Hi plz, in this recent times now cafes have gained so much ground that people spend more time of their lives in cyber-cafes, but unfortunately, most systems in our cafes are hectic, as they culd make life much fraustrating!

Now I want us to discuse here what really could be the causes of such problem in cafes ranging from pc freezing, slow speed etc?

well if you are really interested in making your cafe the best, I would suggest you start from the beginning, Ie format all the pcs, every last one, install win xp on all of them and ensure all user use only guest accounts, A person cannot make silly changes on a guest account it would not work. Install norton 2006 and norton fire wall. With that i assure you , you will never get another virus again. Get registry mechanic for problems in the registry here and there. and also advanced system optimiser- to keep the pc running at its optimal capacity. Need more? Hola back,

Get registry mechanic for problems in the registry here and there. and also advanced system optimiser

Please what does the above statement mean?  since i am considering taking up a system admin job in a cafe?

Get registry mechanic for problems in the registry here and there. and also advanced system optimiser- to keep the pc running at its optimal capacity.

@ D-hammer, please can u help me attend to the statement u made sometime above.
and hw can i get the 2006 norton with firewalls? Can it be downloaded from the internet?

registry mechanic is a program that sanitizes and fixes errors with ur REGISTRY which is the SOUL of windows and can be downloaded from www.pctools.com/registry-mechanic/download

like u were told, make sure all users log on in GUEST account mode by so doing u will limit their priviledges drastically eg they cant install programs, tamper with system files etc. they are just their to browse.

norton i believe can be downloaded from the web. u can check their website. or u can go to www.phazeddl.com and download just about anything you want in this world.

there are other firewalls out there u can use like ZoneAlarm etc.

and make sure ur system is at least pentium II 400MHz with at least 128MB RAM, some cafe owners are so mean they still use Pentium I 200MHz with 64MB RAM to browse. That is callousness and exploitation.
gudLuck

Uhmmm,

Maybe because, *generally speaking*, the owners, rather than invest in ergonomical PCs, scour the earth in search of cheap deals,which may mean buying them 10th hand LOL

I remember my very first experience with a cybercafe - The keys on the keyboard were so hard to press (maybe from being "gummed" into place by the former owners' eating habits ) that it was literally like my fingers were the hammer and the keys were nails. I also remember another cafe I went to where one of the letters (i think it was "e" would never print on the screen, no matter what you did. So what did I do to salvage the situation? I would go to a website, copy the letter "e" and paste it into place LOL

In the end, I have decided that it is worth paying okada N100 to go to a place where I am totally in control and comfortable than walk down the street to the nearest one, even though it maybe N50 cheaper. It seems, most of our businesses, *generally speaking*, have not mastered the very basic concept of customer service.

Again, in both case, I said *generally speaking*, so make person no come disturb me dis early mo mo o!. I know there is that one person on here who is going to develop High blood pressure while telling me that "things have changed since you were here last (even though, in naija time, it hasn't really been that long )" and that "for every cafe, there are 100 ones better"

A pentium 2 computer if managed well would do well for a cafe(but it's pathetic if at this time and age, an entrepreneur decides to use pentium 2). Agreed u might have some issues running too many task at once but it would do ok for a cafe. I have been able to establish a cafe for someone on 12 pentium 2, with 96MB ram, computers(which was what he could afford) and 8 pentium 3 computers and it's operates far better than all those cafe's around it with pentium 3's and 4's, and i don't maintain each of these systems for them. It all boils down to how much you know how to configure these systems and prevent unneccesary stuff from running like spyware. Also I do advise cafe owners not to install antivirus like norton on their client machine, it slows it down and uses speed in downloading updates, better to use hdd freezing programs like deepfreeze and shadowuser (some cafe owners are stingy so don't want to buy programs).
Then also you find many cafe owners not getting the bandwidth they paid for or they paid for 64kbps and they are using 20 systems or they sit and watch as yahoo boys who are the only customers cyber cafes have nowadays use email extractors and keep surfing thru bandwidth hogging sites like myspace looking for potential "magas". The average bandwidth a cafe subscribes to does not support social sites like myspace cos of the number of graphics and videos that most of these profiles have, even in the US, I read it sometime ago that a school blocked access to myspace because it was consumed a huge percentage of their bandwidth.If you have a good firewall, although some clients may complain cos they need legitimate visits to those sites, you can actually disable access to sites you consider bandwidth hogging.
There are many ways to reduce many leaks in the average cafe that would make it efficient but the knowledge is not available.

@Sbucareer
24MB for 100system would be so cool but adapting it to the nigerian system, no one would buy 24MB for 100systems. Here 2MB makes u an ISP distributing to 4 or 5 cafes.

sbucareer,

Your posts are always insightful and educating. This is my take on it and from experience I will recommend the following.

1. Get a reliable ISP in Nigeria = If you want your cafe to be one of the best around, get a dual link for redundancy purposes so that if your main link goes down you can have a backup up, you will pay more but your cafe will be online 24/7.

