http://www.neotechnology.com.au/user_blog_feed/dharrison en http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/professional-courtesy-such-rare-commodity <p>This week Shirly Sareyka and I have been travelling around Melbourne meeting with potential partners for our Point of Sale product, Amicus. So far we've talked to a few very good candidates, most notably <a href="http://www.retailcare.com.au">Retail Care</a> in Prahran and <a href="http://www.livit.com.au">LivIT</a> in Camberwell so the trip has been worthwhile.</p> <p>However, the number of stand-ups we've had here in Melbourne is really quite bemusing, 3 so far. One of which did actually call to cancel so that's fine, but the other two simply weren't there when we arrived for our &quot;confirmed&quot; appointments. Needless to say, if they aren't professional enough to turn up for a confirmed appointment then they probably aren't good candidates as distribution partners for our POS system, Amicus, anyway.</p> <p>We're actively seeking to establish long term distribution partners in Australian cities for Amicus which is an affordable, enterprise class Point of Sale system (POS) tailored specifically for the following business types:</p> <p>• Supermarkets<br /> • Fuel Outlets<br /> • Cafes<br /> • Restaurants<br /> • Retail Chains<br /> • Wholesale</p> <p>I would welcome any enquiries by <a href="mailto:enquiries@neotechnology.com.au">email</a></p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/professional-courtesy-such-rare-commodity#comments Amicus Partners POS Fri, 21 Aug 2009 08:59:19 +1000 dharrison 125 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/pos-10-new-features <p>For those of you who have just started reading my blog, don’t worry too much about missing something, this is the first one!</p> <p>At the moment I’m deliberating what new features we’ll develop for Amicus over the next few months. Amicus is our Point of Sale system for hospitality, retail and fuel so whatever I choose it will need to present the best value across the three verticals. At the moment, the choices include:</P></p> <ol> <li>Make the touch screen entirely configurable. The Amicus touch screen point of sale interface is already the best looking touch screen on the market (in my humble opinion of course), but you currently can’t change the basic structure of the page. The proposal on the table at the moment is allow for multiple templates to be made by end users so that the screens are laid out exactly as they would like them.</li> <li?Enhance our pricing rules system to allow for reoccurring time sessions. The idea is to be able to remove product availability at certain times of the day (say when a kitchen closes for example) and also to allow business owners to increase prices late at night.</li> <li>Integrate with an electronic shelf labelling system such as SES.</li> <li>A voucher management system. Amicus POS already accepts payment by voucher but I’d really like to enhance that functionality to include the ability to track issued vouchers and the credit remaining on them. The solution would of course need to be multi-site friendly to make it suitable to retail chains and the like.</li> <li>Enhance our booking module and perhaps include a few generic templates for repairs and general services.</li> <li>Enhance the table booking feature for Amicus for Restaurants (hospitality in general).</li> <li>Develop SMS and email notification services for audit events (like NO SALE, VOID and so forth).</li> <li>Integrate with a security solution to overlay text on what is happening on a particular till on a video feed.</li> <li>Add Bluetooth strip printing functionality for tax invoices / receipts for Amicus PDA.</li> <li>Add a quick method of adding customer specific pricing.<br /> If anyone has any feedback on what they would like to see in future versions of Amicus point of sale and business management system please feel free to comment here.</li> </ol> <p>Dan - Neotechnology Business Systems</p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/pos-10-new-features#comments point of sale features Software features Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:37:45 +1000 dharrison 130 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/why-you-should-use-gpt-rather-mbr-sansstorage-servers <p>We have a lot of infrastructure that we’re rather proud of here in our server room at Neotechnology Business Systems. We have our own ‘mini’ SAN in the form of a HP DL380G5 Storage server complete with a P800 controller, an MSA60, Several NC373i NICs and to top it off the Microsoft HP iSCSI Target Software. We also have three virtual hosts, currently two of which are running Hyper-V and the third is running VMWare ESXi, all of which run their virtual machines on iSCSI LUNs hosted on the storage server. Most of the disks in our storage server are SAS disks for speed and reliability however for space considerations we have a few large SATA disks which offer much cheaper $/GB ratios.</p> <p>We use all this infrastructure to host literally dozens of Virtual Machines which we use for testing our Point of Sale (POS) product, Amicus. We need lots of VMs to cover all the different scenarios that we deploy our product for such as Hospitality, Fuel, Retail, Supermarkets, Multi-Site Businesses and so forth. But because most of these VMs aren’t utilised all the time and none of them need to be very efficient we host the VHDs (the LUNs) on the SATA Volumes along with all our other space eating files (database backups, ISO files, archives and so forth).