Well, in the need to get this project done as fast possible to get some income in fast, so I decided that I’m going to have to break some of my personal rules. The biggest rule I broke is that I said that I would never go directly into the underlying database except with the core web service that runs everything. Today, I did just that. The managing interface for customers (writen in php/perl) now accesses the database directly.

PHP is a little slow when access remote web services anyways. To make it faster I wrote a lot of the stuff using basic HTTP request methods and XML prasers with the XML objects instead of using a real SOAP object from PEAR. The differences in PHP4 and PHP5 make this a little odd. Tons between PHP4 to PHP5 with XML. My Windows and Linux workstations run bleading edge versions of PHP, but my Debian “Woody” server (to stay as stable as possible) uses PHP4.3.7 slightly old but working without a single flaw that I can find. Using FreeTDS to communicate to my mssql server.

Later I will load mono up and get Mono working on the server. Entire MapTrack web service worked in a test under Linux using Mono with a MySQL backend and then later I got it working on both PostgreSQL and Oracle. I use features inside that the database that aren’t relied on outside of the database (indexing, queries, speacial types) and the webservice only does just basic selects, inserts, deletes, and updates against the servers. Try to stay compatable with SQL92 and using generic connection objects as much as possible.

J2ME capable GPS cell phones running my application which transmits its location to my server on a timer. The server stores the data until the customer is read to view it. I can track your locaction, your current speed, how long you stopped, and more. It will also tell me if you enter an area, it will send an alert to your boss via email or SMS to his phone (no more sneaking off to the house in the middle of the day). Its viewable with either MapPoint 2004 with a com add-in (for your live tracking), or with any web browser using web maps (for your cheaper, lightweight, or mobile tracking solution). Its really something. Does just about everything from payroll to tracking to remote messaging and remote customer database access.

Like I always say… more later…