Yesterday, one of our clients went down, and they had no backup. We had to rebuild the hard drive and managed to get most of it back. Then after patching, we managed to get them going.

Every site without exception should have a backup. There was a court case where the judge ruled that backups are the user's responsibility, and it not done it is misuse.

Okay, why should you backup here would be a few reasons?

- A computer is a mechanical device; any part of it can fail and go down. 

- A virus/ransomware can wipe out your computer. Our clients get now about one major attack a week.

- You accidentally destroyed your information

- Power surge, I have seen computers fried.

Along as you have a backup, we can put together a computer, send it out to you, and you can often be running the same or next day.

Here are four rules for backup

- Make sure you are doing *regular* backups, we have had to sometimes restore people with old backups as such they lost their records for several days of trading. 

- Make sure you have at least one backup secure in another physical location, e.g. home, you never know what can happen to the shop, e.g. fire.

- Do not rely on "the cloud". The cloud is simply someone else computer, and it can go down too, for peace of mind, I would strongly recommend that you have a physical copy.

- Make a cloud backup, cost nothing with our system, and it is fastest and convenient to use.

A few of our clients have some old Windows 7 and other older versions of Windows and have no plans to upgrade them. What is happening is that Microsoft is starting to send them advertising messages that they are out of support. These will not stop, in one form or another, I expect that every one of these older computers to keep sending you this message. It can get irritating as you have the word already how long does it keep having to be repeated?

If your planning is to stay with Windows 7 on some computers, this here is how to get rid of these messages.

Microsoft has ended support for Windows 7 today. It is our strong recommendation and just about everyone in the I.T. industry that you now plan to move to Windows 10. In particular, we strongly advise that you do not use a Windows 7 computer for internet banking, email, surfing the net and processing EFTPOS transactions. 

If you must use a Windows 7 computer, please be aware that you need a new antivirus package as on Windows 7, your Windows Security Essentials is almost dead.  What Microsoft will do is support and rollout malware signature updates for the next three years, but that is only like a third of what it used to do,

Most computers can be updated to Windows 10 at no or little cost but please contact us before attempting to do this as some computers and some of your devices may have problems.

With Windows 7 going, the question many are asking now is what they can do with their old computers?  

What do you do with them and no-one wants them!

What we used to use them a lot was as backup data storage units. Now almost all these and have been replaced by cloud backups which work better and cheaper — my costing of what in a point-of-sale environment, computer costs see here.

Well here is a use that they can be used for is advertising. 

Have you noticed that printed signs and posters are now rapidly being replaced by computer screens? 

The software for creating a digital signage system used to require expensive specialist software, now there are many software slideshow software available that can do it or if you wish many photographers will make you a professional one at very reasonable prices.

I think it is better to learn to make it yourself and they are now not hard to make, besides being a lot of fun it is advantageous to create one. It is one of those things that is not hard, but you need to spend a few hours to do it as there is much to learn.

What a slideshow software does it take many still photos, which any smart camera now can take and entertainingly displays them one after another one after another in a video.

You will need to be about 5 to 20 minutes, and I would recommend about 5 minutes as each still photo is displayed in retail for about 5 to 6 seconds. Each picture has a gap of about 1 to 2 seconds. This is all very approximate as I find that often each photo demands a different amount of display time. If you are trying to present an intricate image, you may need much more, if you are trying to say, "We have tons of greeting cards," then you may want less time for each image. So as such, you need about 45 photos. Many you can get from the supplier, but I doubt its worth the hassle. Walkthrough the shop after it has a clean. Carry around a black sheet of paper to put products on it and go with your modern smartphone taking high-quality photos, the higher the quality, the better. As you will probably be rejecting about 75% of the images, you take, you need about 160, which should take you about 30 minutes of your photoshoot — trying to take each photo in some reasonable order. It makes it easier later. Otherwise, you will need to sort to get them into some logical order. Now put these images on your computer, and go through and delete the ones you do not want. Be ruthless as you can always go back and get some more. This is one significant advantage an amateur photographer has over a professional photographer; the amateur can go back and get more photos if required.

I do not recommend adding sound in point of sale environments, as it will drive you crazy hearing it repeatedly the same tune although I do admit that it does work and attract people. 

Take your video, mount it on the old computer which is somewhere in the shop, and let it play on the old monitor or better still an old digital TV and run your slider show which will advertise your products and services. 

You will not be sorry with the results.

When I talked to one of my clients who was close to the fires, what did help a little was that their data was in the cloud. Years ago, we often saw in such emergencies merchant would stay in the shop and do a backup before running.  Nowadays although doing the onsite backup is a good idea, the urgency was not there. 

