Hello everyone I'm looking for advice before I contact any retailers (and get ripped off) on setting up a friend's business computers. He has 6 stores which are currently equipped with 1 PC per store. I haven't been to check his current system yet, but was horrified when he told me that he was quoted NZD25,000 (approx USD10,500 ) to upgrade! It sounds like the PCs are old 486s (or possibly 386s) and they're used solely for recording the business accounts in each branch. At present they are posting the accounting reports to him at the end of each month. The only reason for upgrading is that when they have problems with power outages, etc the local techie he gets in to fix it says their tape backup systems are shot and the data backup cannot be restored! Very strange! Total data loss? Unbelievable!
Anyway, he told me that I'm welcome to go and take a look at the setup and upgrade his entire system. Of course I'm keen to install linux rather than M$ Windows (especially to avoid the over-priced future OS upgrade crap) but I'm only just learning to use LM myself. Cripes! My main concern is the availability of suitable accounting software for the linux platform - it doesn't have to be free, just so long as we can get it. I have installed Gnucash but haven't yet had time to check it out (will look into it tonight). Another major concern is the type of backup system - I only backup to zip, cdrw and hd partition - so I'm not exactly up with the best options. It needs to be easy to use because I don't think his staff are all that computer savvy. I'm wondering whether to install modems as well, so they can at least communicate via e-mail. However, I'd need to discuss that with my friend as he may not want the additional monthly internet access costs. Obviously stability is important. I don't see speed, sound, graphics, etc as being a necessity. Are there any motherboards, CPUs, etc that I should avoid? I was thinking of 500 MHz Durons on a compatible motherboard with onboard sound and (perhaps) graphics. Any advice/suggestions will be very much appreciated. I know this probably isn't the place to be asking, but I'm sure most of you will know more about this than I do. I don't want to c*ck this up. TIA skinky PS. I apologise for the long message. -- But what ... is it good for? (Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip)
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