Hi Felipe, On Sat, Jul 15, 2006 at 02:51:14PM -0700, Felipe Leon wrote: > Hi, <snip> > In Colombia some family of mine own a small enterprise > which is a medical microbiology laboratory. Patients first, there are FLOSS groups all over south america, even debian ones! google for 'colombia debian'. There are irc channels for them. check irc for #debian-co or something similar. > are sent from hospitals and their blood, urine , hmm > and other stuff.., are tested for things that range > from iron in their blood to parasites and bacteria. There is also a 'medical' sub-project in debian: debian-med, check the mailing lists at lists.debian.org for them. > The results are then sent back to their doctors. > Some years ago, they tried to organize patients data > using some sort of database -I dont know exaclty which > because I was quite little at the time- but recently I > found the old ibm computer (386 or so) and it looked > like some sort of dbase or smthing like that. The > interface looked very similar to modern ncurses. This > thing ran in old DOS though. This approach was There is support for dbase or simiar (eg. xbase) check apt-cache. > abandoned because there was nobody with computer > knowledge around and one good day the program did not > work well anymore. they continue with good old pen and > paper until later they got a "new" computer running > windows 95. Somebody helped by doing some forms in > excel and they have used that until very recently. I > dont want to blame windows but they have had many > problems with this setting (instability, problems with > the printer, etc) and are about to abandon it again to > come back to the known old pen and paper system. > I think linux could come to the rescue here and I have > been investigating how. I thought on something simple, > like access for linux or so but haven't found that > many options. Because this is a very special project > for me I want to give them something that they can > trust, that it is easy to use and solid as a rock. I > promised a new computer which I already have. I > thought of something small, slim and recent. I didnt > have the money to buy a brand new computer but I > enjoyed building up a relatively new one from a very > cheap dell mainboard (laptop) that found in ebay. I > had to put a memory (512 mb), the harddrive (20 gb) I > had from a broken laptop and a cdrom. The mainboard as > it is at the moment has no tft screen and no keyboard > but it works wonderfully with an external screen and > keyboard and mouse (they can be found easily in > Colombia). I thought of using it as a "mini tower" but > still have to find something to cover the exposed > parts and to make it stand. I thought on something > "artistic" like a an acrilic cover or smthing like > that, Im still working on it. In any case the hardware > is not as crucial as the software to do the job. the hardware sounds fine. > As said before I thought of an access-like program > that could in a simple way organize patient data and > generate reports to be printed, nothing fancy plain > simple but very importantly stable and solid. In this > way they would really see the impact of the software > and the difference with what they were using > previously. > I have found names such as kexi or knoda and many > others which are front ends of mySQL or postgreSQL > etc. the feeling I have got from this first > investigations is that either the tools are too > inmature (for example kexi cannot generate decent > reports yet) or too complex (client-server stuff with > sql and so forth). > If possible, I want to do everything in Debian. I > installed etch on this dell mainboard and everything > went well (I only have to test how stable is the > hardware and if it is well aerated with the > pseudo-case im constructing and if it will withstant > up to 10 daily hours of constant operation at +- 30°C, > etc). Very recently installed mySQL server and knoda > and start to play a bit with it but I need guidance. > Basically Im looking for advice from people with > experience with this kind of projects and are > interested on helping convince some people in a > developing country about the practical applications of > linux in an environment still dominated by $$$windows. > I hope I have been able to introduce this mini-project > more or less clearly and am looking forward for > comments, opinions, questions of interested open > source advocates. > You may want to checkout: www.codigolibre.org and email info@codigolibre.org. I just met the founder: Antonio and he may give you some ideas even if he is in the Dominica Repulic, he is very motivated to work on FLOSS. Tell him you were referered by someone from New York (Kevin Mark). Cheers, Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal | debian.home.pipeline.com | | `. `' Operating System | go to counter.li.org and | | `- http://www.debian.org/ | be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: pgp.mit.edu | my NPO: cfsg.org |
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