With us, unlike many other Point of Sale providers, cloud backup is free!  

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Cloud_storage

Data has always been essential to business, in the olden days' Australian bushrangers used to threaten to burn shop keepers books, unless they got paid. It was not a small threat as most shops depended on farmers on lived on credit.  

Data is still essential, and although few want to discuss ‘disaster’ in today’s world as these bushfires show your data is under constant threat. Imagine how your business would run without essential banking, customer and inventory data? Computers can be replaced, data cannot be replaced.

There are many advantages for you to do a cloud backup.

1. Access: You get access to your data wherever you have internet access. For example, you can access your company's data from home, overseas on holidays, etc.

2. Reliability: If anything is wrong with your regular backups, you have an emergency set online.

3. Easier to use: Because it is automated, there is less to remember or do, often it can be set up, so it is entirely automatic.

Two significant disadvantages to consider are:

1. The Internet: It will chew up a fair amount of Internet usage. Often people report that it slows down their system. If so, we may need to see what we can do.

2. Size limitations: If your data file grows too big, you may find your backup suddenly stops.

3. Check: You need to check regularly that it is working.

We have put together here a document that can show you how to set up a free cloud backup. Please click here.

Next week, on 14/January/20 Windows 7 users will start getting pop up reminders from Microsoft like the above that this version of Windows is no longer supported and that its life is up. 

If you decide to keep going with Windows 7, we want you to be ready, so we’re reaching out in advance to give you time to prepare.

As Microsoft will no longer provide you with security and software updates, we would recommend that you change your antivirus software.  Two I recommend you look at are Avast and 360 Total Security 

Both are very good and have a good track record for keeping older Windows versions supported.  

However, without the monthly Microsoft security updates, you will no longer be protected against Hardware and Operating System attacks and you will be wide open to any new 0-Day attacks which is why we recommend and just about everyone else in the computer industry that if you are still running Windows 7, that you update to Windows 10.

Please note that many computers now that can run Windows 7 can also run Windows 10.

In shops today these sort of screens are now very popular with our clients partly because prices have dropped.

They also as they are raised, they use little space on the counter and have a screen for the customer. They also look very nice, an vital consideration in retail. As they are made for retail, they tend to work better in retail environments. They are designed with dirty, more prolonged use (retailer commonly use a screen 12 hours a day, seven days a week some more), have higher temperature ranges than the regular screens that are designed for airconditioned offices and as they are closed off and raised the occasional coffee spill affects them little.

Once you get used to touch, the higher speed and ease of use, means you use little else in the cash register. 

The operator often needs to watch that they have dry hands. Sweat is an excellent electric conductor, and touch screens do not like sweaty hands or wet fingers. Which in many retail environments can be a problem. Although we were promised that the newer monitors were supposed to be coming out that would be waterproof with wet finger tracking, I have not seen them. Although I have seen some mobiles that have this function.

Still, it is not a big problem, a tissue box nearby fixs it, as does a wipe on a shirt, worst case you find a dry finger. I find my little finger is the least likely to be sweaty or oily. Maybe that is why no-one has done much about the problem of wet finger tracking in retail.

If you are looking to get or upgrade a monitor, I suggest you look into these.

Microsoft committed to providing ten years of product support for Windows 7. Windows 7 was released on October 22, 2009. So unless you are willing to pay for an extended Microsoft support, will be dropping you on January 14, 2020

The cost of this extended Microsoft support depends on what you have. Still, our clients will range from about $35 to $70 depending what you have on the computer in the first year, the second year it will be between $70 to $140, year three a range of $140 to $280, after that I am not sure, but I suspect it is going to double again to $280 to $560 after that. As this is a per computer cost, people with many computers running Windows 7 will soon find this a costly option.

It’s cheaper and easier to say goodbye to Windows 7 and instead to upgrade to Windows 10.

If not, then this will leave you using an outdated operating system and a system very vulnerable to malware and cyber-attacks. If hackers follow the same pattern after Windows XP, they will wait to the end of life and then hit. It is relatively easy as many of the problems in Windows 10 are advertised. Since Windows 7 is not supported, they can often duplicate many of these to get into a Windows 7 computer. The rewards to them can be high.

As such we strongly recommend that you move to Windows 10. 

This is what is happening now. Today about 77% of Australians are running Windows 10. Few are running Windows 7.

If you want to keep running Windows 7, I recommend that you plan not to connect that computer to the internet, replace the internet computer with a Windows 10 computer. Also, you will need a non-Microsoft browser and antivirus software solution for that computer but we will need to figure that out after it becomes clear what is happening probably late January or early February. 