</p> <p>Our problem came about when we expanded our existing 4*1TB RAID1+0 SATA disk set (2TB capacity) to 6*1TB RAID1+0 SATA disk set (3TB capacity). We had previously expanded this same array from 2->4 disks so we were familiar with the process which is basically just plug them in, use the HP Array Configuration Utility to expand the array and the logical drive then jump into Disk Management (in Windows Computer Management MMC) and expand the volume. We followed that procedure and aside from the hiccup of a drive failing (which now seems to be alright strangely enough), we got to the part where we wanted to expand the volume in Disk Management without any issues. However, when we looked at the disk we found that there wasn’t any more space to absorb.</p> <p>This baffled us for a while, firstly we looked at the array config and verified that it had finished, it had. Then we tried rescanning disks and refreshing and every other trick we could think of but nothing would seem to make the space appear. After a while of Googling around we realised that we had previously, quite inadvertently, hit the 2TB limit imposed by MBR. FAIL! So our 3TB disk set wasn’t ever going to be able to utilise the other 1TB we’d just added.</p> <p>Much cursing later we found that if we had simply right clicked the volume before we created any partitions on it in the first place (i.e. Over a year ago now...) we would have seen an option to convert the disk to GPT (GUID Partition Table) which is a new(ish) type of partition table that allows for NTFS partitions up to 256TB in size. If only that were the default!</p> <p>There of course is absolutely no non-destructive way to convert an MBR disk to a GPT disk – not that we would have trusted it in any case. Fortunately, Harvey Norman (Australian Retailer) had Seagate 1TB USB disks on special for a modest $168AU (~$135US) so I ducked out and bought a couple of them. We’ll use Robocopy to copy everything off (duplicating the important stuff) then schedule a complete system outage for 24 hours to give us time to copy the VHDs for iSCSI off and back on again with the iSCSI target turned off so that we don’t have a jumble up of the iSCSI LUNs which would happen if we turned half of them off which would cause all the virtual machines to get the wrong disk which would be a nightmare.</p> <p>So, lesson in this is, use GPT with large sized disk sets! Hopefully there won’t be any issues hosting VHD iSCSI LUNs on a GPT partition.</p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/why-you-should-use-gpt-rather-mbr-sansstorage-servers#comments GPT MBR SANS server infrastructure Servers Storage Fri, 24 Jul 2009 09:42:49 +1000 dharrison 131 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/pos-userss-prospective-windows-7-and-mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard <p>I'm one of those people who likes to live on the bleeding edge of technology, an early adopter if you will. I'm also one of a growing few people who use mac in a windows environment. As a personal choice, i enjoy using Mac, mainly for the user interface (except office for mac which is awful), however windows has it's place with me, particularly in my working environment which is a active directory domain, so i use a virtual machine (VMWare Fusion of course).</p> <p>As an early adopter, i'm now in the sort-of-luxurious position of running Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, so i thought I'd write a little about that here.</p> <p><H3>Snow Leopard</H3></p> <p>Snow Leopard is fast. Really fast. Especially on my macbook now that it has a OCZ Vertex SSD drive in it (which by the way was the best money I've ever spent on a computer). It boots to the login screen in about 20 seconds give or take and then from the login it take 10 seconds to load up including all my little applications such as quicksilver, jing and so forth.</p> <p>Another nice thing about snow leopard is the Mac Mail integration with Exchange Server 2007, where previously I've been suffering Entourage 2008 (yes i'm using that as a verb). Mail is quick, very quick, it with my 2 4GB mailboxes opens in about 5 seconds. Searching is very very fast and the rank system is handy. I was surprised that notes and tasks also integrate with exchange, i was expecting them not to. Now if only they would do that with my iPhone we'll be good.</p> <h3>Windows 7</h3> <p>Windows 7 I would have to say is definitely the finest example of an operating system that Microsoft have ever released. Like Snow Leopard, it is quick and responsive, it boots fast and it's very flexible. Having been a mac user for years it's nice to see the new taskbar - i personally cannot believe that it took Microsoft so long to do it right in the first place although no points are awarded for originality given that it's pretty much a direct knock off of the Dock in Mac.</p> <p>Internet explorer 8 is fast for sure, definitely an improvement over IE7. The new Areo is pleasant and that awful sidebar thing is gone. Best of all is what they've done with windows explorer, the sidebar there is finally the way a sidebar should be and is for once slightly better than the mac alternative - hint hint apple.