Gerald had never established a computer system in his home, let alone in his office. His small business was suffering, and his three employees encouraged Gerald to set up a basic yet powerful information system that would enable him to keep track of orders, inventory, payroll data, and client account information. Selling dried beans procured from organic farms around the United States and a recovering carnivore, Gerald had also been a techno-phobe for years. His employees had to do most of the work setting up the computer system, starting from scratch. The following is a description of how Gerald set up his company's information system and made selling beans easier.

             After telling Gerald that his would unfortunately be neither an artificial intelligence system nor one that used robotics, Jane, John, and Ollie purchased the fundamental pieces of hardware from a local electronics chain store. "You really only need the basics of an office system: including an accounting system, an inventory control system, payroll system, and order entry system. Robotics and artificial intelligence are unnecessary to sell beans," they said.

             Next, the team phoned the local cable provider and procured Cable Internet access and the requisite cable modem. All three of them were fed up with conventional dial-up Internet access. Explaining the fundamentals of the Windows XP operating system, the team showed Gerald how to launch the application software preloaded on the computer, including the solitaire games, audio, video, and multimedia software. When he was familiar with using his mouse and keyboard and with the operating system basics, Gerald learned how to access the Internet and World Wide Web using the Internet Explorer Web browser. The first activities Gerald was eager to perform on the Internet included online shopping and downloading online music. Before long Gerald registered for online gaming sites.