It's time again for another interview and this time i decided to revisit Cole from Caseetc.com and see how he's doing now. It's been awhile since Cole and I had a chat and I was curious to hear what , if anything, has changed. I think this interview and set of questions will really help you guys learn some insight into the man behind Caseetc.com. Cale has been on the scene for quite some time and I bet alot of you are going to be very surprised as to what you learn from this ;p

Ok, let's get to the dirt.....

Who is Cole Dudley?

Hello, my name is Cole Dudley and I am C.E.O of Coletec, Inc. Coletec is the legal name of our company, but we are better known as CaseEtc. If one is a case-mod enthusiast or a dedicated VH follower, then chances are you have heard of CaseEtc. Before I tell y’all about myself, I would like to let everyone in on a secret. The secret is that I am 16-year-old Junior in High School. The ‘age thing’ is one of the most common emails I receive, so I thought it was time to break the ice. I’ve been running the business since I was 13, but didn’t get into CaseEtc until the time around my 16th birthday. By this point I don’t feel that my age is any sort of a barrier because I’ve been running the store for well over a year and I have managed it to become quite successful.

With the age thing out of the way, I will proceed with explaining some of the things I do for hobbies, etc. Growing up in Indiana one learns to love the outdoors. I enjoy going to Colorado and fly fishing, going off road in jeeps and ATV’s. Around here, I golf and play baseball on the high school baseball team.

I plan on attending Rose-Hulman Institute and majoring in Biomedical Engineering.

What is Caseetc.com?

CaseEtc.com was the first case modification store in the industry. I was an avid member of the HardOCP case forum, and through conversations there decided that there was need for a store. The people in the forum told me what they wanted to buy, and I worked day and night to find the right sources. I opened up the 'test' site in the beginning of June last summer. After our official launch, we've been going full-steam to provide the products people want and to develop new ideas.
When did Caseetc.com launch to the public? There were two different launch dates. The first of which was primarily a 'test' site, which members of the HardOCP forum provided feedback, and gave me a sample of what was to come. Our 'official' launch date was on September 12th' of 2000. We are coming up on our one-year anniversary, and have some surprises in store.

Walk me thru a "Day in the Life" of Cole Dudley...

Whew, a day in my life, eh? Do you want the summarized or extended version? I’ll give it a shot.
5:30 AM: Awake and get ready.
6:00-7:30 AM: Prepare everything at the store for the day, get employee tasks in order. If I have time, pack a couple orders.
7:30-3:30 PM: School.
3:30-6:00 PM: School activities, sports, and homework.
6:30-1:00 AM: Store stuff…accounting, customer service, working on new products, talking to pals in the business, etc. Most of my site work is done in the wee hours of the morning. I usually hit the sack around 1:00-1:30 AM.

It's been almost 9 months since we "sat down" and chatted Cole, How much has Caseetc.com progressed?

The major difference between the store now and the store a year ago is the seriousness of the business. A year ago I could run everything by myself and if I had no sales in a day, it didn’t hurt me. These days I have to delegate work to my employees to get everything done. We run an actual business, we have a ton of paperwork, legal issues, accounting concerns, etc. I had no business knowledge going into this thing, and have picked up information here and there to learn how to manage a business. A year ago, we had around 75 products, now we have well over 400. In my eyes, that is quite a progression.

What kind of Vehicle(s) do you drive?

I drive a red 2000 Chevrolet Silverado Z71. You have to have a 4x4 when you live in this part of Indiana. If for some reason I find a million bucks lying on the ground, I imagine I'd own a Porsche 911 GT2 and a Hummer.

What's your favorite sport and team?

I am a hardcore Chicago Cubs fan, always have been. We go through the losing seasons, but always look forward and say 'this will be our year'. So far this year, the Cubbies have been playing pretty well. They need some more middle relief, and perhaps another starter. In years past, the Cubs have let players go, and then those players go on to successful careers on other team. I'd say the owners were being kind of greedy, but it looks like they want to get some better players.

What's your Favorite "stock" case?

I've used several types of cases, and my favorite so far has been the Chenbro Net case. Out of the box it is one of the easiest and most versatile cases out there, and is built like a rock to boot.

And how about favorite case to/have modded?

Without a doubt the Chenbro Genie is my favorite case to work with. I own three of these cases, and have found new things I love about them every time I build a system with a Genie. My favorite mods to perform on the Genie would be dual 120mm intakes, 120mm exhaust, and a lower-left intake. I like to put a handle on the upper part of the back plate on my cases, and of course you have to outfit them with casters. I'm not a big fan of large windows...I just don't like the insides of a computer that much. I prefer to whip out the Dremel and do intricate cutouts and designs. Then, adding black lights are a personal favorite of mine.

How many systems are you running now? Specs?

I have six systems around here, but I will only list the three that I actually use. I do have all six machines running off a 56K line using a Netgear Modem Router...It's lots of fun playing online games around here ;)

Notebook: Dell Inspiron 8000
· 1GHz Pentium III (oc'ed to 1.2GHz ;)
· 256MB
· GeForce 2 Go!
· DVD/CDRW Combo
· WinMe (soon to be 2K)

Main System:
· 1.4GHz TBird
· Asus A7M266
· 512MB DDR
· Asus V8200 GeForce 3
· SB Live! Platinum
· Klipsch Promedia v.2-400
· Dual Seagate Ultra160 18GB SCSI Drives
· Pioneer 10x SCSI DVD
· Plextor 12x10x32 IDE CDRW
· Netgear Ethernet Card
· Sony Triniton G500 21-inch Monitor
· Win2K, Chenbro Net Case

Secondary (Main Business) System
· 1GHz TBird
· Abit KT7-RAID
· 256MB Mushkin PC133
· Asus V7700 GeForce 2
· SB Live! XGamer
· Boston Acoustics BA-635's
· Dual IBM 75GXP 13GB in RAID 0
· IBM 75GXP 45GB Drive
· Pioneer 10x DVD
· Netgear Ethernet Card
· Mag Innovision 17-inch Monitor (these actually have Sony tubes)
· Win2K, Chenbro Genie

I do have a few more systems, but they aren't used very much, and are basically just print and file servers.

