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Internship At
Matt Desimini
Table of Contents
Page
Content
1
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About BTX
2
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Blog Posts
3
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Resume
4
.…………………………………………………………………………… Company Description
5
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IT Infrastructure
6
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My Role at BTX
7
……………………………………………………………………………. Supervisor Interview
8
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Technologies Used
BTX Technologies Inc.
5 Skyline Drive
Hawthorne, NY 10532
“BTX is a world class Distributor and Manufacturer of our industry’s cutting edge
interface and integration products for audio, video and data systems. BTX’s
mission is to be your partner of choice in supplying the valuable products,
services, ideas and solutions enabling you to achieve your goal of world-class
systems integration and maximum profitability.”
BTX Technologies specializes in the Audio/Video and cable market. Not only
do the supply these technologies from the most respected brands in the industry,
but they also make specific products in house. They have decades of experience in
the industry and are well known for their quality products and customer service.
BTX can assist you in all of your audio, video, and data system needs. Their
product line ranges from fiber optic cable to 4k displays for your business. They
are located in Hawthorne NY with a distribution plant in Salt Lake City, Utah. BTX
is growing each day as it continues to acquire new and innovative products to
offer its customers.
Blog Posts
Friday, March 27th, 2014
This is my first blog post in which I’ll discuss what I’ve been doing since I began working
at BTX up until now. I will continue to post every Friday after I get out of work. In the beginning
each work day consisted of getting acquainted with the tools that the company uses, more
specifically, Epicor Prophet 21. Since then I’ve been progressing from finding the data to
actually sorting it and finally updating the database and website with this new information. As
of now it is a pretty common task for me to find new data and product information and after
some research, I send the data for verification and processing, and when it is confirmed I then
upload it to the database.
Friday, April 4th, 2014
Today was a busy day. As soon as I arrived, I was immediately presented with what my
supervisor referred to as a “huge project”. I immediately got to work and realized that this
project will take more than a week for me to complete. In short, the project required me to
update the company database with a huge list of products that we just got from a new
contract. Between my supervisor and me, we had to create product numbers for each product
along with inputting web specs into the website by using some simple HTML code. We also
needed to input product descriptions into the database while finding and uploading images for
each product. The most stressful part was the time constraint, because we only had access to
the company’s image file server for a limited amount of time. By the end of the day I was able
to accomplish 80% of what needed to be done, so I am confident I will finish the project next
week.
Friday, April 11th, 2014
This Friday I spend the first couple of hours finishing up that project from last week.
Then I had to make a spreadsheet of every single product and its corresponding part number
from last week. I then sorted the spreadsheet by price and color coated each item with either a
yellow, purple, or red highlight. Yellow means that the item has been successfully added to the
database, along with product specs, details, and the three appropriate images. Purple means
that the item had already existed in the database and I just needed to upload some missing
data. Finally, red meant that the item did not exist in the database and I was unable to find the
information needed to add to it. In the case of a red highlight, I emailed the manufacturer and
requested more information/images for the product. In the case that there were many
products missing for one manufacturer, I asked for temporary access to their product database
and image fileserver. After wrapping up that project I moved on to the next one. This consisted
of retrieving datasheets for specific products. These data sheets usually consist of more in
depth product specs that are too detailed to fit into the website’s allotted area. It also lets us
show the customer much more than the information we list. After finding all of these sheets, I
must once again upload them to the database individually for each product. One very picky part
is the filename, because if one thing is off, the customer will receive a “404 not found” message
when trying to view the datasheet. After today I successfully found about 400 data sheets and
am making significant progress.
