Work Based info System

Hi all

I have been asked to conjure up a proposal for work for some sort of
information distribution system. We use Win 2k on our network.
I work at a haulage and transport firm, and at various times of the day
there are various drivers out and about, according to a published plan. Now,
this plan varies and changes all the time, and there is a communication
problem between the staff who arrange the trips and do the driving, and
those that keep the vehicles in roadworthy condition, ready for the next
trip.

We have a duty controller who is responsible for updating the programme for
the day, as we go through the day. I would like him to be able to sit at his
PC, annotate the changes on his spreadsheet or whatever application he can
use to make it easier, and these changes seen by the various sections in the
depot almost instantaneously, by the addition of monitors in the various
locations. (I suppose almost like a Airport departures lounge).

My question is how would we achieve this? I need to present a number of
options to the money men. There is a fair sum of money available, but as yet
no confirmed amount.

Any thougth will be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance

Joe B

Joe Bloggs wrote:

> Hi all
>
> I have been asked to conjure up a proposal for work for some sort of
> information distribution system. We use Win 2k on our network.
> I work at a haulage and transport firm, and at various times of the day
> there are various drivers out and about, according to a published plan.
> Now, this plan varies and changes all the time, and there is a
> communication problem between the staff who arrange the trips and do the
> driving, and those that keep the vehicles in roadworthy condition, ready
> for the next trip.
>
> We have a duty controller who is responsible for updating the programme
> for the day, as we go through the day. I would like him to be able to sit
> at his PC, annotate the changes on his spreadsheet or whatever application
> he can use to make it easier, and these changes seen by the various
> sections in the depot almost instantaneously, by the addition of monitors
> in the various locations. (I suppose almost like a Airport departures
> lounge).
>
> My question is how would we achieve this? I need to present a number of
> options to the money men. There is a fair sum of money available, but as
> yet no confirmed amount.
>
> Any thougth will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Many thanks in advance
>
> Joe B
You didn't say how far away the monitors will need to be.

One possibility (assuming a single input point) is to dedicate a PC (or a
second video card on the controller's PC) and connect it's video output to
a splitting, buffered, VGA distribution amplifier. This will allows one
video card to drive multiple monitors. One example is:
http://www.avsuperstore.com/moreinfo.cfm?id=1233
I don't know how long a line this box will drive. It 'should' be possible to
daisy-chain these boxes so that you aren't stuck with s simple star
configuration. You may also need VGA line drivers to get the distance you
need. Key words are "buffered" and "distance". This way you are using
standard PC monitors which should keep costs down and limit problems with
spare monitors.
It might be worthshile to talk to an application person at Black Box
(http://www.blackbox.com). I think their product line still includes the
proper hardware.

Good Luck.
--
Keith Bowers - Thomasville, NC

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 00:11:51 -0000, "Joe Bloggs" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi all
>
>I have been asked to conjure up a proposal for work for some sort of
>information distribution system. We use Win 2k on our network.
>I work at a haulage and transport firm, and at various times of the day
>there are various drivers out and about, according to a published plan. Now,
>this plan varies and changes all the time, and there is a communication
>problem between the staff who arrange the trips and do the driving, and
>those that keep the vehicles in roadworthy condition, ready for the next
>trip.
>
>We have a duty controller who is responsible for updating the programme for
>the day, as we go through the day. I would like him to be able to sit at his
>PC, annotate the changes on his spreadsheet or whatever application he can
>use to make it easier, and these changes seen by the various sections in the
>depot almost instantaneously, by the addition of monitors in the various
>locations. (I suppose almost like a Airport departures lounge).
>
>My question is how would we achieve this? I need to present a number of
>options to the money men. There is a fair sum of money available, but as yet
>no confirmed amount.
>
>Any thougth will be greatly appreciated.
>
>Many thanks in advance

This is gonna sound weird, but.....you could use Outlook to do this....

/daytripper (told you it'd sound weird ;-)

Joe Bloggs wrote:

> We have a duty controller who is responsible for updating the programme for
> the day, as we go through the day. I would like him to be able to sit at his
> PC, annotate the changes on his spreadsheet or whatever application he can
> use to make it easier, and these changes seen by the various sections in the
> depot almost instantaneously, by the addition of monitors in the various
> locations. (I suppose almost like a Airport departures lounge).

> My question is how would we achieve this? I need to present a number of
> options to the money men. There is a fair sum of money available, but as yet
> no confirmed amount.

Not sure on the multiple screens requirement myself, but our supplies
fleet uses a product called Tranman for this sort of stuff which may be
of interest:

<http://www.tranman.co.uk/fleet.htm>

Surely you would be better off having a local web server where your
scheduling guy entered info into a spreadsheet, this was turned into
an active web page, and the web page published on your lan.

Then you get some very cheap PCs with a web browser looking at the
page rather than remote monitors etc.

jay

Jay wrote:
> Surely you would be better off having a local web server where your
> scheduling guy entered info into a spreadsheet, this was turned into
> an active web page, and the web page published on your lan.
>
> Then you get some very cheap PCs with a web browser looking at the
> page rather than remote monitors etc.
>
> jay


I was just goint to suggest something like this. All you need is a P2
400mhz or even less you could get away with. and have someone throw
together a simple webpage with scripts that link it to a database.
doesn't have to be fancy of course, just functional so it shouldn't have
to cost much. my suggestion is to have the server be some varient of
linux with apache+mysql and either mod_perl for the scripting, or php(I
partial to php, but perl is even more widely used). this way you can
just pick up any old system, throw in a couple of harddrives with an ata
raid card, and use raid 1 or if you have a card with enough ide ports
and the right firmware(a more expensive card), you could do raid5 or
0+1. all this raid stuff I'm talking about is basically taking multiple
harddrives, and doing various things with them to ensure data integrity,
so if one fails, you don't lose all your data. at most, you would lose
some time while you shut it down and replace the hard disk and rebuild
it. in terms of developing the application, any perl/php programmer can
put something together once they get the full requirements and determine
exactly what the database structure has to be in a couple of weeks at
the outside, probably in one good weekend of solid coding.

Aaron

"Aaron" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:E4qdnf2hbajLa7ndRVn-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Jay wrote:
> > Surely you would be better off having a local web server where your
> > scheduling guy entered info into a spreadsheet, this was turned into
> > an active web page, and the web page published on your lan.
> >
> > Then you get some very cheap PCs with a web browser looking at the
> > page rather than remote monitors etc.
> >
> > jay
>
>
> I was just goint to suggest something like this. All you need is a P2
> 400mhz or even less you could get away with.
<snip>

Much lower in fact. I'm setting up a P133Mhz with 48Mb as a simple webserver
running on Windows 2000 as a small test environment. Works like a charm,
despite the fact that Windows 2000 should be installed on a minimum of
128Mb.

No speed box though, but that's a choice you have to make.

Boxes like these should cost you no more than 50-100 euro in the second hand
market, so I wouldn't exactly call that price a steep price.

Princess Morgiah