That was the weekend that was!

["Mark Harrison" <Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx>]

Inspired by the "house of HA statistics", Mary and I had a
programming/installing "overnighter" on friday night, with the
following
acheived:

1: On the server, creation of a mySql database to store HA logs.
Software used: MySql (already installed)

2: Creation of a standalone VB app that listened to HomeVision on the
serial port, and then wrote events into the MySql database.
Software used: VB, the MySql OLEDB native driver (which worked first
time on download), MSCOMM (Microsoft serial port driver)

3: Modification of the HV schedule to output in a predefined format, the
serial data that the VB app was expecting.
Software used: The HV schedule editor


Then, on Saturday, while Mary was asleep...

1: Installation of the latest Apache onto the server

2: Installation of the mySQL-recommended PERL with the database
extensions

3: A Perl script that wandered off to the my-SQL database, came up with
the events, and did some basic processing on them, and returned the
responses in an XHTML page!

4: A basic XHTML1.0 website to hang the Perl bits off :-)


Next steps 1: Add a rather more sophisticated structure to the lookup
table that converts CODES to events, putting in separate fields for
room, device, action, and cause (directly triggered by Pronto, macro,
etc.)

Next steps 2: Put in an "amber" zone on the firewall, and move
the web
server out to there, while keeping the database server in green.
Two-tier web application in multiple zones.

Funky, heh?

Mark