Tag Archive: Communications

Kiosk Network Monitor

To manage a network of 100+ commerce kiosks, I created a network management database system with MS Access, Visual Basic and pcAnywhere to track and report on current and past kiosk activity.

I had two projects converge into a single product idea that I called a Viosk. It’s a computer kiosk for customer service than contains a web browser and video conferencing. The customer and a service representative can see each other by video and share the browser window. For the two banks that were interested in this, it allowed helping customers at unmanned branches to complete forms while maintaining a more personable relationship.

Voice Transactions Systems Integration

ATT needed to integrate several systems to allow third party verification of  when customers switched carriers for long distance. It was necessary to build interfaces  between sales agencies and the verifier company via TCP/IP and 3780 protocols.

We also built a streaming server and web site for selecting and streaming call recordings when there was a dispute. This was done with ASP and SQL.

Shipping Dock System for Retailer

This was an early project for Jay Jacobs, a retail store, to connect a scale and credit card reader to a PC running Access on their shipping dock.

Support Forum

Remember when Compuserve served as the Internet? I implemented a customer support forum for a systems division at Intel.

DB Helps Union Nail Jobs

This project aided marketing for a major trade union. Users could view project permit status, for the entire state of California. By partnering with the firms bidding on the jobs during the permitting period, the union gained a better bargaining position as construction approached. The project was spearheaded by an environment consulting firm.

This job actually occurred before anyone know about the web. The communications system was via a single user dial-up modem.

The BBS operated with a remote terminal protocol I designed which transfered full screen images from a host PC to the remote PC much like pcAnywhere would do when it came out.  The database engine was Paradox and the communications software is written in Turbo Pascal. The project was featured in the San Jose Mercury News.