Cyber Cafe a.k.a Internet Cafe is the most prevalent in the realm of agents, explorers and tourists, however it additionally discovers great and successive clients in young people and spends a lot of time playing PC games.
Below are the tips that we can share with Cyber Cafe business owner:

1. Give discount for login tickets

We understand that giving a discount is quite hard to manage especially when you’re still new in the cybercafe business industry. Sometimes, make special prices for your customers will make them feel happy and more satisfied with your service. You can give a discounted price to your regular customer and they might repeat your service again and again. Instead of keeping your regular customer, try to attract new members with discounted pre-paid login accounts. Sell more prepaid time with a lower price can give more attraction to visitors.

2. Keep your computer clean and fresh for every next user

We advise you to use DDS+ Diskless System in your CyberCafe because it really helps you in maintaining your PC. After the customer has finished using the PC, DDS+ Diskless System can reboot all the client PC so your client PC will be restored to an initial clean state after rebooting. Plus, you don’t need to worry about any malicious software and any virus attack because DDS+ is immune viruses. So, it always equips your next customer with a clean and fresh PC, without any problems occur.

3. Extra charge for any additional services

Some of the people who don’t have enough electronic equipment went to cyber cafe to use external hardware provided, such as printer, scanner, CD burn and fax services. If your cybercafe located at the state of tourist attraction, it is recommended to allow transferring data from digital camera to CD or flash drive and charge a bit with those provided services.

4. Sharing PC game license among your computers

All companies, internet café, and even home users are obliged by EULA (End User License Agreements) to use only the licensed game or program on their computers. This is not a big deal if you have a small internet café running and just a few clients. Instead, it went the opposite way with the larger internet café. You need 50 licensed in the same game, and it must be a huge expense for your business.

5. Increase your membership with allowing multi-player-games

Multi-player games can be played over the internet or in local networks. We know that most of the gamers have their own PC at home and play them games over the net. However, it is much more engaging to play with friends at the same place. Apart from that, it will increase your profits as many multi-player-gamer will choose your services and they also will come in groups. So, you can offer the same game to all your client computers with only a few licensed copies.

6. Increase your profit by selling side items

Besides the service provided, you can also add multiple common items to sell, such as coffee, snacks or even computer accessories. While playing games for several hours, people often feeling hungry. So, you can help them with these kinds of services by taking an order without leaving their seats.

7. Do not spend too much time updating your PC

Your time is better spent on how to generate business and increase your sales instead of updating your PC multiple times. There is no need for wasting time to install or uninstall programs every single PC a hundred times. With Diskless System, you only need to install on one machine and it will apply simultaneously to all the PCs. It’s not only can save your time but also can reduce the number of IT technician workloads.

With this technology era and security threats on the rise worldwide, the need for a great antivirus service is most crucial than ever. However, choosing the best antivirus software might be a complicated challenge. With some great choice, here is the listing of antivirus that you should consider:

1. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus

Operating system: Windows only | Maximum devices covered: 3 | Stand out features: Ransomware protection and remediation, privacy tools, optional VPN, Safepay

Pros:

• Password manager
• Subscription includes frequent updates
• Option for integrated VPN
• Many features
• Ease of use
• Accurately blocks malware
• Effective against ransomware

Cons:

• Can be resource intensive
• Online account requirement
• Basic bonus tools
• Incomplete ransomware cleanup

Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2019 is one of the best antivirus software packages money can buy. The product is Bitdefender’s starter antivirus package for the Windows platform. It delivers strong protection, providing the essentials of malware searching tools, and some extras as well. It rises towards the top of our list of the simplest antivirus software packages.

2. Norton Antivirus Plus

Operating system: Windows only | Maximum devices covered: 1 | Stand out features: Advanced privacy security, financial security, global civilian intelligence network

Pros:

• Stays up to date with latest malware threats
• Lite on system resources
• Affordable subscription
• Easy and intuitive dashboard
• Multi-platform support
• Around-the-clock customer support via phone
• Reliable file storage and backup options
• Norton Power Eraser tool blocks suspicious software

Cons:

• Unreliable browser extensions
• The software impacts performance
• Lack of secure web-browser

In short, Norton does ensure excellent malware protection without hurting system performance in the course of scans. Although this solution is relatively expensive, the Premium plan is jam-packed with features, backup solution and 25 Gb of storage online. What all of the Norton packages lack is file shredding, a secure web-browser, and encryption of files.

