Trying to get into 21st Cent Computerwise
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Joined: May 1999
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From: Kennesaw, Ga. USA
Trying to get into 21st Cent Computerwise
This will be old hat and boring to the computer literate, but I am really excited.
This week, we installed six new PCs and upgraded six more at the store. I don't remember all the specs, but the new ones were ~2K each with either flat screen or touch screen monitors.
We also installed a completely new, just developed Windows based POS/Inventory/Purchasing software to replace our 13 year old DOS based system.
The increase in processing speed is mind boggling. I have to do a monthly update with corporate that involves 360,000 stock numbers (SKUs) and about 100 parameters per sku. Used to take about an hour and a half and I had to do it after work or come in early in the morning and about 50% of the time it would crash and have to be rerun. The new system does the whole job in less than 5 minutes and a little tweaking is supposed to get it down to three. That is an improvement factor I cannot even factor.
As Pat and I are trying to get a bit more arms length from the store's day to day on the floor activities we had set up two home offices (I smoke in my office and Pat will not set foot in it) and we purchased a laptop and moved two of the most powerful PCs we retired from the store to the house in addition to the two we have plus the laptop. One will run Pat's computer controlled sewing/surging/embroidering machines and the other will go in the basement where I will set up another office as I store all the estate sale/special buy/closeout stuff I get into down there.
We set all of these up today on a Wireless Router system to connect to our DSL phone system. Further, we installed a "Remote Desktop" thingie which allows me access to the new office software I mentioned above from any of the computers at
home. I can check sales, make orders, review orders,receive order confirmations, the whole gorilla.
Starting to get a lot closer to "semi-retirement" guys and girls. We now have 7 department managers and a purchasing manager and with all this razzle dazzle computer stuff, Pat and I can do the shows and expos and order all the new stuff from home and spend a lot less time walking a very thin carpet on a very hard concrete floor.
Bill
This week, we installed six new PCs and upgraded six more at the store. I don't remember all the specs, but the new ones were ~2K each with either flat screen or touch screen monitors.
We also installed a completely new, just developed Windows based POS/Inventory/Purchasing software to replace our 13 year old DOS based system.
The increase in processing speed is mind boggling. I have to do a monthly update with corporate that involves 360,000 stock numbers (SKUs) and about 100 parameters per sku. Used to take about an hour and a half and I had to do it after work or come in early in the morning and about 50% of the time it would crash and have to be rerun. The new system does the whole job in less than 5 minutes and a little tweaking is supposed to get it down to three. That is an improvement factor I cannot even factor.
As Pat and I are trying to get a bit more arms length from the store's day to day on the floor activities we had set up two home offices (I smoke in my office and Pat will not set foot in it) and we purchased a laptop and moved two of the most powerful PCs we retired from the store to the house in addition to the two we have plus the laptop. One will run Pat's computer controlled sewing/surging/embroidering machines and the other will go in the basement where I will set up another office as I store all the estate sale/special buy/closeout stuff I get into down there.
We set all of these up today on a Wireless Router system to connect to our DSL phone system. Further, we installed a "Remote Desktop" thingie which allows me access to the new office software I mentioned above from any of the computers at
home. I can check sales, make orders, review orders,receive order confirmations, the whole gorilla.
Starting to get a lot closer to "semi-retirement" guys and girls. We now have 7 department managers and a purchasing manager and with all this razzle dazzle computer stuff, Pat and I can do the shows and expos and order all the new stuff from home and spend a lot less time walking a very thin carpet on a very hard concrete floor.
Bill
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From: The Bluegrass State
Glad to hear that things are working for you Bill. I know it took some patience (and probably will still require a certain level of it in the future) but, it's going to all be worth it in the end.
RP
RP
