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Servers
This would require Internet access to be available to all the teams that wanted to use it, and the connection would have to be fast enough to support uploading and downloading of
This causes many problems. Yes, we could run a copy of 2003 Server with WMS or Linux and stream, or just have it there as a file server. This entails having some form of network infastrucature running. The 2 choices would be WiFi or ethernet.
WiFi wouldn't be that bad, with the downsides being the range, speed, and packet loss. All three of those would get real annoying if trying to stream or download video. You could run text and images no prob though.
Ethernet has none of these disadvantages. I love ethernet. The only problem is that you have to run wires. I suppose we could wire the pits, but it would sorta be a pain. My firends + I do LAN parties a lot, so I have about 30 ports worth of hubs I could borrow, and I can find more if I have too.... but is it really worth it?
As far as I can tell, the only way that we could connect be be through WiFi, or have one central collection point for all the data. Have a table with the central server, a hub, Palm and PPC sync cradles, a laser printer, and a scanner and let them come, donate their data and walk away with everyone elses...
I would personally favor the physcial collection point idea... it's simple and effective.
I'm on Jack's team, and will probably end up doing some of programming anyway (especially the PocketPC and Palm side of things.) Since I've heard request for paper forms, I've been kicking around the idea of writing a customized OCR program to take data from these forms into the database... we'll see.
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