iDevWorks SurfStation 9.0 extends the performance, reliability,
quality, and ease-of-use of iDevWorks SurfStation version 8.0. iDevWorks
SurfStation 9.0 includes several new features that make it an excellent billing
platform for large-scale cyber-cafes, and corporate LANs that require efficient
and robust billing software.
Flexible Ticketing
You might decide to run a bonanza to increase sales by making certain tickets
cheap for certain times of the day. For example if you are experiencing low
early-in-the-day patronage, you could set 8am-11am tickets at a 30% rebate or
even Night browsing. SS9 ensures that a ticket for a bonanza period cannot be
used for regular peak browsing hours.
Server Security
SurfStation 9.0 has been raised to a much higher level of security than
previously known in the industry. The server now has much more staff
permissions compared to previous versions, meaning that you can now delegate
different kinds of tasks to different cafe staff.
Client security
The client has also been made more secure from potential hackers. There are
known hacking methods, the most sophisticated and successful being downloading
and running a process viewer that is then subsequently used to terminate a
timer's process. Such process viewers are numerous and freely available for
download from the Internet. They simply make a call to a Windows function
"TerminateProcess()" that unconditionally kills any process on the computer.
SurfStation Client has been protected from such process viewers and as such
cannot be terminated.
Restrictions
New to SurfStation 9.0 is three new kinds of restrictions.
-
Blocking websites. You can now restrict customers from certain
harmful sites that are known to infect systems with viruses. Also, SurfStation
comes with pre-blocked websites (mostly pornographic sites)
-
Blocking Programs. You can restrict what applications users
are allowed to run on the workstations. You may want to block some bandwidth
intensive programs like email Extractors, Email Spider etc.
-
System Policies. This feature - although not entirely new -
has been improved on to contain more system limiting restrictions like hiding
Drives A:, C: and the CD-ROM drive. Also, policies to prevent downloading to
your workstations and tampering with system settings can be applied.
Print Billing
SurfStation includes a "cafe printers" module that handles all printing
operations on your cafe. Customers time is automatically deducted when a print
job is printed by such customer. You can also set different rates for different
types of printers in your cafe.
Text Messaging - SMS
SurfStation brings you a unique service in partnership with
smsblues.com. Now your customers can send text messages to any mobile
phone anywhere in the world, and YOU make money from that! The customer is
simply billed by deducting from his browsing time! Moreover, you can set how
much you wish to sell your SMS credits, thereby giving you control as to how
much you make.