Can anyone help by answering a few computer networking questions? My wife and I will be running a small hotel in the near future. The reception is on the ground floor. There are two computers - one is at the desk and runs a non-MS hotel reservation/billing software. The other is in the office and is primarily used to check online reservations, answer emails (currently using Outlook), and other general applications (such as Word). A small annoyance is that any online or email reservations that come in on the back computer need to be checked against the front computer running the reservation software. We could put the reservation software on the back computer, but it would be much more difficult checking in clients. Likewise, if we used the front computer for all other applications (email, internet), we would be sitting behind the reception desk in full view of the clients as then enter and exit the building. The set up as is may not be ideal, but it works.
Now, on to the bigger problem. Our living area will be on the first floor of the hotel. When the phone rings and someone is looking to make or confirm a reservation, we have to run down a flight of stairs to check the front computer. Great exercise considering the phone rings a lot. However, not much fun, considering we have a 9 month old that we would hate to abandon in a rush. Some phone calls can also take an extraordinary amount of time.
So, is it possible to network a third computer on the first floor with the other two computers on the ground floor? The computer geniuses here in France have quoted thousands of euro to make it happen. I believe there must be a cheaper, if not free, solution out there. We have wireless internet throughout the building and we have looked into remote access through www.logmein.com. We have yet to give this remote access a full test, but what we've seen is a bit of a lag time and the uncertainty of keeping all the computers connected through the internet at the same time.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Now, on to the bigger problem. Our living area will be on the first floor of the hotel. When the phone rings and someone is looking to make or confirm a reservation, we have to run down a flight of stairs to check the front computer. Great exercise considering the phone rings a lot. However, not much fun, considering we have a 9 month old that we would hate to abandon in a rush. Some phone calls can also take an extraordinary amount of time.
So, is it possible to network a third computer on the first floor with the other two computers on the ground floor? The computer geniuses here in France have quoted thousands of euro to make it happen. I believe there must be a cheaper, if not free, solution out there. We have wireless internet throughout the building and we have looked into remote access through www.logmein.com. We have yet to give this remote access a full test, but what we've seen is a bit of a lag time and the uncertainty of keeping all the computers connected through the internet at the same time.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
