3 min read
Building Real-Time Station Control with Socket.IO
How CR Cafe locks, unlocks, restarts and wakes every PC in a cafe instantly — and the permission bug that taught us to guard every socket handler.
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Engineering notes and practical guides
First-hand writing from building and running CR Cafe — no invented stats, just what we built and what we learned.
Product Engineering
First-hand notes from building CR Cafe — real-time systems, desktop agents and the bugs that taught us something.
3 min read
Building a Windows Lock-Screen Agent with Electron
What it takes to build a kiosk lock screen that customers can’t get around — and the Electron upgrade that quietly broke it.
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Wake-on-LAN for a Whole Gaming Cafe
Waking a sleeping PC from a web dashboard sounds like one packet. Doing it reliably across a cafe took a relay app, a fan-out and a confirmation.
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Planning, scoping and deciding when custom software is worth building.
6 min read
Custom Software vs SaaS: When Should a Business Build Its Own?
Off-the-shelf software is usually the right answer. Here is how to tell when it isn’t — and what building your own really involves.
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How to Plan a Custom Software Project
What to write down before you talk to developers, so the first conversation is about your business rather than guesswork.
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Practical guides to running a gaming cafe, grounded in what CR Cafe actually does.
6 min read
Gaming Cafe Pricing and Billing: How to Set Rates That Work
Per-station rates, weekday and weekend tiers, night pricing and per-player console rates — and how to bill them without arguments at the counter.
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Gaming Cafe Memberships and Wallets: A Practical Guide
Prepaid wallets replace IOUs, speed up the counter and bring regulars back. Here is how to run them — and the rules that keep them fair.
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What Is Gaming Cafe Management Software?
A plain-language guide to what gaming cafe management software actually does, the features worth looking for, and who it's built for.
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How to Manage Gaming PC Sessions in a Cafe
A practical look at what session management actually involves — live station status, remote control, accurate billing — and how CR Cafe handles each part.
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