Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Access and php

Data Driven Clinical Care - Dynamic Graphing Website

rosswald — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:56:00 -0800

I would like advice on creating a dynamic graphing website to display clinical data on a intranet website to better aide clinicians. What my superiors are seeking is a "Data Mall." My programming/server-admin. experience is minimal, but my Linux-hobbyist mentality hates the MS Access solution that is being built. The scene:

So, our administrators have fallen in love with a concept that they have seen at a conference where clinicians could quickly and easily see a short list of their patients who have certain 'abnormal' clinical values/conditions, or to rank themselves amongst other providers according to certain metrics. Etc. Some call it a "Data Mall."

Our senior data coordinator has done a great job of leveraging an MS Access database (pulled from our true clinical database) with a VB front-end to be accessed by all providers. But, it still kind of sucks. It takes a long time to load, and is just unwieldy to ask clinicians to use the Access front-end.

Me, and where I have gotten so far:

I have previously setup my own LAMP CentOS server running MediaWiki just for fun, and was basically able to create a similar setup on a Windows PC using "EasyPHP", on top of which I installed Mediawiki and found a script for making calls to "Ploticus" from Mediawiki. I was able to display the simplest-of-simplest pie-charts on my wiki.

The heart of the matter:

The problem is that this solution seems complex, especially since my PHP and SQL knowledge is limited. Would the best solution just to be to dig in and master this option? Any recommendations for starting points?

Or is there another tool, method, etc. that I should be looking at?

I realize that building this could almost be a full-time job, but like I said, part of me is just intrigued by the challenge, and part of me wants to impress the higher-ups. Still, maybe it is best left to the pros...?

Connect to access with php

monkey closet — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:51:01 -0800

How do I connect, dsn-free, to a passworded Access (.mdb) database with php (5.2.4)? Google throws up lots of methods - none seem to work.

Upload/convert MSAccess to MySQL using PHP

monkey closet — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 06:58:27 -0800

What's the best way to upload an Access DB using PHP and read its contents into MySQL?

I don't think Fortran and punchcards cut it anymore...

bister — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 16:09:56 -0800

Which programming languages are best suited to creating a timetabling application? Hey there.

I've got some very outdated experience in programming and databases (Pick Basic, COBOL RBase etc from the 1980s.

I want to create a solution for timetabling staff in a suite of operating theatres (public hospital so no budget and no IT support).
I've knocked up a kludgy spreadsheet solution as an interim measure and moved on to using Filemaker to create a more robust solution.

However I'm beginning to think that, since I'm doing this in my spare time, I might be able turn it into an opportunity to learn the basics of something more generic -Python, mySQL, PHP,Java,PERL...

I'm hazy on all the modern programming environments but happy to learn if someone can just point me to the right tools to look into. I have a Mac, but can run windows, or even Linux at a pinch.

Thanks for your suggestions

PHP and htaccess question

chillmost — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:58:50 -0800

I use .htaccess files to allow users access to files in certain directories based on their IP addresses/ranges. They are linked to these file from a page (not within the htaccess protected directory) generated in PHP. Is there a way to display a variable on this PHP page based on whether or not the user will be allowed access into .htaccess protected directories? Ideally, if their IP address or range (CIDR) is in the htaccess file, they will be able to clink on the link and view the restricted files without any problems. If they don't have access, a link saying "Need to purchase this file?" will appear to the user.

Is this possible? I tried to google this but I am coming up short. Perhaps I am not using the best search criteria. Is there possibly a certain term for what I'm trying to do?

Are there any other similar solutions that would achieve the same result but I'm not aware of? A normal username/login system wouldn't work because some of the users come from institutions (Universities, libraries) where it is just much more easier to grant access via IP addresses.

How can I grant user access to one directory only, so they can edit a file?

media_itoku — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:02:20 -0800

How can I grant user access to one directory only, so they can edit a file? I'm sure there's a way to do this. I'm hosting a site and I want to allow a person access to one directory, so that he can edit the php file in it whenever he wants. What's the best way to do this?

It seems to me that my options are: 1) set up a new user in my hosting and give him FTP access to the folder (I'm on Dreamhost - not sure how to do it, or how to stop him from seeing the entire domain). Problem with this is that then I won't own the files, right?
2) There might be some kind of user management system that can a) let the person log in. b) Give them a web front-end with an editor so they can edit the file. I've looked at hotscripts.com but they don't seem to be quite what I want.

Unfortunately I can't put the script in a database in joomla etc because it is feeding information to a shockwave application. So it needs to be a separate file. Which I think rules out number 2. Am I missing something?