This is a very bad idea as not only can your customers interfere with your equipment, they can interfere with each others.

At the opposite end of the scale are providers like BT Openworld but they all seem to have draw backs, for example BT want to sell access by vouchers that expire after 24 hours - no good for a 10 minute email/eBay check each day whilst on holiday.

So what's the right solution for a typical Mablethorpe business? I recommend a wireless access point that provides an additional wireless network in which connecting computers can access the internet but not each other. This runs alongside your existing network and shares the same ADSL line so keeps costs down.

Why not give me a call if you would like to be able to offer free wireless broadband access for the next season?

Happy birthday Google

Google is 10 years old today and has emerged as the 'daddy' of all search engines - in the UK 9 out of 10 searches are carried out on Google.

It's still not clear if Google is the friendly, cuddly organisation it claims to be or an evil empire in the making finding ever more ways to harvest our personal information, browsing and shopping habits (did you know that Google Mail scans your emails, picks out keywords and shows you relevant adverts while you read them)?

What is clear though is they want to compete with Microsoft and to that ends Google has just released their new new internet browser Chrome.  It lets you look at web pages in tabs, has history and bookmarks and is free to download and install.  Why create a free product that does exactly what several other free products already do?  Some suggest it's just to annoy Microsoft but I wonder how closely Google is watching the pages you look at, the emails you send and the purchases you make using Chrome.  With absolutely no reason to use Chrome I'll avoid it, at least until we find out if Google is cuddly or evil.

Acer Aspire One Mini Laptop

When the ASUS Eee was launched I wanted one to carry in my toolbox.  I held on for the upgraded models but they came upgraded prices.  Knowing that some 25 similar machines were being produced I waited a little more and have just bought an Acer Apsire One for a little over £200.

Mine is an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor with 512MB RAM (which I'll upgrade to 1.5GB) a 120GB hard disk drive and 1040x600 9" screen.  I saved a few pennies by buying a Linux equipped model and upgrading it with one of my copies of Windows XP using the Acer supplied XP drivers.

These new mini-laptops or 'netbooks' are taking the IT world by storm and I'm amazed how much I have got for my money.

EPROM Programming

I’ve mentioned before that I sometimes get called on to repair PC based arcade machines and recently I’ve been duplicating the EPROM chips used by fruit machines to replace damaged units.

Firstly a set of good EPROMs are borrowed from a working machine and read using a programmer connected to a PC onto which the data is saved.  The replacement EPROMs first need to be blanked using an EPROM eraser – a small box with an ultraviolet light at the exact frequency required to reset the chip.  
Finally the new EPROMS are placed in the programmer and the data transferred from the laptop to the chip.

It sounds simple but there’s a few tricks you need to learn and since the equipment came without English instructions I had to learn by trial and error.  So if you need and EPROMs copying or programming it’s yet another service that Tiny Island Computers can offer.

Remote IT support service based in Mablethorpe

Mablethorpe is a challenging setting for any business with half of our catchment area being populated only by fish and the reminder mostly fields with a few small towns linked by very poor roads.  I believe offering a remote service is the logical response allowing me to spend more time working and less driving.

Tiny Island Computers has made a significant investment in a remote support service allowing me to log into remote computers to troubleshoot problems without the need for a site visit.  The service is very professional and used by big companies like Sage, Honda and O2.  Many problems can now be fixed almost immediately with no need for a callout charge - it's even better for the environment!

At this stage remote support is only available for existing customers by prior arrangement (i.e. call first).

Amazon Merchant Transport Utility

I haven't quite shook programming yet but at least I'm doing some interesting stuff at the moment.  A nationwide company has begun selling stock direct from its warehouse through a variety of online sales portals.  I have been tasked with writing some software to pick up the sales, print invoices and update the in house stock control systems.

I started with Amazon which proved to be a doddle thanks to the Amazon Merchant Transport Utility (AMTU).  The AMTU handles all the coms and all I have to do is pick up text files from a folder at regular intervals and process their contents.  As an added bonus I can drop appropriately formatted files into a second folder to send information back to Amazon e.g. when goods have been shipped.

It's funny that in the age of online coms and data integration we've come back to moving text files around and parsing them but it's simple and it works a treat.

Now that the system is running smoothly I am integrating data from their own web shop which is held on an MS SQL server.  The next target will be eBay which, I'm told, has a system very much like Amazons.