Subject: From: Date:

Re: [ECS] CGI advice needed Mark Gilmore Sun, 30 Jan 2000 14:02:49 -0500

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No problem, Steve (so long as you have SOME browser installed).
-- 
Mark Gilmore
Omnipotence (ECS home automation software)
http://www.usit.com/omnip
423-745-0026


Steven M. Eaton wrote:
> 
> I want to ask how will this work for the people that do not have a network
> interface in their pc or do not have a dialup connection into the internet?
> There will be a lot of people that have a network in their home, but also a
> lot that do not. Just a thought.
> 
> Steven M. Eaton
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Kindred [mailto:david_kindred@iname.com]
> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2000 11:57 AM
> To: ecs-list@netbloc.com
> Subject: RE: [ECS] CGI advice needed
> 
> Mark,
> 
> I s'pose it depends on how much of a Web server you want ECS to be. You
> could just use an ordinary socket to receive commands via the HTTP protocol,
> and then respond to them with Web page output. Users could design HTML pages
> which would post data from HTML forms or via command-line variables to the
> ECS server. You could control what the responses would be. That part would
> be pretty straight forward.
> 
> Remember that, when making this sucker platform independent, you're, for the
> most part, going to be working with stateless sessions. Makes things a
> little trickier. Clients might have to regularly poll ECS to determine the
> status of items, since most Internet comm is in the form of connect->get
> data->disconnect, to cut down on bandwidth.
> 
> I guess the biggest question to be answered is: What is your target user. Is
> it for the general public, or for a bunch of techies like us who don't mind
> learning HTML, Perl, etc.? If for the former, then you might want to
> consider making some "wizards" to generate the client-side screens in HTML
> (or whatever).
> 
> Just my $0.02.
> 
> --David
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Gilmore [mailto:omnip@usit.net]
> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2000 11:46 AM
> To: ecs-list@netbloc.com
> Subject: Re: [ECS] CGI advice needed
> 
> Per helpful inputs from SCOTT/MARTIN/KENT, I am strongly
> leaning towards making ECS a web server.
> 
> I have already added test code in ECS to generate a
> web page listing all Items and State-dropdowns for each
> (generating any required web pages will be trivial).
> 
> Any thoughts on how to best make ECS a web server ?
> MS VC++ has support for this, but I would like to find
> a system-independent solution (if possible).
> 
> I don't mind AT ALL if you call today (collect).
> 
> Thanks,
> --
> Mark Gilmore
> Omnipotence (ECS home automation software)
> http://www.usit.com/omnip
> 423-745-0026

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