3. F-Secure Antivirus SAFE

Operating system: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS | Maximum devices covered: 3 | Stand out features: Browsing and banking protection, Family Rules, ransomware protection

Pros:

• User-friendly
• Strong value
• Mobile device finder
• free several security tools, like a router check

Cons:

• Has some false positives
• doesn’t stop online threats from infecting your computer

Here is F-Secure Antivirus SAFE’s winning formula: start with strong antivirus software, and then include even more features to fully protect a user’s system. These tools include banking protection for the safest online shopping, and safety tools that are family-centered. Another useful feature looking beyond your Windows computer is a locator for the loss of your Android or iOS mobile device, Additionally, if the device can’t be found, there is the option to remotely lock or delete it which at least keeps the data safe.

4. Kaspersky Anti-Virus

Operating system: Windows only | Maximum devices covered: 5 | Stand out features: Automatic scans, drive-by crypto-mining infection prevention, simplified security management

Pros:

• One of the best performing security packages
• Supremely easy to use
• Nearly perfect malware protection
• Webcam protection, hardened web browser
• Mac, Android antivirus software included
• Two-factor authentication for online account

Cons:

• Kaspersky’s full suites offer better value
• Heavy system impact during full scans
• Unlimited VPN usage costs extra
• Password manager limited to 15 entries
• Parental controls not as good as top-tier program

Kaspersky takes first place among mid-range antivirus software products, thanks to its excellent malware protection and a full assortment of extra features and tools. Kaspersky Internet Security includes a secure browser, a virtual keyboard, specialized protection against ransomware, webcam protection to guard your privacy. There’s VPN client software that automatically switches on when you connect to an unsafe Wi-Fi network, but data usage is limited unless you pay extra.

Recommendations:

We understand that choosing the most effective and competent antivirus is uneasy. By using our DDS+ Diskless System Solution, you don’t have to worry about all the virus and malware attacked. The diskless system could restore to the initial clean state after rebooting the PCs. Worry no more about any malicious software and virus attack. DDS+ solution could just recover upon reboot.

For any inquiries;
Phone: +603-7981 6878
Mobile: +6016-922 1248
Fax: +601-7980 7668
Email: enquiry@michaelsoft.com.my

Are you currently running an internet cafe business? Or are you deciding to open a new one? Internet cafe, also known as Cyber Cafe is a place where clients are provided with access to hi-speed internet, various kinds of PC games and other computer services.

It is hard to oppose those traditional internet cafes that are already on their way out. Many cybercafes have gone out of business because some of the modern mobile phones are provided with a function to get easy access to the internet. Most internet cafe owners are shifting their operations into eSports and game centers. Of course, the advanced complexity of internet cafe business requires a modern and effective management system. That is why using powerful internet cafe software plays a significant role in terms of applying successful management. One of the most vital tools to build up a qualified internet cafe is using operative software.

DDS+ RECOMMENDED

Diskless environment is important nowadays. If your company has a lot of PC running, Diskless Solution is the best choice for you. MichaelSoft provides the best diskless system that can help you to restore a clean system after each reboot, as well as keep your computer FREE of Virus and Trojans. Also, with diskless system, it can help you to update all your PC’s with only a single click. Amazing right?

If you’re currently stress and mess up because of hard disk crash and virus infection, or also getting a headache because of spending too many hours to troubleshoot your computer problems, this article is worth to read. This is because the diskless system doesn’t require a hard disk to maintain.

It can also save you from spending and invest more money to buy replacement of corrupted and damaged hard disk drives. No more worries of hard disk crash, virus infection because the system is immune to viruses! Your time is better spent focusing on your revenue-generating business instead of spending your time on troubleshooting your computer problems.

