Re: Web based Access Applications

Hi All,

You can use VMWare or VirtualPC for anything - after all they are virtual machines. VPC doesn't support USB peripherals and emulated screen hardware may cause trouble with autodetection of Linux installs but they're good if you want a test platform that does not sully your desktop PC.

That having been said, there are more and more personal webservers now that you can take for a drive with minimal install footprint or tampering. Personal in that you have a development platform for testing.

e.g.

http://www.pablosoftwaresolutions.com/html/baby_web_server.html
http://dwebpro.com/
http://www.asp.net/Default.aspx?tabindex=6&tabid=41
http://www.badblue.com/

It would be good not to be open to Internet attacks (that installing a webserver on your machine adds to your attack surface) so sitting behind a cheap, simple NAT router or just not connecting to the real Internet is good idea.

And although one would have considerable comfort to VBA in Access desktop apps, it is not a given that one *has* to use a VB dialect for web database delivery.

ColdFusion is so simple that one can produce something in an hour from newbie status, php is the most common cost-less language. Classic ASP is always there and there is ASP.NET.

Here's a page I wrote all those years ago (and haven't updated):
http://members.optushome.com.au/anandasim/asp.htm

HTH
Ananda

p.s.
Lot of research you did Bob!


Bob Alston wrote: 
BerkshireGuy wrote:

I've been developing Access databases for some time now and would like
to take the next step - web based systems.

What technology should I start exploring?

What software would I need?  Instead of building a physical web server
to test on, could I use VMWare?

Any pointer would be helpful.

Thanks!

You might find of interest this summary of my travels down this road, specifically for trying to utilize access databases on the web:

http://members.cox.net/tulsaalstons/Documents/Microsoft%20Access%20Developer%20Transition%20to%20Internet.htm 



Bob

I like VMware for haven't used it for any of my web testing or development. 
.

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