CHAPTER I
INDTRODUCTION
- BACKGROUND OF STUDY
An internet café or most commonly known as computer rental shop is a place where one can use a computer with Internet access, most for a fee, usually per hour or minute. These types of establishments are very in the country. Internet rental shops started out in the late 1990s as LAN shops- a center in which computers are networked in order to play LAN games. Internet connection then was dial up and relatively expensive therefore only a few shops offered internet service. The bulk of service back then was gaming and typing services for students. Establishing computer rental business needs determination of the following important factors such as computer hardware, computer software, peopleware, and target market and business model. Computer rental shops in the Philippines provide communities with the ability to access the Internet and share Internet experiences.
Internet café businesses must be concerned with its timer and monitoring system in order to have a clear view of business condition and its performance. It must also consider its operations so that it can effectively manage its resources to provide income for the business. A computer rental shop is subjected to these needs. Since this kind of business starts to gain population in the market, operations here become more complicated. From the moment the customer enters the shop until service is finally rendered, several considerations must be taken into account. These bring the need for internet cafés to have acomputerized timer and monitoring system and consider its operations and gain competitive advantage in this kind of field.
In this research, selected computer rental shop representativesare the respondents. They are given a chance to evaluate the operational concerns as well as the time and monitoring system of the business including whether they have applied appropriate internal controls in their operations. In addition, respondents are also asked to assess the problems encountered and the proposed solution thereto.
Manual – based monitoring of computers that are used by costumers is the toughest part that this kind of business encounters every day. Inaccurate recording of costumer sessions and poor monitoring will result to profit loss.
Thus, these are the reasons why the researchers are proposing to develop a computerized internet café timer and monitoring system. The proposed system will provide an accurate timer for sessions and proper monitoring to safeguard computers from unauthorized use.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The manual – based operationsof internet café businesses results to profit loss. Here are the bases for claiming such problem:
- Inaccurate recording of computer rental sessions.
- Lack of security for client computers.
- Incapability to monitor the bandwidth usage of computers used by costumers.
- Improper monitoring of all computers.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT
1.3.1 GENERAL OBJECTIVE
The proposed system aims to develop a computerized timer and monitoring system to aid internet cafés orregarding timer and monitoring needs.
1.3.2 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE
Specifically, this project aims to:
- Have an accurate computerized timer for computer rental sessions.
- Provide security from unauthorized use of computers.
- Provide a bandwidth limiter option to monitor and control the amount of bandwidth used by customer and to balance bandwidth usage between client computers.
- Remotely monitor and control all client computers from a server to properly manage internet cafés.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
This study, entitled “Bataraza Internet Café Timer and Monitoring System”, will give benefit to internet café businesses regarding their monitoring and client computer timer. The system aims to improve monitoring, security and control over rental computers. Furthermore, it will also help to decrease time consumption in managing incoming and outgoing costumers.
The researchers chose this system because not all internet café businesses use this kind of computer – based system. Internet cafés that are using manual – based timer and monitoring makes work inadequately inefficient.
The benefit of this computer – based system is to make internet café monitoring effortless, easier and faster
1.5 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE PROJECT
The proposed system covers the major operations of internet cafés such as monitoring and time usage of rental computers. The system has nothing to do with the printing services, salary of employees and strategies implied by the business on how to attract more customers. It will not also cover the expenses of the business such as electric bill and water bill.
