[vox-tech] collaborative data storage (of excel files)

[Dylan Beaudette]

On Tuesday 15 January 2008, Gandalf Parker wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Jan 2008, Jimbo wrote:
> > "The next step up, sorta, might be to set up a web server with a very
> > simple CGI for appending records to the CSV and committing, accessed
> > via a web form. From there you could proceed to using an low-admin
> > database if you wanted."
>
> Im glad I read thru the answers because that was the direction I was
> heading also.
>
> Apparently its a huge database (unless you are doing extensive math things
> then it should be a database instead of a spreadsheet). But the
> individuals are not working with the entire database?
>
> I would grab a LAMP book. There is even a dummies version which is usually
> great for getting a feel for something and deciding if you want to read
> further. L.A.M.P.  Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (or Perl).
>
> Or you might even want to NOT go with direct updates. Use an old standard
> form CGI to retrieve data if necessary, take the changes, then process it
> by script. The script can update the database thru MySQL, AND also save
> off the original input with info on time, date, terminal, etc for tracking
> and verification purposes. If the updating of the database is done by cron
> working whats in a queue directory then it would simplify avoiding file
> access collisions.
>

YES - this is how I would approach this problem if I were in a position to 
babysit their data. I have put together several LAPP 
(linux-apache-postgres-php) projects- but only for things I was directly 
working on. I was searching for some kind of compromise between doing it 
correctly (i.e. a database) and doing it less incorrectly via SVN or the 
like.

ah well...

Cheers,

Dylan




-- 
Dylan Beaudette
Soil Resource Laboratory
http://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/
University of California at Davis
530.754.7341