Date: 11/01/05 (WebDesign)    Keywords: php, database, java, web, apache

Hey, I may not have said this, or I don't say it enough, but I wanted to thank everyone in this community for their continued support and efforts. I would be the first to admit that when I find myself with any questions or in need of an honest (most of the time) professional opinion, this is where I tend to stop first.



I work for a higher education provider who has recently put a new state wide internet campaign together. This meant that all regions throughout the state came together and had to adhere to a standard format for all web publications. To me, this was a great move, however, we are still very limited to the type of tools we can utilize for creating web documents. For example, right now we are needing to publish our college bookstore book list online. The bookstore is currently using a very large and extensive Access database to handle all bookstore events. Each semester, or when a new book is added/deleted/edited to the book list, we publish an excel version of this book list and push that to our website, as is. We are now finding that this method is difficult to track, manage and keep current. It's a waste of time, really.

Here's what they are asking me, if we are able to update the database and have it also update the web at the same time?

Well my answer was yes, then no, and here's why.

Our network group has restricted all scripting except for Javascript and CGI/Perl. I'm pretty sure we are running Apache on a Unix box, with nothing like PHP installed. I really don't think Javascript could be used for this, however, I don't know it enough to really make anything happen. The same goes for me when it comes to CGI/Perl.

I do, however, know that I could accomplish this utilizing the Access database and PHP. Somethings I do know. But since I don't have the tools available to me that I know best, what other options could I use? Any suggestions?

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/webdesign/1008804.html