Also if you have Windows 7 in your shop, we have a couple of packages to get you from Windows 7 to Windows 10 that I recommend you consider.

1) A register package.

2) A server/Office package

3) A Windows 7 upgrade package to Windows 10, we can often upgrade them to Windows 10.

A Stronger technology in your shop will make a Stronger business. 

What are you going to have this year "A Point of sale system" or a "Point of Failure system". 

Remember something like this.

It would have cost a lot in goodwill as well as money.

Now, it is essential to check that all the equipment you propose to use over the Christmas period is working? This is particularly true of some of the old POS machines that people bring out of the cupboard at present. Please check them to make sure it all works? Furthermore, check the cables. Equally important that your Internet connections are where you need it? I suggest you try it all out now.

Have you tested all your system, now before Christmas day hits? 

How much does someone want to bet with me that several of our clients, on the busiest days of the years, when computer engineers, if you can get them even on double and triple time, will be called out to fix problems that should have been checked and fixed now!

You want anything working over the coming season. 

Well, it is Black Friday, and many of our suppliers are looking at today is the last chance they have to move the retail point of sale equipment this year before the Christmas freeze comes, so they are coming up with good offers. 

Here is today's offer we have got today a good price reduction on handheld scanners, this discount we are passing on to our clients. If you are interested in a handheld scanner Symbol LS2208, let us know now.

This is an excellent scanner for back-office work, its strong and durable. They often last for years. They will save you a lot of work. 

In point of sale touch screens are faster to use than conventual screens. Windows 10 is made for touch.

I find it more natural to use. Rather than look at the screen, I look for the appropriate button on the keyboard then I touch the spot on the screen.

I want to do a particular function like "School booklist", I look for that on the screen, once I see it, I press it.

Well, right now one of our suppliers has reported to us that they have quite a lot of touch screens that they could not sell to the shops. These are commercial grade, so if you are interested in getting a touch screen, why not get one. Have a Black Friday special for your shop!

Today, a customer display is something that anyone with a Point-of-Sale should consider. 

Here are some advantages and some points to consider if you are thinking of getting one.

The advantages are:

- That your customers like to see what you are charging them and appreciate you being transparent as they can see that they are being charged fairly as they can see what is happening now. This inspires confidence among your customer and in practice, can boost customer loyalty. 

- It also gives them something to do, so making them feel less than they are waiting. Instead, your customer feeling like a spectator, they think they are a participant.  

- It reduces the problems of queries after the transaction is done. Time is saved as most queries can be done when they happen. 

- Finally, a customer display in our system can be used to convey important messages to customers to consider as they are waiting their turn, like here. If you are interested in *Discount Vouchers*, this is a better way to go then receipts which very few customers get in real-time in modern retail.

If you are looking at such a unit!

Here are some points to consider.

-Workout what the screen size should be for you, maybe look at a few that other shops have before deciding. The screen size, once selected, can not be changed. As a general rule, a bit bigger is better.

-You need something hardy. Retail is a harsh environment for computer equipment. It will be knocked, if it is flimsy, it will smash. It will be in the open, so it gets dirty, and dust will get into it. Make sure it can handle this.

-Over the lifetime of this screen, it will be moved and adjusted, so make sure that the screen can be lifted up and down, and the angle of the screen can be changed. Ideally, you should be able to change it from vertical to horizontal and anywhere angle in between.

In business the running costs will vary, depending on many factors, in computers I tend to notice the better computer literate and more mechanical minded the owner is on average the bigger the problems they get. For example, they are the ones that experiment with the lastest speed boosters etc 

What many people do not seem to realise is the initial cost is not that important as I show here. It is the running costs that need to be considered even more.

Here are some assumptions that I am using to calculate the running costs for computer hardware assuming we start with a cost of $6,000.  

I would look at a three (3) year period, anything over that I would consider a bonus. Many SMB businesses will use, however, five (5) years. I am dubious of that as after three years to get the effective use of your system it needs an update. At the very least, a new main computer (server) needs to be replaced otherwise the system is running to slow. This is particularly true if you are paying for time with staff.

Capital

The cost of capital, if the system hardware on a lease, it would be about $200 month over a 3 years lease, over 5 years about $124/month. 

So in three (3) years, we are looking at $2,400/ year

In five (5) years, we are looking at $1,500/ year

Maintenance costs,

As a rule, the best advice in a business environment is if it ain't broken do not play with it. This is particularly true the better you are in computers. We frequently get big support calls after the clever nephew who knows this computer stuff helped out. This is partly because unfortunately, the rule of not doing anything does not work as computers now do need monitoring and maintenance. Under the hood, the operating system, the antivirus system, in fact, every bit of software today is all automatically updated. Seriously when the last time, you actually manually updated some software?