What amazing about the diskless system is, it’s hassle-free. If you have hundreds of computers there is no need to install or uninstall programs on every single PC a hundred times, you only need to install on one machine and it will apply simultaneously to all the PCs and that’s it!

This Diskless Network Solution has been used by many Cyber Café, Educational Institutions, Laboratory, Tutorial Center, Library, Corporate offices, Associations and Call Center in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. We have helped many Malaysian managing their small Cyber Cafe and also tutorial center owners to upgrade their computer system to our affordable diskless system.

By centralizing the operating system, other applications, games and data in the server, it will enable deployment of storage virtualization resulting in super-fast server and client desktop deployment.

Click here to know more about our diskless systems

We have been in cybercafe solution provider for more than 10 years and still counting. So, we would like to share with you guys about a few common problems happen to the cybercafe business, which leads to cybercafe closing.

WHY SOME OF THE CYBERCAFE CLOSED DOWN?

[scenario]

“I want to open a cybercafe.”
“Do you have money? Because I wanna open a cybercafe too, I need some extra capital.”

“No, I got no money.”
“Hey, if you don’t have the capital for opening a cyber cafe, how do you still intend to open one?”

“I have technical knowledge to manage your cybercafe.”
“Oh… why not join me for opening one, but you’ll need to pay a sum of money for your share in the business though.”
 

1. Partners or Staff’s Credibility

Cybercafe operators, do not consist of one person. They had partners to overcome the financial issues and technical issues. Usually, there are some partners who contribute the most for finance, while the others are for technical. This itself is a problem. How much can you trust your partner in handling the operations when you’re not around to observe and manage it or know how to manage it?

Some businesses close down because of partnership. They had doubts about each other’s trustworthy. Those partners who’re good at technical tend to siphon the money into his own pocket without being traced. Even the cashier also takes advantage of the billing system. For example, some of the customers who paid a package rate of $10 for 10 hours who left before the timer is up, say he played only 6 hours, the remaining 4 hours were given to other customer and the cashier charged him for $2 per hour, therefore the cashier has siphoned $8 out of that PC.

Some billing systems had a loophole, hack-able by customers, cybercafe owners who always opt for software that is free, or cracked version will have lesser revenue. Even paid version will also be hacked as well, this probably happens when the owner stored his million-dollar bank account somewhere in the cybercafe.

Nobody is hardworking. Even the boss is also slack sometimes!
 

2. Bad Staffs Working Attitude

Some business has staffs that are not committed to their work. When the boss is not around, they will be slacking. Lack of supervision or managing will allow them to do whatever they want.

How will this make a cybercafe business fall?

When a customer want’s to complain about their computer, the staff is ignorant about it. That pisses off the customer right away. This dissatisfied customer will never come back anymore unless he has no choice but to come back. Competitors wish that you had more dissatisfied customers so they can earn more profit.

If the staff acknowledges the problem, he will fix it when he has the ‘time‘. However, why is there a complain about the computer in the first place?

• Games are not up to date. Staff didn’t update the game when they had the time.
• Games are not working. Staff didn’t install the game properly or the link to the game server were inaccurate.
• Games are not listed in the game menu or desktop. Staff didn’t install the game AT ALL.

Cheap stuffs ain’t good quality
 

3. Poor Software Choices

The receptionist who take advantage of the billing system case above was a good example. Although there are software that is cheap, or even free, but they come with risk. Some business suffered loss due to downtime, that is causing by;

• using cracked version of software or freeware
• update cracked version software
• installing new software due to outdated version of cracked software
• installing new software due to “no more support” freeware
• installing new software that is UNSTABLE or BUGGY freeware

If the business is willing to take the risk to use such ‘troublesome’ software, in the long run, it will ruin the business image. These freeware, or cracked version can be hack easily, as they are not fully stable. When a billing system is hacked, potential profit will be gone as well.

Customer doesn’t have the patience to deal with such unstable software. For instance, the game menu that doesn’t work, the billing system that always crashes and loses revenue records and miscalculated charges.

Imagine that the money that you could have earned went to someone else’s pocket.