</p> <p>Best of all our Point of Sale product, Amicus, for Fuel, Cafe's, Restaurants, Supermarkets, Retail Chains and Wholesale works a treat straight away. This included all the various devices we tried such as strip printers and the like.</p> <p>I've got to say, I've been using both for a week or so now and there is no way I'd call one over the other, they're both fantastic operating systems in all the ways that matter. Obviously there are things that one does that the other doesn't do but from an over-all user prospective, I must say i'm very happy.</p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/pos-userss-prospective-windows-7-and-mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard#comments Mac POS Windows Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:37:37 +1000 dharrison 144 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/amicus-point-sale-feature-requests <p>Now that we have our Amicus POS partner network taking root around Australia, with official signed up, partners in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. We're starting to be inundated with feature requests to enhance Amicus, our Point of Sale (POS) system for Supermarkets, Retail, Wholesale, Hospitality, and Fuel. So much so that the board (a whiteboard we've used up until now, see image below) won't fit any more features! </p> <p><img src="http://demo.neotechnology.com.au/filestore/Website/Images/FeatureBoard.jpg" alt="Neotechnology Business Systems POS Feature Whiteboard" title="Neotechnology Business Systems POS Feature Whiteboard"></p> <p>Hmmm... Time for a better solution. </p> <p> Fortunately, we're already harnessing the power of <a href="http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira">JIRA</a> to manage issues such as defects, new features, work items and so forth. Incidentally, Jira is in my humble opinion, the only way to manage such things in a proper and professional way. I'm very happy with the product although I'm not really keen to upgrade to the new 'per user' licensing they've implemented. So, in remedy to this growing situation, I've opened the public user registration features in Jira and setup a project for managing feature requests and voting. </p> <p> Members of the public are encouraged to contribute their thoughts on the future development of Amicus by logging into Jira, searching for features they want and voting for them. If a feature isn't listed you're of course free to add it and you're also free to add comments to existing features. </p> <p> Obviously, since we have such a neat feature voting system, we will be scheduling feature development largely based on the votes collected. So, rather than creating a new issue, try and search for an existing issue to vote on that way your feature is more likely to get enough support to enable development. </p> <p> <b>So please, <a href="https://jira.neotechnology.com.au/secure/Signup!default.jspa">log in and have your say!</a></b> We are actively listening to what you, the customer, wants from our product. </p> <p> As you probably know already, your initial purchase of Amicus point of sale software includes a 12 month subscription to updates, thus assuming you will be entitled to an update to receive your new feature if it is developed within your subscription and you have appropriate licences. </p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/amicus-point-sale-feature-requests#comments Customer Feedback Customer Feedback System New POS Features point of sale features POS Customer Input Software features Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:06:28 +1100 dharrison 171 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/neotechnology-business-systems-have-formed-team-neotech-mo-logy-join-movember-campaign <p><a href="http://au.movember.com/"><img src="http://au.movember.com/uploads/images/Home/BottomBanner/AU_MObanner02.jpg" width="580"></a></p> <p> Neotechnology is pleased to announce that company has formed the team 'Neotech-Mo-ology' to participate in this year's Movember. The basic idea for those who don't already know is that you clean shave on the first of November and attempt to grow the best moustache you can by the end of the month. The real reason for this of course is to raise awareness of men's health issues and also to raise money for prostate cancer research. </p> <p><strong>Prostate cancer causes the death of over 3000 men in Australia alone each year - it's a serious killer.</strong><br /> <p/> <p>So as POS software developers what can we do? We can urge all you kind folk to donate to our team and promote this worthwhile cause. Please, <strong>give generously</strong>.</p> <p><a href="http://au.movember.com/mospace/257250/">To donate simply follow this link</a>.