Offering website access to customers in our retail store?

[limitup]

I helped setup a website for a local retail store that also has an "Internet only" division. Basically they sell retail widgets, but they also offer other widgets that are only available via their website.

What they want to do now is setup a couple of computer terminals in the retail store where customers can sit down and view their website, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to accomplish this.

Would it be best/easiest to just buy a couple of cheap PCs and hook them up to the network, or is there a better way such as some type of "dumb" Internet terminals?

I guess I'm just conerned with maintanence and troubleshooting of these computers if customers are constantly messing with them, doing who knows what on the Internet, etc. Ideally they would just be dumb terminals that allowed access to the store's website and nothing else. I just don't know if something like that exists?

I know this is an unusual topic for this forum but I figured it was worth asking and maybe someone has some ideas.

Thanks!

[limitup]

I guess if I use regular cheap PCs I can install firewalls on them all and restrict access only to IE, and then maybe I can use the hosts file or something else to restrict them to only the 1 website?

[percentages]

PC's with no removable disks combined with XP and everything removed from the designated users desktop expect for a custom application you write that allows the customers to surf only your clients site.

Writing the custom application is fairly simply, you can embed IE functionality into that application and restrict the user from things like minimizing, accessing the address bar, etc., with only a few lines of code.

Basically, it will be seen as a sterile environment to 99% of the population and the 1% that want to try to do something else won't have much fun once they realize you have removed everything "normal" for that user.

I'm not sure if you will be able to stop them rebooting the machine, but, if they do they will leave it at the password login screen, which will need a member of staff to fix. As most retail stores of this type are always full of staff that want to interact with customers I guess this wouldn't be a terrible thing ;)

I've visited two stores in the last 3 months that implemented a similar solution to the above. One was selling Piano's, the other rugs.....both were robust and worked well :)

[zulu_dude]

You can have the custom application running under a user account with pretty much zero privileges, so even if they can bust out of the browser, they can't do anything. And you could also make the desktop background a really bright colour, so that staff-members could see from a mile away if the browser has been closed.

One would hope that a staff-member would notice if there was a shifty looking client spending hours at the dimly-lit terminal in the corner of the shop.

Alternatively, you could run *nix... that way, 95% of the population would have a clue what to do, even if they could break out of the browser. And if they did break out of the browser, it would go to a command line interface, which would be immediately obvious to a passing member of staff.

[ytswy]

I believe there are a number of Kiosk extensions for Firefox which might do what you want. You could run that under a locked-down Linux booted from a Live CD for a very secure system.

[limitup]

Thanks to all who've replied. This custom application - I assume I could find someone on elance to create this for us? Are we talking $100? $1000? We found a good deal on some low end PCs so we ended up buying a handful of those. So they are running XP. As a temporary "fix" is it possible to redirect any and all domains to their sites address? If you can use wildcards in the hosts file I assume this would be possible, then no matter what URL people tried to enter it would always take them to the clients website.

[akmac]

Sounds like swatting a fly with a baseball bat.

Just have the site open in a screen-size browser window without the address bar.

This will eliminate 90% of the problems.

[tonio321]

My credit union does this at their locations and its pretty cool, not sure what they use but customers only have access to the credit union webpage and nothing else. Its helpful when you want to apply online or just check your account real quick.

[andye]

This custom application

I'm pretty sure you can buy internet cafe applictions out of the box.

Let's see. Yes, a search for 'internet cafe software' brings up a load of choices.

I'd suggest using one of those, and just setting it so the customers don't have to pay.

hth, a.

update: I re-read your question and saw your requirement for them to just be able to browse the one site - still, I'd suggest taking a look at some of those packages.

[limitup]

Yeah that's the hangup right now. I have looked at several internet cafe type programs and they will do everything we need except I haven't seen any that allows you to restrict access to just 1 site. Ideally all the terminals will have our site on the screen at all times, otherwise one of the employees will have to constantly check the computers and be constantly putting them back to the company site all day long. The homepage would be set to the company site so it would just be one click but still, I'm sure people will otherwise be using it to check their email, surf the web, etc. and who knows what will be on the screen for the next person when they leave. Hmm...

[aspdaddy]

What O/S are you using, group policies on M$ can do all you need to restrict access. Make sure to disable the USB,Floopy and CDROM and put the PC's near a visible CCTV.