There’s no loyal customer in Cybercafe business. If there’s a cheaper rate cybercafe, why would they spend more for the same services?
 

4. Lack of Maintenance and Software Upgrades

Some business closes down because they didn’t maintain or upgrade their hardware to satisfy the need of the gamer. It became the competitor’s opportunity to open a new cybercafe and capture all those dissatisfied customers. Once the competitor maintained their performance, there’s hardly any chance the customer will return to the cyber cafe which they visit before. Unless it’s a full house at the competitor’s place, but the leftovers from competitors were not able to feed those cybercafes who still have lousy machines. That is why some of the competitors when they are able to open a cybercafe, will make sure that they are able to open a BIGGER one to ‘eat’ other cybercafe’s dissatisfied customers.

In an area with a lot of competition, the best way to beat all the other cybercafe competitors is to offer better service than the rest, at the same rate, and be BIG. Crowned as the big boss in the area, with the same rate, customers can get better gaming experience. Why spend more for crappy, lag, century-old wooden machines that don’t satisfy customer’s gaming needs when there’s a cybercafe who can offer EXCELLENT service at the same rate?

Everybody wants to play with a FAST computer, LCD and BIG monitor screen, SMOOTH as silk tofu internet speed, razor SHARP precision of mouse, and SNAPPY keyboard. Good ambiance, such as lighting, decorations, air condition, background music, and friendly staff plays a part in becoming a good cyber cafe.

Related post: Tips on how to make your cybercafe business running successful

In Malaysia market, most of the cyber cafe owners are familiar with a few solution providers. These big guns have experienced the harshness of the industry, where they have to find additional innovative value-adding service to their sales inventory.

Michaelsoft is one the cybercafé solution provider, and its customer has been in the business for more than 10 years. In this market, rarely of the cybercafé will survive more than 8 years, due to lack of business knowledge, technical knowledge, and management skill.

“You can easily tell the difference between cheap and expensive goods and services.”

They both fulfill different needs. Michaelsoft aims to help cybercafé to maintain its business in the longer run. Cybercafe owners would have met different types of solution providers, and some of the cybercafé owners don’t know what they want for their business, forced to close their business and invest their salvaged capital into some other industry.

The initial cost and on-going maintenance cost.

Most of the cybercafés didn’t choose the right solution to handle on-going maintenance cost. Setting up was easy, but to maintain was really stressful and awful. Below are the effective ways on how to run your small cybercafe business to become profitable.

1. Use diskless network solution

In cybercafé, diskless solution can extend the lifespan of client PCs, able to boot faster, has better performance than disk solution, and reduces operation cost (electricity, maintenance, staffing, license, antivirus, game deployment). Last but not least, it’s relatively easy to set up. Michaelsoft also provides add-on services to ensure cybercafé owners have the competitive advantage to continuously sustain and improve their business.

2. Choosing the right hardware for diskless network environment.

When running diskless network, balancing the load on server and client PCs are important, in order to extend the lifespan of each hardware, the cybercafé owner must make sure that the servers, routers, client PCs are able to handle moderate to heavy-duty usage, and must not overload the hardware.

It is not advisable to use low spec or unknown brand hardware to handle heavy-duty loads, as it will exhaust its lifespan even faster and possibly causes downtime unexpectedly. Therefore, the model, the warranty and its specification should meet the requirements of the business for moderate to heavy-duty usage. 

3. Look for a reliable and suitable service provider that can save your cost

To prevent cybercafé from service disruption, it’s best to choose a solution that doesn’t require frequent visits or troubleshooting from technicians. This means, if the solution keeps giving problems that need technicians to fix the problem, this causes downtime to business and creates dissatisfaction among customers. When this happens, revenue and customer’s trust in the cybercafé will be lost.

Therefore, consult other solution providers to find out which one suits their business needs. Michaelsoft emphasizes providing stable, genuine, cost-effective, reliable, efficient, hassle-free and innovative solutions to customers.