Gamer by any chance? Q3 or UT?

I used to be an avid UT player. I played the beta to no end, and was hooked to UT for a few months. Eventually, I lost a feel for the game and haven't played it for a while. I will mention that I am Counterstrike Rehab right now and am going through withdrawal. I loved playing Counterstrike, but the last thing I need these days is an addicting game to keep me from getting work done. I will say that I recently completed Max Payne, and it is one of the best games I’ve played since…dare I say…Half-Life.

The SIMS sold more copies then any other game last year...Are you a SIMS addict?

When the game first came out I played it for a couple months. All of my families died, caught on fire, or drowned in a pool of their own urine.

Where do you see Caseetc.com going in the next 6 months? Year?

While a high-rise in New York is not in my near future, I will be looking for some sort of physical expansion in the upcoming months. I plan on continuing to focus on making current products better as well as devoting time to researching new products. If I work hard and continue to do what I have been doing, then I see myself doing pretty well during the next year.

Any plans of a Caseetc.com storefront someday?

I’ve often thought about this but no. The idea looks good on paper, but honestly there is not much of a ‘geek’ market in rural Indiana.

Enlighten the readers to how many emails you get in a day regarding product availability, etc.

I consider a good day to be when I get under 50-60 emails concerning business stuff. That's not including the spam mail I seem to get constantly. I do reply to pretty much every email in a matter of a couple days. Other than email, I do get phone calls all day concerning new products, availability, etc. But, I will say that I am quite a talker and keep people on the line longer than necessary ;)

What product(s) are the consistent top sellers?

Panaflos are (and always have been) our top sellers. Light kits, window kits, anodized stuff, and water-cooling gear always sell out quickly.

What's this I hear that you and Jim H. from coolcases.com might be putting together some special "CaseEtc Edition" Cases?

Yes, Jim and I have been working on a custom line of cases called the CaseEtc and Coolcases Signature case. There's not much I can say about what features this cases will have, but they will certainly be pretty cool.

Any plans on offering painted cases?

Painted cases...probably not. Stiltner and I are working on the Coldforge, which will be anodized. Jim at Coolcases and I are working on a couple 'signature' customized cases that you can read about in the previous question.

When am I going to see a Caseetc.com window appliqué?

The best answer would be ‘never’. While they look okay in some cases (no pun intended ;), I don’t really care for them.

Any plans on stocking the very popular (and hard to find) "Cold Cathode" light kits?

From what I've heard from some light manufacturers, standard Cold Cathode lights are around two inches in diameter, but we are working with a couple companies to make a mini-cold cathode for use in a computer. If that goes through, then we should be able to get some Cold Cathode's up for sale.

Is there any one particular product, or item, that you constantly get emails from people wanting you to stock?

People don't exactly email me about things they want me to stock (guess I already have everything under the sun ;), but I get a ton of inquiries about things in which we are working. The two most popular items are the Digital Baybus and the Coldforge AA-15. Both have been work-in-progress for going on a year, but we do hope to release these items within the next couple months. Matt Stiltner has been working very hard on getting the Coldforge to the people, but hasn't had the best of luck with the manufacturer. Uller has been working just as hard finishing up the last of the code for the Digital Baybus.

What kind of keyboard do you use? Natural or regular?

I used to use a regular keyboard, but a couple months ago I switched to a Microsoft Natural keyboard and I love it. I've used it for a while now, and now every computer I own is outfitted with a Natural keyboard.

Is Caseetc.com you full time gig?

If you’ve read the first question, you already know this answer ;)

DVD or VHS?

Definitely DVD's. I watch DVD's constantly on my laptop while I'm working at the computer. I can usually go through a few movies a day, now the problem is finding movies I haven't seen at the video store.

What's some of your favorite movies?

I love movies, it's tough to pick just one...or even a group of movies. Nonetheless, here are some that come to mind: Gladiator, Platoon, Castaway...there are plenty more that I would like to add to the list, but I'll save the rest for another interview ;)

What kind of music do you primarily listen to?

I listen to pretty much anything except country music. I own a wide variety of CD's and enjoy listening to music while I work. To give you an idea of what type of music, I'll go through the CD's in my CD Changer: Tom Petty, DMX, Weezer, REM, and Green Day. Besides country, I'm not a big fan of the kind of music genre that includes bands like Slipknot, Static-X, etc. I mean, I love a good metal band like ACDC, Pantara, but some of that stuff is just ridiculous.

What do you think of Napster's recent demise? And how many gig of MP3's do you have? =)

Honestly, I didn't download off of Napster very much, but people downloaded quite a bit from me. I ripped all of my CD's, and ended up with about 20GB of MP3's. Thank god for CD-R's ;)

What's your main OS of choice and why?

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. I have six computers on a network, and using Win2K makes things pretty easy to network, at least for a networking dummy like myself. I was also very surprised at how stable Win2K was. I leave my computers on almost 24/7, and an error is a rare occasion. I haven't tried any Linux distributions since Mandrake 7.1, which I never did get to work.

And finally, <demented stalker> "What are you wearing?" </demented stalker>

Nothing but a Dremel...

LOL!!!!!!

Well, that wraps up this particular interview and I'd like to thank Cole from Caseetc.com for setting some time aside from his busy schedule and also allowing us a glimpse into "his world". I hope you all enjoyed it.

Questions or comments about this article, you can contact me here. Until next time........"Dice Out".