On Sun, 2 Nov 2003, David Forslund wrote:
> I find this to be an interesting discussion. About 4 years ago, we > delivered our OpenEMed software on a flashcard so that you can simply > plug it into a computer and run it with no installation. The flash card > works much better than a CD Rom because of the ability to write to it.
Dave,
What is a flash card? What is the interface? Is it a PCMCIA flash-memory card or IDE? Is the flash card bootable?
What we were/are using is a Compact Flash card. It plugs into any PCMCIA/CardBus
slot. It would work on any of the USB solid state hard drives which are really the same thing.
Being writable has its liabilities. For one, there is no assurance that experimentation on the demo system will not damage the software. With a read-only CD, it is always obvious how to reset the system to its original state.
Sure. But not being able to write a record is a problem, too. We always keep a zipped up copy of the original which can be used to replace the live demo. Also, we set permissions such that, unless a person logs in as a user that can create/edit data, they can't change the data on the local server.
Another main advantage of a CD-ROM is that anyone can download the iso image, burn a CD, and boot up the software. With Knoppix (and thus LiveOIO), we can even install to the hard-drive using the same CD. The simplicity is hard to beat.
I put the flashcard image on a CDrom for those that want to install it. People don't necessarily want to boot a machine to get to my software. They may want to simple run it in their existing machine. This allows them to cut and paste from some existing application, which I don't have to know anything about.
What is the current installation procedure for OpenEMed?
unzip, set 2 parameters and run. If I put it on the USB drive, they simple
plug it in and run. However, the power of the software to link to multiple
data sources may not be visible in that case, because I don't know the IP
address of the machine. This might require a minor edit of one of the parameters
to enable it to be a remote server.
... > I'm not sure of the value of this beyond demonstrations, however, as one > needs to deal with security and access to other data sources outside of > the system which will need some modest configuration.
The default mode should be stand-alone operation with at most ports open for web-browser clients.
How do you handle the networking properties in the bootable CD since you don't know the local network properties.
> However, our CORBA layers allows these to be fully abstracted so that we > can connect to a remote site logically without worrying about where it > is. The CORBA software lets you connect locally or remotely equally > well.
Are you planning to produce LiveOpenEMed? I think it will make demo and dissemination of OpenEMed much easier. Given the popular perception that CORBA and J2EE is hard to install and configure, having a simple install procedure can make a huge difference.
I can't speak to J2EE, but CORBA has no installation issues at all.
We have made a LiveOpenEMed in the past, but haven't had any demand for this lately.
As I said, with a USB hard drive, there is no installation. We do use this
for a demo of our TB management interface, but haven't had use for it
in other apps. We did have a company that was going to productize
OpenEMed for use in EMS situations for collecting data locallly and forwarding
it to a hospital information system. However, I don't think they got the
funding they were looking for.
Dave
Best regards,
Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
