MDLarson
Registered
My dad is planning on opening up a new cat & dog boarding kennel called Stone Mountain Pet Lodge. It will be located in Blaine, MN and will open sometime in mid-2005. It will be one of the nation's premier pet kennels!
We are planning on making it an all-Mac operation, starting with a FileMaker based point-of-sale system using iMac G5s. There will be 4 of them at the front desk. Here's a thread about my POS questions.
Next, we're going to be utilizing around 30 "network IP" cameras throughout the facility and manage the video feeds via SecuritySpy (Mac-only) software, which has awesome 5 star reviews on VersionTracker. I haven't decided on cameras, but I am looking for inexpensive (less than $200) Power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled network cameras. I don't want wireless cameras. I'm thinking the computer that will process and record video on will either be a Power Mac G5 or an XServe, but I have yet to investigate exactly what I want to do with that.
The idea with the cameras (besides general surveillance) is that pet owners can pay extra to secure a kennel with a video camera and they will be given a password to access a live web-feed of their pet. I'm sure it can be done, I just don't know exactly what that will look like. (For instance, I think the best way to do this is to secure a static IP address from our ISP and do our own website hosting / video streaming... help on this would be great!)
We need a phone system, and VoIP appears to be the way to go, especially for new construction. 3Com has a new IP telephony device that I will be looking at, with the idea that phones will be plugged into a standard RJ-45 jack that goes back to our central rack server area.
We will have a few offices to fill with computers, and iMac G5s will probably be the ticket. I am also thinking of sticking an AirPort Extreme base station on the ceiling of the lobby area to allow customers to hop on the internet while they hang out. I've read that the ideal location for a wireless access point is on the ceiling, and I think it'd be funny to look up and see the little white UFO blinking away.
And on a final boring note we are planning on getting a copy of QuickBooks 2005 for Mac. I've read some horrible reviews of previous versions of QuickBooks and I'd be keenly interested in Mac QuickBooks users' advice.
*****
So, I plan on updating this thread as we make progress (and secure funding), and I hope to hear from all of you regarding opinions, advice, whatever. It's no Virginia Tech supercomputer, but it's pretty exciting for us!
We are planning on making it an all-Mac operation, starting with a FileMaker based point-of-sale system using iMac G5s. There will be 4 of them at the front desk. Here's a thread about my POS questions.
Next, we're going to be utilizing around 30 "network IP" cameras throughout the facility and manage the video feeds via SecuritySpy (Mac-only) software, which has awesome 5 star reviews on VersionTracker. I haven't decided on cameras, but I am looking for inexpensive (less than $200) Power over Ethernet (PoE) enabled network cameras. I don't want wireless cameras. I'm thinking the computer that will process and record video on will either be a Power Mac G5 or an XServe, but I have yet to investigate exactly what I want to do with that.
The idea with the cameras (besides general surveillance) is that pet owners can pay extra to secure a kennel with a video camera and they will be given a password to access a live web-feed of their pet. I'm sure it can be done, I just don't know exactly what that will look like. (For instance, I think the best way to do this is to secure a static IP address from our ISP and do our own website hosting / video streaming... help on this would be great!)
We need a phone system, and VoIP appears to be the way to go, especially for new construction. 3Com has a new IP telephony device that I will be looking at, with the idea that phones will be plugged into a standard RJ-45 jack that goes back to our central rack server area.
We will have a few offices to fill with computers, and iMac G5s will probably be the ticket. I am also thinking of sticking an AirPort Extreme base station on the ceiling of the lobby area to allow customers to hop on the internet while they hang out. I've read that the ideal location for a wireless access point is on the ceiling, and I think it'd be funny to look up and see the little white UFO blinking away.

And on a final boring note we are planning on getting a copy of QuickBooks 2005 for Mac. I've read some horrible reviews of previous versions of QuickBooks and I'd be keenly interested in Mac QuickBooks users' advice.
*****
So, I plan on updating this thread as we make progress (and secure funding), and I hope to hear from all of you regarding opinions, advice, whatever. It's no Virginia Tech supercomputer, but it's pretty exciting for us!