Posted by Ted on 11/16/06 16:02

samuelhon wrote:
> Hi Ted
>
Hi Sam,

> I dont know enough about your situation to make a suggestion yet. A
> couple of questions from me:
> Why do you need to use Access if you're going to install SQL Server
> Express?
> Is this a client requirement?
> Is there alot of information? Could you use XML?
>
The one database I am using is an MS Access database that has been
placed in the public domain by the USDA. It has about 80 MB of
nutrition data. I use it to allow a user to enter a recipe and obtain
an analysis of the nutrition in the prodct of the recipe, either per
serving or per 100 grams, and I support storing the recipes entered by
the user. The schema for both the USDA's nutrition database and my
recipe database is very simple. I suppose I could use XML, but I am
not sure what that buys me. The recipe database will initially be
small (actually it will be empty unless I create a few recipes and
store them as samples of what can be done). The remainder of the
application is smple. It supports creating a weeklong meal plan,
assessing the meal plans entered for how well it meets the nutritional
requirements for each member of the family (there is a window that
allows the user to enter these requirements for each member of the
family), and maintain a health diary, including what has actually been
eaten, any of the user's family's ailments and medications/remedies
used to deal with them. So, if Dad has a heart condition, Mom has
diabetes, and junior has colitis, each of their special nutritional
needs can be satisfied without Dad ;-) having to prepare three
different meals. Additionally, they can assess how well their diet and
medications or remedies serve their respective needs.

The idea of the web application is to extend this to create a global
recipe database, and opportunities for anyone who knows how to cook
earn a little money by contributing their favourite recipes to the
database and supporting people paying a pittance each time they wish to
use someone else's recipe. Of course, the option will be available for
a recipe's author to place his recipes in the public domain. This
would empower all users to try foods they may never have seen before.
I could, for example, try a desert made from lychees and longans (I'm
not sure I have the right spelling for these asian fruits) and 1) know
how to prepare it and 2) know what impact it will have on the
nutritional aspects of that week's meal plan. I don't know about you,
but I see a lot of fresh produce in the supermarkets these days that I
don't know anything about, so I don't buy them. If I had a resource of
the sort I'm trying to create, I could try them in safety.

Here you have the rationale for two versions, one accessable on the web
and the other distributable on CD and usable without access to the web.

As I see it, I either use Access databases for both the USDA data and
mine, or I use Jet to use the USDA data and SQL Server Express for my
recipe database, or I find a way to import the USDA data into SQL
Server Express and use SQL Server Express to access both the USDA data
and mine. Dealing with the web application is fairly straight forward
since I'd be running any server I'd need. But I want to make creation
of the distribution on CDs, or an image that can be downloaded from a
website, as simple as possible.

> Not sure Jet is actually included with XP, think you have to install
> it.
>
I am running the 64 bit version of Windows XP Pro, and it has Jet;
either that or the professional edition of MS Visual Studio installed
it. This I know because I have already used it within a test program
that looks at the USDA data. While my application uses this to analyse
foods and recipes, my end user will never need to look at the raw
nutritional data.

> With regards to your second question, I'm afraid I dont know. I do
> remember Access having a subset of commands, not sure about the latest
> versions
>
Thanks

Ted

[Back to original message]