The other point is it is a difficult one to estimate as general rule maintenance often tends to be big or zero. For example, a client split a cup of coke over the laptop. The laptop shorted out and it was a total loss. I have seen computers after a fire.

Still, computers are a mechanical device, that does get old. All will fail eventually. It's just a matter of time. In the first year, this is not an issue as we provide a complete hardware solution. Still, people that budget tends to use about 15% of the purchase price on repairs and maintenance on year one, which generally is covered by a warranty, so year 1 is worn by the seller with us, this may not be true always as many suppliers only offer three (3) months warranty. In any case, there is about a 20% increase a year after that.

Year 1... $0

Year 2....$1,080

Year 3....$1,300

Year 4....$1,550

Year 5....$1,900

So over three (3) years, we are looking at an average of $800/year

Over five (5) years, we are looking at an average of $1,200/year

Extras such as electricity.

These charges do add up. Say your computer uses 350-400 watts, in a business environment. I would say you would be looking during the day between 250W and 310W/hour at say 28 cents a KW for a city person in Victoria (which by the way is way up compared to even two years ago when it was 20 cents a KW). For 12 hours a day, seven days a week or 365.25 days per annum, is (.250+.310)/2 x 0.28 x 12 x 365.25 = $350 a year of electricity. 

Total

So if I was looking at computer hardware of $6,000.

Over three (3) years we are looking at an average yearly cost of $3,500

Over five (5) years we are looking at an average yearly cost of $3,000

On the three (3) years I expect some value left in the computer, I doubt there would be very little value on the five (5) year option.

This of course as noted earlier does not take into account the time you are paying employees. Often what we find is that the costs of operating and maintaining the legacy system exceed the cost of modernization.

I hope all of this helps.

If you would like to weigh items to make a bundle or package to trade in your shop like cheeses, spices, fruit, dips, potatoes and much more, then you are in luck as we have some top-quality scales on offer that integrate directly with your Posbrowser. You can now program these scales and keep pricing up to date from directly inside your PosBrowser. 

Image

and produce a professional label for your shop.

It is extremely fast in operation. What you do is grab some items, put them in a container, then on the scale and our POS system produces a label that can be used at the cash register.

It is also advantageous if you have a deli in the back of your shop and your cash registers are in the front.

To anyone that seriously sells spices, I would say its a must.

Touch-screen technology is everywhere in point of sale software now as today touchscreens are pretty comparable in price.  

Here are three significant advantages to using touch.

1) They are easier to use; it is more natural to press buttons highlighted on the computer. Plus it is also much easier to use as your eyes do not have to keep looking away from the screen to the keyboard. 

2) It is faster according to some studies I have seen. They report it is 20% faster. That is why most corporate and large clients of ours always use touch as most people today are not a touch typist.

3) You do not need such a big desk. Non-touch screens to work need a mini desk as a keyboard and mouse need to be handy to work. 

Our POS system is built for touch, so you may want to give it a try.

Ever since last month when Microsoft began pushing out its latest upgrade, things aren’t going so well. Our clients reported a variety of significant and obscure errors.

As always everyone is often afraid to fix the problem as who knows what other problems you can make when fixing it. Quite a few users of ours got the blue screen when someone attempted to fix it. 

I tell you what was annoying about this to us. Although Microsoft confirmed the problem was in the upgrade, Microsoft was getting people to upgrade even though it continued to cause problems. 

We would have pulled the plug on these updates until it was bedded it down.

Some problems remain, for example, some users are reporting a sudden freeze that lasts a couple of seconds, and then the computer restarts automatically. On a server, that it is pretty bad.

There also appears that once someone fixes up the immediate problem, other problems arise. We have had people after Microsoft fix it, report that they cannot use many of the functions they require.

As such, after this bad experience, we will soon be putting together an information sheet once Microsoft bed down their new feature specially designed to mitigate faulty updates like this. What it will allow is a user to postpone Windows updates so that other users can test them first. Then if it does go wrong, to enable a user to roll back faulty updates. This will help with this problem not totally but reduce it by about 80%.

This update has been a real mess, and Microsoft has done here little to inspire confidence with them.

If you want to know where we are at click here.

The ergonomic problems with POS computer systems are not where people are serving. These people are only for a computer for a short time, and they move around a lot but in the back-office when people can be for extended times just be staring at a computer. Now, as far as I know, there are no specific requirements for ergonomics and computers but as an employer, you do have a duty to provide a safe and healthy place of work plus of course people are more productive if they are comfortable.

