I originally thought about creating a web based system. In my former life I was a web developer. I think ideally something like this could be added to the church website for each ward, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. I chose not to make this a web application for several reasons:
1. Security
This is my biggest concern. If someone would hack into the application or the server, this would be very bad publicity for the ward and the church in general. I would imagine it could cause many to go inactive. I plan to store names of all family members, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, birthdates, and membership numbers. I could see that being a big problem if someone hacked into the system. This is probably a bigger concern since I would be using a free server.
2. I don't know that the church would be ok with it.
Several years ago, lots of wards were putting up ward websites, and the church sent out a letter asking all wards to take their websites down. They then of course created the ward websites on the church websites. I would imagine they could have a problem with creating and storing all of this information on the web namely for security reasons.
3. Administration
If we create a web application, we would also need someone who can do basic administration stuff, like redeploy the application when it goes down and stuff like that. That means if I move, either we find someone else to do it in the ward to do basic admin stuff, or the emergency preparedness program dies. If they have a simple application, practically anyone can use it who can use a computer.
4. Without internet access, the app can't be used.
Since our church building doesn't have internet access, people couldn't use the application on the church computer. Also, if a natural disaster happened, it seems highly likely that internet access would be down. But anyone with a laptop could use the application still. This though is probably not a huge issue.
5. Web hosting generally cost money
It is true that there are many websites which offer free web hosting, but they generally don't offer web application hosting. That generally cost money. Now this isn't as big an issue as some of my other points, because there is:
Again though, when I move I would have to train someone else how to use the webserver and if the company runs the server runs out of money, we are out of luck.
Anyway, so for all of those reasons I felt it would be better to make a standalone application. Here's a prototype I have so far:
I'm working on converting it to Java. If it's something that your ward would like to use, let me know. I hope to get done with the data entry part some time in Februrary.
Jay
On 1/10/06, Bryan Murdock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 1/9/06, Jay Askren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In our ward I've been asked to put together a little database to store
> Emergency Preparedness information such as who has a truck, who has a
> generator, who knows CPR or First Aid, etc. It will be a Java application
> and import data directly from MLS. I was wondering if this application
> would be useful for anyone else. I also was wondering if anyone else would
> be interested in helping to develop it.
Is there any reason something like this couldn't be web-based so
everyone can have convenient, yet still secure, access to it?
Bryan
_______________________________________________
Ldsoss mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
_______________________________________________ Ldsoss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ldsoss.org/mailman/listinfo/ldsoss