4. Beware of hidden charges

Beware of the pricing, cybercafé owners are advised to double-check the price, such as the TOTAL set up price and its monthly charges. Some of the solution providers did not mention clearly the total number of servers and additional hardware needed for the business.

Solution providers that aim to earn quick cash will urge cybercafé owners to pay a sum of money to run the business first. Soon after when the hardware starting to wear out because of overloading, they will ask the cybercafé owner to invest another sum of money to upgrade or buy a new unit to replace.

5. Choose our Auto Game Update

Deployment of games. It’s best to see the game update is done within a blink of an eye.  Michaelsoft Game Menu, with its Auto Game Update, the game is installed instantly when the remote game server is updated. There won’t be any error in system registry when installed or require any remote assistant via internet to install the games.

6. Use Linux Server Operating System

Cybercafe owners are encouraged to run their business in a legal way. Besides being raid by police or local councils, there are risks involved if doing otherwise. The most common issue would be during the event of virus attacks. Servers that run Windows OS will be most likely attacked by virus, and causes downtime to cybercafé, unlike our diskless system which uses Linux OS to run the server. Linux platform, is immune to Windows viruses, even if the client PC that infected with Windows virus and spreads into the network, the Linux server is not affected by it. This acts as the last defense against virus attacks.

In the most extreme event where the whole server OS has to be re-installed. Re-installing OS would take some time, DDS+ would only take 15 minutes to be ready, and configured. However, Windows OS would take at least 30 minutes to be ready but without configurations. Besides there’s no licensing fee needed for Linux OS as it’s a free and open source software.

Another advantage of using Linux OS to run the server is that it can fully utilize the RAM installed, and able to run 64 bit Windows 7 in the diskless network environment, delivering the most ideal gaming experience to customers as a satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.

It’s the middle and nearly the end of 2019, yet people still believe in these computer myths. Most of these myths are being widely shared through the internet and it causes more harm than good. If you’re using a computer/laptop in your daily life, then this post is expressly for you.

Myth 1: Virus and spyware will make your computer slow

Some people will think that their pc has been attacked by a virus every time their pc runs into any sort of slowdown. Somehow it might be because of hard drive or hard disk is running out of space, outdated software, operating system is not updated and installing too many programs.

Myth 2: Anti-virus that has been installed in your computer completely secure from all types of virus attack.

Most people, including computer expert believe that they’re secure enough if they have an anti-virus installed. It is quite unsafe now because everyone has their personal, sensitive and banking details information on their computers. Also, the virus still has a chance to attack your computer even if you have purchased the best and most expensive anti-virus.  So, this type of behavior such as clicking the unsafe and suspicious link, installing malicious software, downloading software and file from third party websites and not secure and using crack software.

Therefore, you have to keep an eye on your computer behavior so that the virus would not be infected.

The best and easy practice which protects your computer from many viruses is to regularly update the database of your antivirus; this practice protects your computer from the newer viruses which get spread mainly through the internet.

Checkout our DDS+(Click Here), that also will help your PCs to avoid Viruses and Trojans.

Myths 3: You must shut down your computer every time you have done working with it.

Instead of turn it on and off regularly, you can make it as a sleep mode while not in use. System resources used as well as battery drain/power draw is minimal while in sleep mode.

Apart from that, you should turn off your computer if there’s no need for it to be running. Every computer component has a limited lifespan, turning your computer off when it’s not needed will allow the components to last a bit longer.

Myth 4: Virus tends to attack Windows rather than Mac, so Mac doesn’t require an antivirus

Many people believe that the windows can easily get infected with a virus and blindly believe that Mac OS doesn’t need anti-virus, based on their flawed logic. This is because the majority of people in this world use Windows OS (79%) compared to the Mac OS (14%). Many hackers and individual who creates virus aim computers that running on windows OS, so that their virus gets spread to the majority of computers.

Even though you use a Mac device, you must use antivirus software. In the year 2015, a senior analyst working with Bitdefender antivirus said that Mac OS X had more vulnerabilities than that of all the versions of the Windows operating systems combined.

