So the guys at Ubuntu have released 7.10 earlier this week. From all accounts it seems like a pretty awesome update. The FT give it a glowing review. Perhaps a sign of just how far Linux has come these last few years…..Now I just need a laptop to run it on 🙂

Welcome to my new blog

Phase two 

So now the interesting work begins. To recap briefly. All 

three computers are now fired up and connected via the 

ADSL Gateway/router to the internet. The basics are there. 

Now the task in hand is three-fold. 

 

Firstly, to run all the necessary Windows patches on each 

machine. (And as you know Microsoft do tend to release a lot 

of these). This was a pain free process, if somewhat time 

consuming – due to the 512k link. 

 

Secondly, to install all the relevant applications on the 

machines. Specifically, to decide the appropriate software on 

the client machines. The one golden rule I applied to this 

project was that I did not want your average cyber cafe 

customer to install / or  tamper with software on the 

machines. It would be very difficult to manage and open up 

all sorts of vulnerabilities. 

 

Assuming some of the key user requirements for the client 

computers I installed the following applications : 

. 

1 • Open Office (of course) 

. 

2 • MSN Messenger 

. 

3 • Yahoo Messenger 

. 

4 • Skype 

. 

5 • Internet Explorer 7 (I did review Firefox – but felt IE7 

was surprisingly good – and users would be familiar 

with it) 

 

6 • Antivirus software 

 

So in addition to the standard applications on a vanilla 

Windows XP box I installed the above applications on all 

three computers. Again, a relatively standard procedure – but 

it required a bit of manual labour, toggling between the three 

machines. Bandwidth limitation, proving, the main constraint. 

But I’m not complaining – 512k is fit for purpose for a small 

cyber cafe with just two primary client computers. 

 

Finally, I made sure that the firewalls were up and running on 

all three computers. Then the next step.  

 

Phase three – cyber cafe management of software 

Thirdly, I begun a short one day review of appropriate cyber 

cafe management software. It is day two now. I am getting to 

the crucial part of the project. The computers are now ready 

for the next major step.  If the project was to succeed  this 

was to be the key. 

 

Being the open source geek I am, I begun the application 

review of a piece of opensource cyber cafe management 

software called, Cybera .  This initially seemed like a sound 

piece of software. It was relatively straightforward  to install, 

but alas a documented bug revealed its ugly head during 

testing. It was proving tricky to find a work around, and I was 

not impressed with some of the functionality. The 

customization was quite good, but I felt it was clumsy and far 

from intuitive. Failed. The search continued….. 

 

Having tested a further two further applications (they were 

too poor to mention) I opted for a proprietary application 

called, CafeZee . This programme simply stood out amongst 

all the others. It is based around a standard client / server 

relationship.  Having installed the server  element on the 

managers PC, I then installed the client element of the 

software on the client computers. A no brainer so far. 

 

I must confess I did struggle to get the three computers seeing 

each other. Then I realized the firewalls were all running. I 

disabled them all temporarily  and bingo, all three could see 

each other. 

 

The user-interface (GUI) was very easy to use and it 

immediately became obvious how the software worked. I 

won’t go into all the features – far too many to name – but 

essentially, the server controls all aspects of the clients. 

Everything from simultaneous reboots through to 

simultaneous shutdowns were all possible via the server. 

 

One of the features that sold this killer application for me – 

was the ability to apply lock-downs on the clients. Via the 

server I was able to apply two preset security settings on the 

clients. Given the nature of a cyber cafe I wanted security to 

be high. I restricted everything from rebooting, software 

installs, downloads and visibility of the desktop. Additionally, 

I set the cache, history and cookies of IE7 to reset after each 

client session – just be be sure. So each computer would 

revert to its standard settings after each session. 

 

Given the dual purpose of the computers, I set a low-level 

security preset for when the computers were being used for 

computer training classes. As with the whole design of the 

setup, I trained the cyber cafe manager on how to make the 

security switches. 

 

Client session based approach 

Cafezee proved outstanding on managing the sessions for 

each client. Essentially, the software generates codes and the 

user, once paid, can input the code to gain access to the 

computer. The pre-pay code based service, offered a 

minimum of one hour per session.  I also enabled a post-pay 

minimum session of 30mins.  The server side did all the work 

– and it really impressed me. The codes could be printed out 

for the customer, invoices could be prepared and  sessions 

could easily be extended or terminated if necessary. A 

professional setup. 

 

Other functionality included the client computers being able 

to order additional services from the cyber cafe, such as 

drinks, media and other services. This was simple to set up – 

but the project executive decided not to use this functionality,

but the project executive decided not to use this functionality, 

at this stage. 

 

Phase four 

With the hardware and software all configured, running and 

tested I begun the most important part of the project – 

training. This could make or break the success of the cyber 

cafe. 

 

The senior user, was a friend of the project executive – an IT 

teacher in a local school. Whist she would not be able to 

work daily in the cyber cafe, she would be running the IT 

training classes. Furthermore, after I trained her, she would 

then, in turn, train the project executive and Rene family in 

running the cyber cafe. 

 

I ran through the design, specifications and importantly, 

Cafezee with the IT teacher. Clearly, she knew her stuff – and 

having tested her – she was quickly able to pick up even the 

most advanced features in Cafezee. I must add at this stage, 

that she does have a background in IT, so it made this 

potentially difficult stage very easy. 

 

Project hand-over 

With everything running and the IT teacher up to speed, I ran 

through Cafezee and the computers with the project executive 

and family. Again, they quickly grasped the basics. Further 

training would be had via the IT trainer. 

 

So, by roughly day 6 the work was done. Project complete 

and accepted by the customer. I am sure the cyber cafe will 

be a success – and I wish them well. 

 

Conclusion 

This was a first for me. I had a theoretical understanding of 

how I might set a cyber cafe up, but had never actually put it 

into practice. I don’t pretend to claim this is the best setup – 

far from it. There are open-source alternatives out there, 

which may be superior. In particularly I know a thin-client 

terminal server setup is often used in this type of 

environment. However, I opted for a compromise solution 

that everyone would be familiar with.  I will state , for the 

record, that Windows is far from perfect. However, in this 

instance it proved the idea OS for a simple, hopefully, 

sustainable cyber cafe. 

 

I will return back to the cyber cafe in December. I’ll post a 

post-project review in January next year.