[13017] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Serving CD-ROM Products over the Web
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Fri Jul 9 20:01:28 1999
Date: Fri, 09 Jul 1999 15:03:34 -0600
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
Message-Id: <0FEM005P6D5G15@Post-Office.UH.EDU>
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2 Messages; 79 Lines
*-----
From: Wong Wai Man <wmwong@ouhk.edu.hk>
The Open University of Hong Kong is using Winframe (version 1.7) on top of
the CDNET to put the CD-ROM on the WEB. Currently we have 52 CD-ROM titles
on the web, of which 8 are Chinese, 4 are bilingual, and 40 are English. No
Internet version is available for these titles. We have not upgraded to
metaframe at the moment because of the Chinese handling problem.
There are two winframe servers for load balancing and uninterrupted
services. For each CD title, users could access through the winframe client
(ICA plug-in) or Java. Using the ICA plug-in to access is faster and could
support the full functions of the CD titles while java is slower and
support most of the functions only.
For your information.
wai-man WONG, OUHK Library
>
wai-man,
OUHK library
*-----
From: Dennis Brantley <dennis@dati.com>
Dan Lester wrote:
>
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> At 01:41 PM 7/6/99 -0600, Lisanne Hamilton wrote:
>
> > >We are planning to upgrade our Meridian-Data CDROM server in mid-August.
> > >Right now, it has uses CDNet (version 2.0), which is a graphical menu, to
> > >select the CDROMs. Meridian-Data now incorporates something called
> > >SlingShot (in CDNet version 4.0) which allows you to activate CDROMs from
> > >your web browser.
> >
> > >See http://www.meridian-data.com/datasheets/ds_nt4.htm and
> > >http://www.meridian-data.com/datasheets/nt4faq.htm for more details. You
> > >might try giving them a call and see if that works for you.
> >
> > >Dean Riley
>
> The original question, still quoted below, was about serving the CDROMs
> over the web. After reading each of the above cited pages twice, it
> appears that these are products that will share the CDROMs under NT4
> shares, but will not serve the CDROMs to web browsers over the internet.
>
> dan
>
> > >At 03:26 PM 01-07-99 -0600, you wrote:
> > >>From: Gerard Egan <g.egan@uws.edu.au>
> > >>Subject: serving CD_ROM products over the Web
> > >>We are currently using SABER menu (DOS based) to serve up our CD-ROM
> > >>based products over an internal network.
> > >>
> > >>We would like to move to a web-based product to serve these CD-ROM
> > >>products. While we have looked at W3Launch, does anyone have other
> > >>suggestions?
>
Well, yes and no. SlingShot will serve CDs through a web browser, much
like w3launch will, but it still expects the user to have the search
software installed locally, or to be prepared to install or run the
search software over the Internet, usually a laborious task at best,
impossible at worst :-(
If the goal is to serve CDs to web users _without_ user desktop
installs, WinFrame is still, IMHO, an excellent way to go. It is not
cheap, but when positioned as a way to provide Internet/remote access to
CDs _and_ web-subscribed databases, I am seeing more academic/public
sites secure funding related to Internet access.
--
Dennis Brantley - mailto:dennis@dati.com
Data Access Technologies, Inc. http://www.dati.com
CD Networking - Remote/Internet Access - Thin Client Computing
Toll Free 1-888-4-DATI-CD (432-8423)
Voice (770) 339-6554 FAX (770) 682-0629
