[odb-help] New FAQ, Free Stuff, Importing, and ODB on Samba

[Rich Cowan]

Good Afternoon:

Our intern from U of Missouri, Jennie Charoenpitaks, with help from
volunteer Tim O'Leary, has updated the "Frequently Asked Questions"
on the ODB web site.  Now there are 3 separate FAQ documents,
one on initial setup, one for endusers, and one for advanced users.
See:  http://organizersdb.org and scroll to the "Printed Help" section.
You will also notice that the updated ODB user manual that Jennie
worked on, with help from Kaitlin LaCasse, is also on the web site.

Your comments on the documentation will be forwarded to the interns
who are only here for 2 1/2 more weeks!

-rich cowan



We have three Articles today:

1) A Freebie:  If your computer doesn't have the ability to print
to PDF but you would like to take advantage of this from ODB, you
can either purchase Adobe Acrobat (full version), or you can download
an open source software program called PdfCreator:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator

This is not bug-free, but for the basic kinds of printing you need to do
from ODB, it should work as well as Adobe Acrobat.



2) ODB data on Linux

You might be aware that the Linux world has settled on a standard
file server program to replace "Windows 2000 server" and the name
for that Linux software is "Samba."  Two ODB users have installed
their ODB data files on a Samba Server. (The ODB program software
should not be installed on your server, just the data file.)

It worked for one user, but not for the other.  I am wondering if anyone
has the answer to Greg Heller's question about an error when multiple
ODB users tried to access the data file on SAMBA.  As you may
know Access/Jet databases create an "LDB" file in the same folder
where the actual database file (the "odb" file) resides; this is the
problem that Greg was having:

>>I can get either computer to open the ODB with the database saved on the 
>>samba server while the other does not have it open.
>>
>>If one computer has the odb opend i get the error message:
>>Unable TO Open Database
>>Eror #3050. Couldn't Lock File




3)  The last question I can answer:  Joe wants to import old data
into a new database, and access the old database's codes once the
import is done.  Fortunately, this question was asked before.  The answer
is here:

http://lists.democracygroups.org/pipermail/odb-help/2003-January/000048.html

Please note that ODB 0.9.3a also allows you to add the same comment
for all the data you are importing, something that you couldn't do back in
January.

-rich

P.S.  there is a "no newsletter" mail code, and in the future ODB will be
extended to allow this mail code to be used more easily.  Now you have
to do a "custom query" to use it.



At 01:45 PM 7/28/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi,
>ODB allowed us to import names, addresses, phone numbers, emails but not the
>other fields in our database that didn't have corresponding ODB fields.  We
>downloaded the peace organization template.
>
>For instance, we have fields in our old database like "newsletter" that
>helps us know if somebody gets our newsletter or not.  How do we create a
>corresponding field in ODB so that we can import this data?  Also, our old
>database allowed us to keep track of who was a prospective member and who
>was a paid member (corresponding to the ODB "type" field).
>
>Also, how do we align our old fields with ODB's activities, VID,
>constituencies and issues fields.  We didn't see those fields when we were
>importing.
>
>-Jon Greenbaum, Metro Justice Organizer, Rochester