Internet Cafe... system ideas

Hi folks, one of my friends is considering opening up a small business to do with computers and was thinking about a small internet cafe idea as well.

I was telling him about how to monitor the usage of customers etc and wondered if I might be able to develop a system using modx. Now would it be best to use a web based system like modx or an actual developed program for using on a lan.

I was thinking that there could be a landing page using modx and then access the net through this page. The amount of time a customer uses could be monitored using a local web server... does anyone think that such a system could be created for an internet cafe or would it be better using a ready made system that you actually install as a desktop program.

Ross

I always did want to do this using old rebuilt PCs and LTSP. I even set up a four-station diskless network with four PCs I got from the street on trash day and one leftover PC with a working hard disk and CD player for the server. It ran the kernel and the LTSP part from the CD, and the hard drive was just for mounting whatever needed write access. Worked great, and didn’t cost me a penny. The cafe part came close a couple of times, but never quite got off the ground.

I wouldn’t recommend a web app for monitoring, though. Too much possibility of someone hacking it to get free time, not to mention the extra overhead of having to be running a web server on your server. A well-secured server with shell scripts or perl to parse and format the log files would be a lot better.

Yeah I understand about the hacking part... It will just be 4-6 stations in a manned shop. The main idea of the business is PC repairs and the cafe part is just to get customers through the door and give them access to the net during the period of their computer being fixed.

I don’t think many people will be able to hack it for extra time if there is someone kicking about but expect the unexpected!

The computers will be using windows as most people who will use the internet cafe will be familiar with the setup. I would love to use Ubuntu or something to reduce license costs but I don’t think it would be recommended for noobs!

Any recommendations on a fairly simple setup for the 6 stations? All the PCs are identical, DELL. Spec is likely to be fairly basic but functional. 2-3ghz cpu, minimum of 1gb ram. I’m wondering if using a server and hub setup would be more suitable or just give each pc direct access to the net via a hub....

An LTSP setup can be configured to only be running Firefox. What’s to not be familiar with? A web access like that should never allow anything but the browser to be presented.