David Munsey-Kano's Dartmouth Projects
July 2002 - March 2003

Last updated on 3/24/2003

Here are some of the things I have helped to create and are either released to the general community, in development or planned to be started from July 2003 through June 2004. More general goals are included in the last section as well.

Released:

• Development of the eResources WebObjects program (which was actually started by Eric originally)
  
  This program uses Oracle tables loaded by the perl script written by Eric. We co-designed the table structure required for this application. Extensive changes were made between the initial table design and the first release. Many of these changes were suggested by myself to optimize the application to improve performance. In some cases this simplified the loading process and in others it made it more complex (it had to do more so the WO program could access the data more efficiently).
  
  In the process of this project I have improved my working relationship with Eric. The opportunity to work more closely with another member of our team was very welcome! I prefer projects that require this kind of collaboration though I realize that many of our projects are too small to warrant a significant multi-person effort.
  
  In the process of this project I spent considerable time learning Java and in particular how WebObjects works. Paul was a great help in this area.
  
  
• Analysis of requirements for Latino Intersections Bulletin Board system, researching alternatives and subsequent implementation of the solution
  
  I met with and exchanged e-mail with members of the LI team, researched many different available BB systems, analyzed the pros and cons of commercial vs. open source, local hosting vs. third party hosting and feature sets of the various systems. Once we agreed on a system and hosting strategy (Invision Power Board, hosted by them) I configured the "skin" to match the look and feel of the rest of the LI site. Finally, I gave some initial training on the use of the BB Administrative interface to LI staff.
  
  
• Development of "Ariel direct" script to allow staff to upload .PDF files directly to our Ariel Web Document Delivery server.
  
  This required me to reverse engineer the Ariel Document Delivery system so that my script could create the same control and data files on the server. I worked with the Ariel staff to determine requirements and work through the issues of how passwords would be maintained and used and other issues.
  
  
• I setup a new access log reporting system for olympia (Digital Library)
  
  This task was presented as a request for a script to search the access logs and determine statistics on directory level and main page access in the Digital Library. Instead I researched and found an open source solution that fit the requirements and provided us with many more features and options for analyzing usage of our site. I built, installed and configured the system to provide for monthly and immediate (current month) reports.
  
  
• I maintained and enhanced various existing systems. For example:
  
  I enhanced the library hours and other scripts to allow them to display either the old library web pages look and feel or the new one for the Digital Library.
  
  I changed the table structure used by the Application Authentication system (used by eResources and available for other WO applications). This improved the user interface for adding new authorized users and eliminated duplicate DND Name data in the system. This uses a DND_NAME_DIRECTORY table view maintained by administrative computing.

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Under Development:

• We will continue to improve the eResources application: searching can be optimized and static page generation could be more reliable. I'd also like to separate the HTML in the page generation process in a way that allows Mary to maintain the look and feel of the pages without requiring a new version of the program or script(s) that generate the pages.

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Plans and goals:

• I'd like to increase my productivity. Use of WebObjects has decreased my productivity significantly as compared with developing the same application in PHP. Thus I would like to reduce and if possible eliminate my use of WebObjects this year.
• I'd like to be involved in any effort to provide an improved Subject Guide system.
• I'd like to learn more about XML/XSL.
• I may convert one or more additional Acquisition databases to a web based interface if time allows.