Friday April 18 2014
Today was one of the slower days recently. Basically I just continued the project from
last week, finding and updating the database with product data and spec sheets. The good
news is that I am pretty much finished with this. I am excited for next week because we will be
doing some HTML related tasks such as adding links to the actual website that will point to the
files we put in the database. This way when the user clicks on them it will open up the PDF file
in a new tab. It is nothing special but at least I will be able to do a little coding
Friday April 25, 2014
Luckily for me, today was a relaxing day. I spent the majority of the day finishing up my
latest database project. I also helped with some things around the office that needed to be
given out to possible customers. I did get some good news, my boss asked me to continue
working at BTX over the summer. She also said once the summer comes, I can start new
projects and do some new things since I will have more time to learn and practice. For the next
two weeks, my boss will be out. I will receive the outline of what needs to be done next Friday
and will go from there.
Friday May 2nd, 2014
Today My Boss was out and will be out for the next couple of weeks on vacation. She
left me with a game plan. The first item on my list was to finish scavenging and updating the
database with product spec sheets. Next, I started to work on a new project, where I would
search the database and look for any items that were missing information such as: images,
descriptions, spec sheets, manuals, how-to videos, etc. This took up most of my day because of
the enormous database. It is times like this that I wish we used a MySQL Database, because I
could run a query for all of the items that were missing certain things. I hope to finish this up by
next week and move onto the next part of the list.
Resume
Download My Full Resume here.
Company Description
BTX Technologies is a company based out of Hawthorne NY that specializes in Audio,
Video, and Data Systems. They bring the consumer high quality and cost effective equipment.
Depending on orders, some items are custom made by BTX but they are also an authorized
reseller of countless name brands products
Items sold/made by BTX
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Cable
o Ethernet (Cat 5, 5e, 6, 6a, 10g)
o Fiber Optic (Breakout, Distribution, Duplex)
o Audio (Microphone, Speaker, Console)
o Video (Coax, HDMI, DVI, VGA, RGB, SMPTE, S-Video)
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Cable Assemblies
o Audio (2.5mm, 3.5mm, Toslink, Patch Cords, SLR)
o Video (Cat 5e, Cat 6, DVI, DisplayPort, BNC, S-Video, RCA, FireWire)
o Network (USB, Serial, Modular, VGA, HDMI )
o Fiber Optic (LC, SC, ST, SMPTE, Optical, Inter Series)
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Plates/Panels
o Breakout Boxes
o Panels
o Patch bays
o Wall Plate (Custom made to order)
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Digital Signage // Displays
o Display (LED, LCD, Touch Screen, 3D, Video Wall)
o Mounts (Display, Projector, Rack)
o Media Players
o Software
IT Infrastructure
Hardware
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Computers
o Dell Inspiron Desktop 3000 Series
o iMac 2013 27”
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Cables
o Displays

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Gefen HD DVI Gold Plated Cables
USB Devices
o Mouse

Dell X7636 Two Button Scroll USB Mouse

Apple Wired Keyboard
o Keyboard

Dell KB212-B USB Quiet Key Keyboard

Apple Magic Mouse
Software
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Operating Systems
o Windows XP Service Pack 2
o Windows 7 Service Pack 1
o Windows Enterprise Server 2008 R2
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Databases
o Epicor Prophet 21
o Microsoft SQL Server
o MySQL Open Source Database
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Protection
o McAfee Anti-Virus Software
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Connectivity
o ShorTel Business Phone System

VoIP (Connects all users at home or work)
Network
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Wired
o
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Gefen High Speed Ethernet Cable
Wireless
o
Cisco Systems Router
Role at BTX Technologies
Brainstorming
Projects (go into more detail later): Product Promotion, Website update (specs, products, added
keywords to find products when customer searches the website. Allows suggestions, and the
return of relevant products based on product name, number (BTX and Manufacturere), category),
Database Maintaining (Add/Remove products, input product descriptions, make web items, label
as for sale, buy, discontinued., HTML specifications, assembly/disassembly of devices. Social
Media: Pinterest (Redesigned pages while updating with new/relevant company content and
creating cover images with Photoshop.)