Myth 5: You should eject your pendrive

You can just pull the pen drive safely from the computer, as long as it is not used by the computer. For instance, do not pull your thumb drive if the computer is transferring file from your thumb drive to computer. It might be corrupt your files.

If not, you can just simply unplug the thumb drive without clicking Safely Remote Hardware and eject media features.

Myth 6: Your activity on internet will be hidden when using Incognito modes

The only benefit when using Incognito is, all of the browsing histories would not be stored in the device. So, it is also unsafe if you visit the phishing website, which also can be tracked by your IP address on the website.

The best way to protect your device from being tracked is by using VPN (Virtual Private Network).

Myth 7: It’s ok to use laptop in moving transport

When you use your laptop in any moving transport, the movement can damage the internal components and data of your laptop. Hence, shutting down your laptop while traveling is the best choice.

Myth 8: Only charge your laptop battery when it is completely empty

This myth is actually grounded in fact. Back when computers used nickel-cadmium batteries, it was best to wait until the battery was fully spent before charging. However, today’s lithium-ion batteries last longer if you don’t wait to charge them. When you charge a empty or low lithium-ion battery, it develops a chemical resistance to charging. Therefore, it’s better not to run your batteries down to zero before charging again!

Reddit users are very good at turn up clever and brilliant tricks that we used daily, especially on computers. Here are several useful tips and tricks that can be applied in your life:

1. Get back to the tab that you accidentally closed.

If you accidentally closed a tab, just press ‘Control’ (Windows) or ‘Command’ (Mac, plus ’Shift’, plus ‘T’ and it will reopen it.

2. Easily repeat your last command in Excel.

If you press the ‘F4’ button in Excel, it repeats the last command.
Example: if you select a cell and highlight it yellow, you can then highlight any other selected cell(s) yellow by pressing F4.

3. Open a link in a new browser tab with one click.

If you click on the link using the middle button of your mouse, it will open a new tab browser, while if you middle-click an open tab, it will close the tab.

4. Make a copy of file by just dragging it.

To make a copy of file, just hold the ‘Control’ key (Windows) or ‘Alt’ key (Mac) and then click and drag the file.

5. Pause Youtube with one click, or skip backward and forward 10 seconds.

Many people know that you can hit the space bar to pause a Youtube video. But it will cause you to scroll down the page if you haven’t click on the video. Another alternative to pause a Youtube video using a key is, you can press ‘K’ key to play or pause the video.

6. Move your window to any side of the screen, to do the next monitor.

• By pressing the ‘Windows’ key with one of the ‘Arrows’ key (right, left, up, down), your current window will move to that side of the screen.
• Besides, pressing ‘Windows’ with ‘Shift’ and one of the ‘Arrows’ key can move your window to other monitors, depends on which key you press.

7. Clear your cache in seconds.

By pressing ‘Control’ with the ‘Shift’ and ‘R’ key, it will instantly clear your cache as well as refreshing your page.

8. Reset your browser page view (prevent from zoom in and zoom out).

• Press ‘Control’ (Command on Mac) with ‘0’ key to reset the page by default.
• Press ‘Control’ (Command on Mac) with ‘+’ to zoom in
• Press ‘Control’ (Command on Mac) with ‘-‘ to zoom out

Source: Reddit

Improve your password security by the combine or merge between numbers and letters, instead of just sticking with one type of character. A string of nine letters or numbers takes milliseconds to crack. Add a single letter, and your password may become cryptic enough to counter password crackers for almost four decades.

However, it’s not as simple as swapping your “e” for a “3” or adding a number at the end of a string of letters. Most of the hackers will take advantage of these common habits, doing by most people. What you should do is, simply create a password that is less predictable and more complicated to guess.

Mix several types of characters is a highly effective way to make your password more cryptic and secured. The most simple and common word used actually can be cracked in just a millisecond. So, make a move from now to change your predictable password  by combining of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols (!@#%) and your password is secured for more than a decade.

Instead of that, it’s very important when talking about password security, is not to use actual dictionary words. Many hacker programs start with a long list of common passwords and then move on to the whole dictionary. This is much faster than a brute force attack because there are way fewer options.