Lianna

Ty, It's actually a worse situation becuase of what's raising this question. Most of their existing pc's on the network are 8+ year old Win95 machines that are really pushing the limits of their usefullness. So what'da'ya'do? Replace old machines with kinda-old machines or new machines with old OS, or new machines with new OS that forces you to spend more on the accounting software replacement! It's a war no matter what we do at this point. They've been bandaid-ing their systems for too long and now have to make a decision and go beg for the dough. Tough spot.

Professionalism is not a single line drawn in the sand. There are varying degrees of professionalism and display thereof. Same with animation. There are tastefully done animations that don't overpower the site and there are others that are just plain obnoxious (which are usually on a page with a ton of other obnoxious ones ). Take a look at the animation that the client is proposing and then see what suggestions you can make to improve it. Or, find a few sites that display the 'better part' of animation to show as examples for your client. (I'm assuming here that they are providing you the graphics, and they are not of your own design.) That's my take.

Jim, While I agree that the accounting systems should be the first to get the upgrade, I also know that the organization that we're talking about is a non-profit that is funded through many many sources. Each of the contributors then have their own set of requirements for auditing and such. Right now, ALL of the funding sources have signed off on this system. Any change to the existing system requires the approval/confirmed audit of ALL of the funding sources....Heck of a position to be in. Thus all the dough it would take to replace it with a newer, compatible version. The sheer effort-hours involved in the confirmation and validation process is mind-blowing. Thanks for the links and your effort. It's greatly appreciated. I'll take a look through them tonight so that I can make a reco to the client. THANKS!

Jim, nope, this account system is for a very specialized, very audited, very mandated, very red-taped organization. It WILL cost 20-25K to replace the accounting software. We know that for a fact already. Somebody throw me a bone here? Please?

Cold Fusion is not supported

Let's say you have an antiquated DOS-based accounting system that can be currently interfaced through Win95 and Win98 pc's on a Novell 6 Network..... Q1: We have to replace a few of the pc's... We'd like to replace them using XP Pro operating system. But they (the new pc's) will still need to be functionally connected to the DOS accounting program. Is there a SHELL that can be used with XP Pro to make that happen? Q2: If there happen to be several shell apps out there, what experiences have been had with each...good, bad or indifferent? Q3: If a shell app does not exist, is there any other way possible to make XP Pro interface with a DOS-based app? Q4: Anybody got $20,000-25,000 to replace a very specialized antiquated accounting program?

Ah, now that's clever coding! Go Jack! (PS: It's LStover. The Arial type font lowercase L is pretty lame! )

Rob, There are cc processors out there (like 2checkout) that do some verification stuff for you to protect against fraud. It may be worth a look into unless you're dead set on your current process.

YAY so it seems root placement does work? And that doesn't cause a problem during the registration/login process for members?

Steve, you're right on. It does give you the opportunity to enter the path of the db. Surely this can be made more secure just through using correct path options. I just wanted people to be aware that the default locations (as pre-filled by LockedArea) are at risk. Post back here if you get any definitive suggestion for future users as to where the db file should be created. I'll try to tinker with some possibilities soon too.

Jack...I don't know a lick of PHP or most other scripting languages for that matter. Your suggestion is probably a much cleaner resolve than mine.

It appears that my members.db file is not in the protected area... I installed LockedArea to the dir/lockedarea. The area to be locked is in dir /mylockedarea. The members.db file is located in /lockedarea, which is not locked So, yes, provided that you specify the members.db location is within the locked area, then you should be nice and secure...until the member is logged in. Then with the specific file name, all members would be able to see the other members' profiles. Charlotte, I wasn't really concerned with the encrypted password, but rather names and email addresses being unprotected from just any ol' bot or hacker or list finder that happened by. As a member, I'd be leary of joining a site that couldn't protect my email address.

There should be a way to protect that file through chmod, but I don't have time to test it completely.... Anyone else that plays around with this app that could post back any findings would be appreciated.

Yep, but there are some drawbacks too. One specifically identified by Steve is the members.db file is a pipe delimited flat file, not a real DB. Whereas aMember uses a MySQL db. WHOA! Big security hole in my test install: check this out - http://stoverdatasystems.us/lockedarea/members.db LOL ok, that's not very secure! HMMMM.

Thanks Steve!

Yep, importing that info into MySQL would be an easy chore. However, if you are looking to modify the LockedArea scripting to reference that db instead of members.db flat file, you're looking at much more work and debugging....not to mention copyright violations. I'm not sure what your intention is, but simply using the data contents for other purposes via MySQL is a pretty easy and safe (legally) process. Best of luck! Would you mind doing me a favor please and drop a post into the Freebies and Cheapies forum here? I would love for others to know that this free alternative for Membership driven/protection site exists. THANKS! L

just a guess as I've never tried this in MySQL specifically, but... When crafting a SQL statement, you can use a column name definition in the format: SELECT column_name AS 'Desired Name' FROM table_name; I don't know the syntax off the top of my head for denoting that Desired name. It may need to be either surrounded by ", ', or []. Hope that helps!

By the way.... Just for future readers of this post.... I like this solution a lot for those that just want Members Only areas of their site and require less than what aMember Free membership software offers. This definitely seems to get the job done. It's free. Straight forward installation instructions if you READ the readme.txt file that's bundled with the zip download.

Exactly as I had suspected - it's a flat file. You can use cpanel's file manager to navigate to your members.db file (I put mine at: /public_html/lockedarea/members.db). Then click one time on the members.db file NAME and then click Edit File on the list at the right. This will open the file in the built-in text editor so that you can see its contents. Here's the contents of my members.db file with only my single test signup member: Each pipe | separates the elements of the user's profile from the signup. In order those are: Name Email address username password (encrypted) URL Date of signup (?) So, your big question I suppose is how can you manage that file more effectively? Because it is a delimited flat file, you can download the file and import it (open it) using any good spreadsheet program (Excel, Lotus, etc.) and the pipes become the column delimiters. Hope that helps.

My initial guess is NO, you can't use PHPMyAdmin or Manage MySQL because it doesn't use a MySQL db. Both of the cPanel utilities mentioned are strictly for managing MySQL databases. From a VERY cursory glance, it appears that it creates and uses its own database structure and file (probably not a 'real' db at all, but rather flat files that are accessed and updated through CGI scripts). ...but that's just a guess at this point and I'll do the install to confirm it. okie?

Tell ya what, if you can give me about 30 minutes, I will install this myself and post all of the config settings and steps here. Would that help?

Boxturt, ? Movin' a little slow today are we? Hey we all have those days ;-)

webgyrl, Welcome home...again...and again...and again...

...and another nifty one: use MyODBC to directly connect to your MySQL db from within Access, then just Export from Access. The only thing I had to do after was reestablish the indices (which was probably a stupid error on my part in the Export setup). Schmeazzzzzy. PM me if you need he lp setting up the ODBC params.

YOU tell him! Remember? I'm broke! So we find ourselves in a catch-22. He can't remember to recharge his organizer, cuz his organizer needs to be recharged.