Folks,
Those of you who think that Filemaker is mickey mouse haven't been
keeping up. It is now a Unix based product that can run natively on
Linux and XP too, it will hold up to 4 Gb per field and scale to 8 Tb,
is that big enough for your data?. It can be set up to span multiple
servers, it can be a standalone data source fully accessible via php,
ODBC. SQL or what have you, it has a mature internal security
environment that can authenticate against LDAP if you please. The
benefit is that there are stored procedures, a powerful scripting
environment, an extensible plug-in architecture, AND you don't need
programmer level capabilities. The client can be a web browser, Excel,
or FileMaker itself that can act as a robust rich client. It is also
quite cost effective, I challenge any one of you to build something
comparable to what can be done in Filemaker with MySQL and php at
similar cost and time investment. Even if you still scoff at Filemaker
then for God's sake do the MySQL solution. As far as your scanning
goes, I think that coming up with a solution for the few times you
would need a complete school survey would be much more cost effective
than buying a clumsy system for the exception rather than the rule.
Prior to purchase I would have a majority of the board to speak with
Craig and if they still decide to use the archaic method make sure they
are present to help when you do it the first time.
Have fun,
Ed Crelin

On Dec 1, 2004, at 10:26 AM, Dave Tisdell wrote:

> Craig,
> I am with you. I cringed when the topic first came up. It would be much
> more cost effective to do this all through a web interface. One of the
> arguments I heard was that if we needed to survey the entire student
> body at once, we don't have enough computers to make that happen.
> We would have more flexibility and less expense with a purely web based
> solution
> Dave
>
> David Tisdell. Computer Coordinator
> Mt. Mansfield Union High School
> 211 Browns Trace
> Jericho, VT 05465
> 802-899-4690 (Voice)
> 802-899-2904 (Fax)
> [log in to unmask] (e-mail)
>
>>>> [log in to unmask] 12/1/2004 10:20:32 AM >>>
> Dave,
>
> While I was working at CVU we used Scantron scanners to do daily
> attendance, grades and class requests.  The hardware is a nightmare.
> It
> took constant tinkering to get it to work.  A laser printer has 100
> times better paper handling.  It is slow.  The data transfer is
> primitive and to say there is any integration with applications at the
> other end is a bit of a reach.  You have to write (or have written for
> you) code that takes data streams and rebuilds it to an X/Y grid with
> true/false for there being bubbles filled in.  Good code will check to
> make sure the form that was scanned is the one that was expected, and
> better code will have lookup tables for any possible form that could
> be
> fed to it.  The applications that we were using it with (Mac School
> and
> Garland Systems proprietary software for the Sys 36) locked us into
> using their custom printed forms which were copyrighted and only
> available from them at a very high price.  We had to run the forms
> through our printers to put the basic information on them, such as
> class
> name and student list, then the teachers would bubble them, then we
> would run them through the scanner.
>
> Bubble sheets are not something I would voluntarily deal with again.
>
> Sincerely
>
> Craig Lyndes
> District Computer Services
> Burlington School District
>
>
>
>
>
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>


Ed Crelin     President/CEO




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