Skills Learned:
Pros: Friendly employees, small company so easy to know everyone. Less competition among
other employees. Well respected company in the AV field with countless certifications, awards,
and business connections. Great work environment (inside and out). Close to home with and
flexibility when it comes to working from home/vacation time.
Cons: Disadvantages of a small company, less positions available for moving up. Limited tasks
due to the small service needs.
As an intern at BTX Technologies, I am responsible for basic tasks relating to the
company’s website, database, and products. I began working for the company in the summer of
last year and have continued to help with many projects. I came into the company right after
BTX launched their brand new website. The only problem was the fact that we only had the
basic design of the site. We still lacked the most important part, all of the products. This is where
I come in. My job is to help in the reconstruction of the website back to the completion it was at
before the website overhaul. It’s been almost one year and we’ve made significant progress.
Since the summer I’ve helped to not only add the products to the database, but complete
each one with images, product descriptions, and web specifications for the website by using
HTML ordered and unordered lists. At first, I was allowed to explore and get used to the
database. We use Epicor Prophet 21 database instead of my personal preference, MySQL. This is
most likely because there is a more user friendly interface that every employee can get the hang
of. Currently I focus on the Item Maintenance section where I upload product images (small,
medium, and large) that must first be watermarked and sized to an exact size. For example, large
images must be added as “web full” and have a width of at least 500px wide and a height of
500px or they will not display properly on the website. There are some products with images
from the old website but they cannot be used due to the new image requirements. So those must
be deleted and replaced with new ones. At times I may review the database for old images and
perform a delete command. With P21, it will not allow the user to delete an already uploaded file
without replacing it. Because of this, I usually make up a spreadsheet of all images needing to be
replaced so I can find and replace them all at the same time. This also helps productivity in the
long run. Somewhat related is my task of finding and troubleshooting errors on the site. In most
cases the error will be a “404 not found” or just simply a pop up stating “the file you’ve
requested cannot be found.” These are simple to fix, at times it is as simple as correcting a typo
in the link. At times it may be that the file has been removed or renamed in the fileserver it was
located in; so I would just re-upload or rename the file to fix the error. Product information such
as the name, description, secondary description, manufacturer product number, BTX product
number, etc. must all be added. Although this is all done through the database interface, the web
specs must be done a bit differently. These I must use a little HTML, which in this case is pretty
simple. The website displays specifications with bullets or numbers, therefore I either use an
ordered or unordered list to do so.
As a side task away from the more technical aspect, I’ve been involved in the social
media for the company. This also mixes in with some web and graphic design which I enjoy a
lot. Social Media focuses include Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. My main focus has
been to think of creative tweets that relate to new or featured products. Getting the customer to
relate to the tweet is vital because it increases the chance of them following the link back to the
website to read more. I also try to throw in a few fun facts related to either the company or some
of the products they sell. In the case of Pinterest, I’ve updated the content with new boards
relating to the company such as the Top 100 Products. All pins will redirect the user to the
company website, so once again we are getting the customer where we want them: in a position
to possibly purchase the item. I’ve also worked on it cosmetically; this is where the graphic
design comes into play. My computer is equipped with Photoshop CC so I was able to use this to
design some basic cover photos to keep a consistent and professional theme on the Pinterest
page. Finally, we are able to bring it all together by linking the social media accounts, with
specific tools we are able to schedule posts ahead of time and have them post on all sites
automatically.
Lastly, I’ve played a bit of a part in the actual website. I specifically would like to focus
here more because I hope to get into website design/development as a career. Because the
website is fairly new, we’ve been working on getting search features back functioning. This
includes product searches on the website along with the website appearing when searched for.