Generally, I see that most places work for at least 5–minutes every hour, a person should be doing something else than looking at a computer screen. Toilet breaks, a smoko or coffee break helps as does filing documents, answering the phone, collecting printouts from the printer, etc. as all are classed as an intervention. So it's something that provides different movements to the body so giving the muscles that have been active while on the computer a rest. It's anything that gets people moving.  

As no one likes to sit on an uncomfortable chair, so give them a decent chair. If possible one that rocks a bit back and forwards has back support and is adjustable. All this is fairly standard now with office chairs. This helps a lot. What I do is have a few different chairs, and then I let my staff pick their chairs. Generally what that means is that I end out with the worst chair in the place.

As far as the desk, this is how they want people to sit, everything straight up and down, something like this.

See the requirement for the monitor. It should be at eye height. The only use I had for the yellow pages for many years was to raise my monitor so that it would be at this height. Today if your monitor does not have an adjustable stand, you may need to buy one. That is why most monitors we sell today have an adjustable stand. 

For women and short people you may need to supply a footrest too.

Hope this helps.

You have a computer in the back or in an awkward position in the shop that you want to connect to your POS system. You have two choices now Wi-Fi or cable. 

As for Wifi today it is fantastic particularly if you have it meshed. Plus you do not need to pay for cable installation, which can be a bit if you need an electrician and/or a shopfitter to do it.

That being said, the cable can give Wi-FI a run for its money as it is faster and has fewer problems.

Speed in practice Wi-Fi can vary greatly, what you will notice in use that if suddenly slows down and then goes back up again. This is because it depends on many factors. Having too many Wi-Fi units can cause problems. Interference from environmental factors such as weather. Other electrical devices such as a shop next door that has its Wi-Fi network which often interferes with yours or a lunchroom with a microwave.  

One of our clients complained that their Wi-Fi suddenly was now running slow. What we found was that the router had been moved behind some items which blocked the signal.

These Wi-Fi antennas are shown here in green

These should ideally be high up on the wall where everyone can see it, see them. That is why walls are often a problem. It is also why today, many routers and mesh units are advertised that they look nice because they are often in a spot that people will see them. 

The cable is just faster than Wi-Fi, probably about ten (10) times. Your Point of Sale software often requires to pull in a lot of information mainly if you are doing a search or a report and, unlike with Wi-Fi, its speed is consistent. It is not going to suddenly slow down because some electrical machine is now generating large amounts of static.

If security is an issue to you, then it is much easier to break into a Wi-Fi network, then a cable network. Given access, in less than a minute, a hacker can often break into your computer Wi-Fi network even if its password protected. We have had a few cases of this with employees using the owner's internet to download torrents. A cable network requires some serious equipment and work. You would need to cut the cable, put a plug on that cable, then install a switch on that cable and then run a cable from that switch to their computer. In all my years in retail, I have never seen anyone do it. 

So overall unless you have a temporary need for some computer or printer that is pretty far or inconvenient place from the rest of your POS network, I suggest that you run a cable.

Many of you are having problems now processing Afterpay Touch software.

We are aware of the problem.

We are talking to them.

They and us are treating it as a priority.

We have been told that this afternoon there should be a solution.  

We are not sure what the error is, but we do know a Microsoft Windows Update sparked it. It seems to be affecting all versions of windows. The problem today is that  Microsoft is offering significantly less information about updates then it used too, so as a result, we all do not know what the actual problem could be with the update.

There were some misleading reports that it had something to do with Visual Basic. This is wrong. The only problem seems to be in the Afterpay/touch software.

We will let you know as soon as we can if the status changes. 

Here is something to make you think guys.

It looks like an Apple lightning cable. It works as an Apple lightning cable. But it gives a hacker a way to tap into your computer remotely.. 

Your computer will not notice a difference. 

These cables sell now on the market. All someone has to do is while you are not looking swap your wire to this cable and then the next time you use these cables they can get into your phone or computer. Since they look the same and act the same, you will not notice the switch.

The problem is that USBs currently do not have any cryptographically protection. There is a proposal to make USB  more cryptographically secure. It did, however, provoke a backlash as people are saying that this security will be used by manufacturers to force them to buy their expensive spare parts. Maybe people will change their minds because of these cables.

All I can suggest if you are worried about this

Keep your cables in a safe place. Also, put an unusual ink spot, so the potential hacker before he can do the hack has to reproduce that spot. It will make it harder to do the switch.

Know anyone that would pay $200 to hack your computer?