Hi Don,
There is not a direct way that a DP application can be placed online. A basic concept of the web is that you have what is called a thin-client or a rich-client and a backend server, there is a division of labour. The thin client is an environment which provides a small "standards based" set of capabilities, such as basic presentation and some scripting. A rich-client is one that put a dedicated application at the client end which generally connects to a backend server to gets it data, and these days quite often to perform a middleware (some specialised remote processing). The first web browsers were very thin, and servers were very basic they both had very little computation power in them at all. The browser made a request to a web server for a file, which was served by the web server, and the browser displayed the results on the screen. The standards in place here was called HTML. Netscape added a scripting language, Javascript, so it was possible to have some dynamic content within the webpage. Things like .ASP (Active Server pages) or PHP, and many others added scripting to the server side. Since these early, days both the server side and the client sides have become richer in their scripting abilities. Standards are great but eventually people wanted to be able to do more, so more and more proprietary solutions for making web application have evolved, such as browser plugins, like Flash, and PDF Reader etc, which extend the capabilities of the browser. Even richer client application, were developed to allow complete application to be created no the client which invisible used connection protocols like HTTP to make calls to a web server or database server etc to provide data. Web servers have advanced considerably, so now they also have "plug ins" which give them greater richness. And very often "web servers" also hold other web services such as database servers or application servers. Things like Alpha 5 seem an easy way to create web applications, where you place the application on a dedicated backend server, and a series of templates are used at the browser. Similarly Microsoft Access on a SharePoint server. Unfortunately no matter what anyone says, there are no silver bullets for web applications. This has given rise to the ASP (Application Service Provider) or SaaS (Software as a Service), and Cloud computing, where applications are written and hosted on specialised platforms. For example Microsoft Azure or QuickBase. Disadvantages of these are being locked into proprietary hosting, and ongoing fees, eg QuickBase SaaS starts at $299 a month, and having a limited set of capabilities and control of the presentation. If DataPerfect and DOS were a dominating force in the market someone would have probably written a means of using it in such ways. But for humble DP'ers we have to write DP application in 3 components, the DP application, some middleware scripting, and the HTML (or Flex, Flash, Java, or other Rich client application) for the presentation and to use a web server that provide the middleware script platform and allows DOS applications to run through what is called a CGI (Common Gateway Interface). This gets back to Remote Access, which is not as old fashioned as you might think. There are many many versions of remote access available now. Microsoft Remote Desktop Client runs on the client machine and can connect to a Terminal Server or Remote Desktop Server, usually via a VPN for security. I use this method with most of my clients for remote access, and it is quick and smooth and you can run DP through it, (never full screen only in a window). I have also used a Citrix Client with a Citrix Server and through this I have "published" a DP application, so the desktop icon on the client launches the DP application as though it were local to the machine. A major disadvantage with these is that you need to make a PC with the DP application, "visible" on the internet, and so you generally need to use s VPN to secure it, but even with the VPN you are totally responsible for the security of your machine being visible on the net. Another mode is to use a third party services like LogMeIn or WebEx. I use LogMeIn, for non-commercial applications it is free. You create an account with the provider and run a host component on your DP PC. This application is quite small and just sits in your Windows System Tray. At the client end, you use a web browser and access the service provider, if necessary it will download any plugins that the browser may need, and after you log in, it present the computer(s) where the host service is running, and then allows you to log into the Windows session. Tghius is an easy and secure way of doing things, it takes less than 5 minutes to set it up, and it is quite secure. A disadvantage to both of these is that (unless you are using a Windows Terminal Server) you are limited to one client per host, so its expensive to make this multiuser. A 3rd alternative is to use, one of the Cloud like service for hosting a Windows environment, which could be a hosted Terminal Server, or using avVirtualised server, such as VMWare. Sorry for the long winded answer Don, but hopefully this will give you an idea of the alternative that are available. If its just so you can access some data when you are on the road, and you do not mind leaving a computer switched on while you are away, I would take a look at LogMeIn. Bye Brian _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Don Friedman Sent: Wednesday, 2 November 2011 2:50 AM To: Dataperfect Users Discussion Group Subject: [Dataperf] How could I use DP online? While I've read of various web-enabled applications and seen some of the sophisticated work that some of you have done, I am curious if there's a way that an actual DP application could be put online. I know that there are ways to use an online storage space as a drive letter so it seems to me that if that is the case, that it might be possible. Any thoughts? My reason for asking is that I'm about to embark on a new project and I need the data accessible from wherever I am. I'm tempted to look at something easy like Quickbase but why learn an entirely new system when my comfort level with DP is so secure? Of course, I could always do remote access but in today's day and age it seems redundant. Don -- Don Friedman ProfessionalRecords.Com LLC PRS Data Systems 205 S Main Street Pittsburgh, PA 15215 412-784-1600 - 1-800-PRS-FILE 412-784-1615 Fax
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