Melodie's House » computer business

Back in Business Full Swing

melodieshouse — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:47:46 +0000

The full-time college student is still watching my kids. I’ve been selling stuff on Ebay. I’m waiting for the restauranteur client to get back to me with what he thinks about the ERP/CRM solution I’ve recommended and setup as a demo for him to kick the tires on. I’m working more with affiliate marketing. My husband and I are short on both money and time but it’s only temporary. It isn’t Bush’s fault and Obama won’t bail us out of it. It’s with God’s help we’ll get past it and we appreciate everyone’s prayers.

I started dieting again 3 weeks ago and after 10 days I lost 3 lbs and I’ve been stuck there. To be honest, I haven’t stuck strictly to the plan. Stress isn’t helping either. No matter how little I eat, if I take in any sugar or refined starches (white flour), I do not lose weight. But the good news is I’m still down 3 lbs.

My current listings are a Takamine G335 12 String Acoustic Guitar with Pickup and a bunch of copies of CA AntiVirus Plus AntiSpyware 2008 for 3 PCs. I’ll also put up a widget in the sidebar that links to my Ebay listings and post from time to time on items I feel are worth special mention.

Back to Business More or Less

melodieshouse — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:09:20 +0000

I hired yet another babysitter over the weekend to work part-time (up to 30hrs/wk). She started this week. She’s a fulltime college student who lives right around the corner from me. She’s a quiet girl that seems to be a bit shy. She’s worked two full days already and she and the kids all survived each other. Let’s just see how it goes.

My current hot-and-heavy business project is working on an ERP/CRM solution for a client who has three restaurants, two food markets at two of the restaurants, and a food warehouse/manufactuing business along with a web store. Did I mention he also does catering? He needs the backoffice management of all these components to be integrated and accessible preferably from a web browser. I’m testing out a package right now to see if it will work for him, but it’s going to take weeks if not months to get all components fully operational. ERP/CRM means Enterprise Resource Planning/Customer Relationship Management.

Beside Myself Because I Finally Made the Switch

melodieshouse — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:21:00 +0000

I’ve been beside myself with joy today, because my DH acquired an iMac for me. It’s a used G5, but it leaves my former Sony VAIO Pentium 4 in the dust. My ol’ VAIO had been upgraded to Windows Vista, and it actually handled it pretty well, without any noticeable bugs, but it was getting slow and it was quickly proving itself insufficient for web development. Suffice it to say I was over it. I’ve been a fan of Macs for 14 yrs, having worked with them in a previous job for 5-1/2 yrs, but family economics hasn’t allowed us the luxury of a new Mac yet, and the bulk of our computer business is working on Windows systems, so we’ve been content with keeping PC’s in front of us. This isn’t my first Mac though. I actually had an old beige G3 that I got off Ebay that was my personal email and browsing machine back in 02-03. The logic board went out on it, but it was fun while it lasted. I also had an old blueberry iBook G3 that we replaced the logic board on (also courtesy of Ebay) that I used a lot when my oldest dd was a baby in ’03-’04 and when I was pregnant with my son in ’05 (I used it mostly in bed when I was cuddling with my baby dd or when I needed to be off my feet when I was preggo).

What of the VAIO? I’m trying to install Linux as a server on it because I need to test a CRM/ERP software suite for a business client. For you non-techie readers (I admit it, I’m a geek girl) that’s Customer Relationship Management/Enterprise Resource Planning, i.e. a suite that covers practically all the back-office for a retail/service business. In this case, I’m testing a solution for a business that has two restaurants and food markets that also produces foods and distributes them to grocers and sells online.

Taking care of business (and working overtime)

melodieshouse — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 02:19:43 +0000

I’m joining my husband fulltime to work in his computer consulting business. I’ve built 3 online stores since May; these will be continual works-in-progress, and now I will be building even more of these stores, using Zen Cart or other e-commerce solutions based on what features suit a particular business client better. This is a new need that my husband has seen arise with his clients, and we need to increase our income so we’re not going to maintain status quo and turn them elsewhere.

Because I need to concentrate fully on my work, we have hired a fulltime nanny who will start tomorrow. When I interviewed her I really liked her, what she had to say, and how she related to my kids. Her 2 references, whom she still babysits for occasionally, couldn’t recommend her highly enough. She’s 21 and has provided childcare since age 12. She was also raised up in our city, in the same part of town where we live, and still lives close by. I’m hoping this arrangement works out very well for us and becomes longterm. I’ll still be homeschooling my 5yo daughter and working mostly from home.