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Lewis Electric - Article?


The hardest part of writing something is figuring out what you want to write about. (By the way, If you care to write something and E-Mail it to us, and if it passes our three editor's (Me, Myself & I) scrutiny, we'll put it up. Make sure we have a name and a way of contacting you.)

Web Sites for Dummy's! (Has anyone written a book on this yet?)

All Company owners are continuously looking for ways to expand their businesses. Quite a few have some computer knowledge. Most do not realize the potential of the Internet. For the first time in history, one person sitting at a computer can talk to anyone, research and search for specifics and find almost anything they care to. This is almost mind boggling!

We got our first computer in early 1986. It was a screamer! IBM PC-AT, 512K, 20 Meg, 6MHZ, 300 Baud Hayes Modem. For what we paid for that thing I could buy a whole computer store now. (The price of trying to stay on the leading edge. Anyone want to buy a modem?) Consider that my previous computer experience was on an Apple IIC, 64K.

Anyway, that was then and this is now. It's a whole different ballgame now folks. We now see E-Mail addresses on business cards. With Beepers, Cellular Phones, Fax Machines, Electronic Banking and Lap top Computers the speed of business is fast. It used to be - The "Check's in the Mail" or "Your Proposal was mailed last Thursday". Now you send a proposal and get a response within minutes. You can run, but you can't hide.

This is all well and good as long as all of your suppliers stay up with the times. I have one supplier that we can access their inventory database to order items or just check stock. The only problem is that the computer prices are totally out to lunch.

That is a good reason for all Construction Supply businesses to have web sites. I wish they would. It would cut a lot of the red tape involved in day to day operations. Put my account number under a certain multiplier and see if you can sell me something.

Governments are are another thing altogether. I pay Occupational License fees, Contractor License fees, and Property taxes to a County that will not spend the time, or $.33 to inform me of changes or interpretations that they have made. At least give me E-Mail access to the Inspectors and their Supervisors. If they decided to publish any of their changes or interpretations in a timely manner, I would be more than happy to check their site daily for any them. (Anyone else in the world have this problem?)

In the future I hope to write of different and better things. This one almost sounds like my own little sound off page. I apologize for that and promise to never, never, never do that again at least till the next time.

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Copyright © 1999 by Lewis Electric
Last modified: October 18, 1999