</p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/neotechnology-business-systems-have-formed-team-neotech-mo-logy-join-movember-campaign#comments charity fund-raiser Movember 2009 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:56:51 +1100 dharrison 180 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/melbourne-vcloud-express-vs-amazon-aws <p>I've been looking into enterprise virtualisation solutions or 'cloud computing' as you might call it. I've taken a particular liking to <a href="http://aws.amazon.com">Amazon's AWS</a> which seems to be by far the industry leader in terms of the key criteria:</p> <p align="left"> <ol> <li><strong>Price</strong></li> <li>Computing Power</li> <li>Bandwidth</li> <li>Storage</li> </ol> </p> <p>The only real catch for us here in Australia is the lag time between request and response. Keen to put this too the test i've spoken to a few people who use AWS. Firstly Glenn Richmond at <a href="http://www.crmonline.com.au">CRM Online</a>, they're using a single 'large' instance on AWS to host reportedly hundreds of users. Then there's <a href="http://www.saasu.com">SAASU</a> who are literally hosting thousands of users, i believe they also only have one single 'large' instance. Both have a large percentage of their customers based in Australia. It seems as if while there is a small lag, the processing power that's delivered by AWS simply cancels this out compared to local physical hosts or VMS offered in Australia.</p> <p>My interest in using a cloud solution was to allow for a more flexible rollout of Amicus, our Point of Sale system for Supermarkets, Wholesale, Retail, Cafes, Restaurants, Bars, Fuel Outlets etc. My idea is that if we could deliver the network throughput (preying for NBN [National Broadband Network] on that) and the processing power, we could host the solutions for end business directly and thereby improve delivery for our customers and reduce their costs.</p> <p>The issues however is that so far as POS is concerned, sub-second lag still isn't quick enough. Not when you're operating a checkout or serving at a bar.</p> <p>Seeking to overcome this albeit small but none the less serious issue of lag, i twittered @melbourneIT to see if they were moving on the concept. Turns out that they are indeed releasing their own cloud computing solution, they call it <a href="http://vcloudexpress.melbourneit.com.au/">vCloud Express </a>. Currently in beta, the solution looks as if it's gearing up to be an AWS competitor for Australia.</p> <p>However, upon evaluation of their prices, they seemed quite steep - even when taking into account the currency change and GST. So i whipped out my trusty excel sheet and did the numbers:</p> <table class=MsoNormalTable border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0<br /> style='border-collapse:collapse;mso-table-layout-alt:fixed;mso-padding-alt:<br /> 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:0;mso-yfti-firstrow:yes'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-left:none;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span class=SpellE><span lang=EN-US>MelbourneIT</span></span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-left:none;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>AWS Small Instance</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:1'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Available OS</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Assumed Linux or BYO</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Windows/Linux</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:2'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>CPUs</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>1</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>1</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:3'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>RAM</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>2GB</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>1.7GB</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:4'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>HDD Space Bundled</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>All paid per GB</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>160GB bundled</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:5'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Storage Fees</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>$627.84</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>US$0.00</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:6'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Rate per Instance per hour</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>$0.17</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>US$0.03</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:7'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Annual Instance Fees</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>$1,463.92</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>US$262.98</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:8'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Annual Fee (3y term)</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>$0.00</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>US$111.67</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:9'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Annual Data Cost @ 10GB p/m</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>$125.64</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>US$18.00</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:10'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Total Annual