2. Hardware Specs = Even if your computers you intend to use are not brand new, get pretty good computers. The higher the RAM, the better. PIII 800 mhz and 256MB should be your least.

3. Operating System = Please and please, if you can don't install windows operating systems. If you have the experience or can get it, install a fancy opensource operating system i.e. opensuse is very user friendly, safe and robust; it has most of the common softwares that people use. If you must have a windows system, have a few 2-3 maximum. Save yourself the virus, spyware and malware wahala.

4. Network Spec = Use a switched network, it provides better security and efficiency than a hub network.

5. Cache Server = Install a transparent cache/proxy server to increase the speed in your cafe. Squid is a good option.

6. Network Auditing & Management = Apart from running your workstations, printers, switches etc; you should be able to know at any given time who did what and when it happened on your network. This will help you in billing, logging and reporting.

sbucareer: u have spoken well and lengthily. But what about power? Inverters don't do the entire dirty work and this gets to the clients' pockets and they are always mad.

Please two of u should let me know why we defragment, please.

Look
The major problem is that the people using these PC's aint Computer literate

So they end up Overtasking these systems and just fiddle with programs they aint got knowledge of.

E-Net services in Nigeria are slow and ridiculous period.I dont like using the interent in Nigeria its always annoys me like whoa.

Good things don't come cheap and in a place like Nigeria where mediocrity abounds you should not ask for too much.

To start with, how much do you pay per the hour?

A lot of cyber cafe users are still learning and generally over task the low grade computers that are in use.

@sbucareer

You have spoken very well; I work in a cybercafe (Please all read "In the Cyber Cafe" under the Journal section of nairaland) and am looking for a printer with a rj45 interface as we are currently limited by our windows workgroup setting. In Nigeria, the reigning brand is HP and even at that it is more of the light sized ones that is in use. So please recommend an HP printer that has rj45 interface.

Hi,
i just want say why any thing way our govenrnment introduce to dey always go the wrong way.
Number one na GSM,today network go good tomorrow na story.
Well,no bi today problems don dey for cyber-cafe because na where man dey work na him e dey CHOP! so the only solution go be make we love our fellow brother the way we love our selves.

ThaNk YU!

Which ISP is best in Nigeria? for me i think it is MWEB NIGERIA, ?

well, i'v 2 thnx every individual 4 their difference xpirience, u r all tried:
but 2 bring 2 ur emphasy is tht, in most of d cafe, they r making use of highest p3; hardly 2 c p4 in d cafe.
apoint tht, diferent site r downloading as much as we hav diff. people using d same system, they r absolutely download diff. things.

especialy, if d cafe is doing management/economic at dsame time, by putting old Ram, old Processor, using 105mg of h.d, it must be bad as long as they r working none-stop.

so my people it served 2 b bad

Who says MWEB nigeria is the best ISP, men i dont obviously know wat u are talking about.Wen u have ISP like Qkon and Netcom around, MWEB service support ,,0

thanks goodness fort this

Hi, I read the message you posted on line. If you really neefd a help about your cafe, pls call this number 08035002421. My name is Tosin. I will get the whole softwares needed to get your cafe running at optimal speed and good perfomance. Pls call me if you are still interested. Not only because of today but because of the future.
Thank you.

BECAUSE THE COMPUTERS ARE NOT YOUR OWN, SO GO GET YOUR'S NOW

you don buy your own computer

The Reason why computers in cyber-cafes are bad is not farfetched, it's basically the users of the computers.
Since the cafe is opened to everybody, both those that have the knowledge and those that does not and also
those that knows too much who like to use a cafes computer like their own private computers.

Well, thats a nice question of course. But the question is complex and answerable.

Problems in the Cyber-cafe PCs is due to the downloading of all sort of jagons on the pc which will probably make it move slow and freezing as well. Nowadays, cafe are not other so co-operate in the sense that most that do come to browse the internet are not responsible soul. 100% are 419 and yahoo yahoo.

I think the solution to all this problems is just to find the way of eradicating the scammers from the actual Cyber cafe by the Administration of the cafe. Pcs this time around, monitoring what every one are doing by installing a power remote anywhere software on the master computer.

otokx
The HP Laserjet Printer with RJ45 is HP Laserjet 4000N There are other goods ones too but i use the above. thanks

what most people dont understand is that to have and manage a top shape cybercafe,it would require a large amout of
money. so thats why u see a lot of cyber cafes expercially the ones at expensive places [eg V I ] charge a lot like 200 an hour. most people would be like i cant pay that ! its nonsense and then go to the cheaper ones which charge 50naira an hour. and sit there 10 hours downloading data that would have taken just an hour. you pay for what you get.

Somebody mentioned wanting a printer with RJ45 connector? Those things cost like hundresds of thoudands of naira! If you get an HP laserjet 1320 (cost like N45,000) and u buy a Print Server (less than N20,000), u have effectively the same combination. Recommended: HP JetDirect print server (if your printer is HP) or 3Com OfficeConnect (if you use other brands). I use both of them in my office.

Please can someone help me with the best antivirus for cybercafe in 2007 and how to acquire it.