For this I’ve studied some SEO, or search engine optimization. Basically this is important
because it helps the BTX website appear in search engine results. For example, if a user were to
type “custom bnc plates in NY”, we’d hope that BTX would be in the top results. It is important
to make sure we know that we are reaching our current customers, and most importantly being
found by new or prospective buyers. As for the website’s search results, we must assign specific
tags for each product that are relevant to the product type. We chose to do this via the database
so it is more convenient to edit and add more tags. An example would be for a red cat5 Ethernet
cable. Some tags would include “red, cat 5, cat5, cable, Ethernet, network, networking”. We try
to include various terms that mean the same because the user can search for the same thing in
different ways. “Red Ethernet Cable”, “CAT5 Red Ethernet”, “Red Networking Cable” are three
different ways to search for the same product, so tags will help filter relevant results. This also
will allow for a drop down of suggestions as the user types, such as when you search something
on Google.
I’ve only been at BTX for a short while but I feel as if I’ve been able to expose myself to
the real world along with some new experience alongside what I already knew. I look forward to
learning more over time. My advisor recently asked me to think of some things that I’d like to
learn so I already know I will be doing some new stuff in the near future. I plan to ask to learn
more about the back end design and development of the website along with maybe some graphic
design on the side. My role at BTX has given me some experience I will be able to use in the real
world.
Interview
1. Has BTX had a lot of interns over the years?
I’ve been with BTX for just one year and you are my first intern. However, BTX has had interns
before.
2. In what ways do Interns benefit the company?
Interns help the company a lot. You fill in the gaps that we do not always have the time for and
help assist on many projects when we need additional hands. You also offer fresh ideas that we
do not always think of.
3. Overall, have you been satisfied by the work put forward by the intern/interns at BTX?
Yes, I have been satisfied. Your help has made our products appear on the website faster and
more efficient. In addition, your ability to work thoroughly and effectively has greatly added to
the success of several projects.
4. If you had a choice to have more than one intern, would you choose to do so?
For future projects or during the tradeshow seasons it could be a possibility. Tradeshow season is
when things get really busy and we can always use more hands.
Technologies Used at BTX Technologies
Networking
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Secure wired network connecting all computers
o Computers Connected by NETGEAR Routers or Cisco Switches
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Telephone system with network integration that allows for in office and outside calls to
be made (VoIP network telephones)
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Wireless network (WPA Password Protected)
Database
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Epicor Prophet 21 Database, Version 12.11
-
MySQL Database, Version 5.7
Hardware
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Dell XPS Desktop Machines
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ShoreTel VoIP Telephone system – IP Phone 115
o 1 line
o Built in 10/100 Ethernet Switch
o Two way speakerphone
Software
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Windows XP/7 64-bit OS
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Windows Server 2008 R2
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Microsoft ASP.NET, Version 4.5
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MySQL Community Server, Version 5.6.17 (x64, 64-bit)
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Adobe Dreamweaver (CS6 and CC)
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Adobe Photoshop (CS6 and CC)
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Microsoft Office (2013 Suite)
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ShoreTel Desktop Client
Recommendations
Software
-
I highly suggest that BTX upgrades all computers running Windows XP to at least
Windows 7 due to the fact that Microsoft has ended all updates and support for this
operating system. Therefore all computers running this system will be highly vulnerable
to security threats that could compromise valuable company data.
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PHP. I believe it would be better suited than APT.NET because it is open source/free and
is more commonly used in today’s websites. They will no longer have to pay the high fee
Microsoft charges in licensing.
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MySQL as a primary database. Although they do have it, they choose to use P21 as a
primary database. Unfortunately from my experience I’ve found that it is good when
inputting info but lacks the ease of displaying result tables for specialized queries, such as
those with certain conditions.
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New Server: Either Apache Web Server or an upgrade to Windows newer server. At the
moment they are using Windows Server 2008. I recently found that Microsoft is soon
ending support for these legacy products. It is wise to try Apache because once again it is
both free and the most commonly used web server out there. But at the very least I
believe that they should upgrade to Microsoft Server 2012, it will still be supported and
will easily upgrade because they are moving from an existing Windows server. Most
importantly, because support will be terminated, there will be no more patches to the
software, leaving it more vulnerable to attacks. I look at this as a high priority being that
customer data is being held.