Cost</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>$2,217.40</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>US$392.65</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:11'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Exchange</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>1</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>0.89</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:12'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span class=SpellE><span lang=EN-US>Localised</span></span><span<br /> lang=EN-US> Rate</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>$2,217.40</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>US$441.18</span></p> </td> </tr> <tr style='mso-yfti-irow:13;mso-yfti-lastrow:yes'> <td width=157 valign=top style='width:156.75pt;border:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> border-top:none;mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> background:#E6E6E6;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>Ex Tax Total Per Year</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>$2,015.82</span></p> </td> <td width=81 valign=top style='width:80.75pt;border-top:none;border-left:<br /> none;border-bottom:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;border-right:solid #CDCDCD 1.0pt;<br /> mso-border-top-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;mso-border-left-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;<br /> mso-border-alt:solid #CDCDCD .25pt;background:white;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><br /> <p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US>US$441.18</span></p> </td> </tr> </table> <p>So, good idea Melbourne IT, certainly suitable to those who need their data to remain in country for legal or other reasons, also great for reducing the lag - you're definately on the right track. The problem is you've mucked up the key ingredient solely responsible for roaring success of AWS - the power delivered per dollar.<strong>vCloud Express is nearly 5 times more expensive than AWS!.</strong></p> <p>My humble opinion is that realistically for most applications you're going to be better buying more power from AWS (say a 'large' instance) and putting up with the lag then you are getting local hosting at 5 times the rate. Pity really.</p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/melbourne-vcloud-express-vs-amazon-aws#comments Amicus Cloud Computing POS Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:09:31 +1100 dharrison 239 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/cloud-solutions-are-comming-closer-australia <h1>Great news!</h1> <p>I've been following with interest the software-as-a-service (SAAS) development that's being fueled by cloud computing these days. My immediate interest is for Point of Sale applications with our product Amicus.</p> <p>There is a number of issues in the way of developing proper SAAS implementations of POS such as:</p> <ol> <li>Cost of cloud computing in Australia - see <a href="http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/melbourne-vcloud-express-vs-amazon-aws">my previous blog entry</a></li> <li>Local Redundancy that's required for POS (business <strong>must be able to make sales</strong>)</li> <li>Performance</li> </ol> <p>As i've realised recently however there are a few developments inching their way towards Australia. Most noteably, <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/">Microsoft Azure</a> which i didn't realise existed until this week, has a datacentre in Singapore. Microsoft's product is quite cost competitive for Windows, although not competitive with linux still unfotunately. One very nice thing they do have is a 'medium' sized instance, which offers high IO, 3.5GB RAM and more than enough HDD for what i need. I would love it if Amazon AWS offered this.</p> <p>Reading around though i also <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2009/11/12/aws-asia/">found</a> that Amazon is opening up a AWS datacentre in singapore. Hopefully, with the lost cost of labour and infrastructure in Singapore, it might even be as cheap as it is in the eastern USA.</p> <p>While not quite in Australia, the lag time to singapore is almost as good as it is from Sydney to Australia (~40ms from hobart to <a href="http://www.singaporeair.com">Singapore Airlines</a> - which i assume is hosted in Singapore...). I'll be buying a AWS linux VM based in Singapore the day they release them. Bring it on!</p> <p>Needless to say, this totally blows the inflated pricing put forward by Melbourne IT's <a href="http://vcloudexpress.melbourneit.com.au/">vCloudExpress</a> completely out of the water. It is a shame really, I'd love to have a serious Australian player, I'd go with them hands down if they only got the price/performance model right.