Technology

October 20, 2017

After 38 years in our present business it is amazing how much we have become dependent on modern day electronics. We have 4 kids and they are always pushing us into the next level of technology. Our son Tim just mounted an Alexa in our house that has a feature similar to FaceTime. When we access their house we see a picture of their kitchen and whom ever is there.

I asked one of our kids why they are so technologically minded because I was thanking him for helping us to stay current with what's going on in technology. When I asked what was the driving force for them pushing us to stay current, he said, “Dad, don't you remember that we were the first family in all my circle of friends who had a PC computer in their home?"

Then I remembered bringing the computer to our house and our business. My sales point to Jennie was that at that time, we made over 60 items, glazed in 6 different colors, and a customer could have a due date on 1 of 365 days in a year. How could I possibly keep track of all that? A computer could help me manage all that data! Her response, “we owe on a $2500.00 line of credit and the day you zero that out you can buy the computer”. I have never scrimped, saved and worked so hard to pay off a bill! True to that commitment, the day I finished paying down that line of credit we ordered our first PC. It was a Zenith with 2”-4” floppy drives. The first upgrade was to exchange one of the floppy drives for a 40 MB hard drive.

In our company today we have 2 Apple computers and 3 PCs, one of which is a laptop for our bookkeeper. We have a sound system that has 4 speakers with each one being independently connected to the WIFI so they become a wireless sound system. Our POS system is run off of the Internet with 4 printers and 2 card readers and 2 auxiliary card readers as back-ups. Today I am the first one on the till in Mountain Arts. All of our products have a bar code, which we scan with our UPC code reader. Unfortunately, today the credit card reader tied to the bar code reader doesn’t work. I tried the reboot the iPad and do a refresh on the credit card reader tied to the POS system, but all to no avail. I started following the cord of the credit card reader and half way down through the jungle of cords I heard a double beep and all of a sudden it starts to charge. I stand up and it shuts down again, so I started the search again and it turns on and then off. I discover that in the jungle of plug-ins, the charging unit comes unplugged very easily. So given time the battery runs low and it quits working. Now I just need to find room for the power strip so the credit card reader’s charger can stay plugged in! Technology. Both a blessing and a curse. But I'm so happy to have it!