</p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/cloud-solutions-are-comming-closer-australia#comments Amicus Cloud Point of sale POS Software as a Service Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:02:08 +1100 dharrison 252 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/road-becoming-microsoft-gold-certified-partners-our-pos-product-amicus <p> After months and months of work, submitting Amicus for third party testing, compiling lists of customer references, conducting satisfaction surveys and generally proving our competency; Neotechnology officially became a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner today. </p> <p> Gold Certified is the highest level of certification Microsoft offers partner organisations. It's not an insignificant achievement in any way, it litterally takes months of work to get over the line. Neotechnology's main vehicle into the program was our point of sale (POS) product 'Amicus' which we develop in house for Supermarkets, General Retail, Wholesale, Cafe's, Bar's, Restaurants and Fuel Outlets. Amicus had to go through a stringent certification process by third party testers (Lionbridge) to be accepted. </p> <p> In addition to having a quality software product however, we also had to pass a number of customer service related tests to ensure that we were the kind of company that Microsoft would like to be associated with. </p> <p> For our customers, this means that we've proven ourselves, not only as competent software developers, but also premier provider of customer support services. For those interested in what the Microsoft Partner Program is all about, please have a look at <a href="http://partner.microsoft.com/">their website</a>. </p> <p> Thanks to all of the team for your hard work in achieving this goal. We will be wearing the badge with pride! </p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/road-becoming-microsoft-gold-certified-partners-our-pos-product-amicus#comments Gold Certified Partner microsoft POS Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:12:12 +1100 dharrison 260 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/software-service-it-future <p>We have another business that specialises in biometric-based turnkey credentialing solutions, <a href="http://www.neotec.vu">Neotec Secure is the company. Check it out if you're interested.</a> In any case, we're using <a href="http://business.zoho.com">Zoho Business</a> for managing our collaborative efforts. While not perfect, and in many respects needs a lot more polish and integration before it could be considered complete, I'm none the less absolutely amazed at how good it is. </p> <p>It's effectively the bits you need from:<br /> *Exchange server<br /> *Sharepoint<br /> *MS Project<br /> *CRM<br /> *Active Directory<br /> *Office Communications Server<br /> *Time and Billing Software<br /> *Bug Tracking</p> <p>All rolled into one neat web portal. Presents 2 major advantages:</p> <p>1) Cost. For starters, no infrastructure required at all, not even the power it costs to run them. Dirt cheap. Free for 3 users, $50 / user / year after that. I paid for the project add-on as well which was $200 a year, which is over priced in comparison, but still well worth it because the project thing is just brilliant because its effectively MS Project that all users and customers can login to, with email reminders, with time and billing, with wiki.</p> <p>2) Zero maintenance and overhead. So far, I reckon over the last 3 years, we've probably spent about 3-4 months in man hours maintaining the above in MS equivalent software for Neotechnology. Total waste.</p> <p>But is it the future? Well, lets not be too hasty in throwing out our servers and infrastructure. There are instances where the nature of the business very much requires very high performance where bandwidth may be limited (please, please, please can we have our NBN?), in which case you'll need something local. Moreover, there are some businesses who cannot have their data outside of their control, and while Zoho has an excellent privacy policy, data-ownership policy and what not, at the end of the day its still a black box and you have no idea where it goes. I would never put my source code for Amicus up there for example (if they had a source code management tool), however i probably would for minor software development jobs - just not my core product.</p> <p>So if the nature of your business is highly secretive, then sure you'll need you're own gear regardless. But if you're like most service &amp; sales orientated businesses, Zoho Business is perfect.</p> <p>I have a great number of things I'd really like Zoho to take a look at, some of which are features (like CALDAV) but mostly they're about the polish the product needs (like tables in writer are a pain), integrations that aren't done right (why is calendar/tasks not integrated with Project calendar and tasks!!!) and the like. They're all things Zoho probably knows about and are working on. When i get some time I'll write a blog on it, who knows, maybe they'll even read it.</p> <p><strong>The thing of it is, Zoho Business is brilliant now, but it has so much potential oozing out of it, in the future it will be astounding - that I'm sure of. </strong></p> <p>But in summary, if this was available when I started running Neotechnology, I would never have bought into installing Exchange, Sharepoint etc. I'd probably keep AD, but that's it. Anyway, I'm that happy with it, I figured it was worth 20 minutes to write this and tell the world. Worth an hour of your time to explore the free stuff I promise.</p> http://www.neotechnology.com.au/blogs/software-service-it-future#comments Fri, 15 Oct 2010 10:29:08 +1100 dharrison 878 at http://www.neotechnology.com.au