Let me ask a few more questions before making any attempt to say anything else. Once I understand your requirements better, I may not be able to say anything useful but hopefully others on this list will jump in and help....
I'm not clear on whether this is a single one-time only conversion or whether you plan to re-import your contacts to the database on a regular basis. In other words, once you've imported your contacts into MySQL, will you stop saving new contacts in Outlook use MySQL in its place? Or are you dumping your contacts down from Outlook, playing with them in MySQL, but still gathering new contacts in Outlook with the intent of dumping them down again regularly - every week or every month for example? If it's a one-time only conversion, it should be a relatively easy and straightforward job to convert from your old system to MySQL. With any luck, it's just a matter of: 1) defining your new table or tables in MySQL 2) exporting your old data into a common format like CSV or ASCII or DEL 3) writing and executing the command that reads the old data into MySQL 4) deleting the original data (if you want to clean up) Depending on the complexity of the data and how long it takes you to learn the basics of data modelling, this job shouldn't take more than a few days. (I don't mean to brag but I've done this kind of things for years and could probably do the whole job in a day or less, assuming the data is not too complicated). Of course you may want some programs or at least some queries to work with the data. That could take a lot of time and effort or very little, depending on what you need. If you need programs and you don't know any programming languages (or none of the programming languages you know work with MySQL), it could take you a fair amount of time to learn your chosen language well enough to write the necessary programs. Then again, if you're already a fluent programmer in a language that works with MySQL, like C, PHP, or Java, it might not be a big deal at all. If you intend to keep Outlook around and simply refresh MySQL from Outlook periodically, there is additional work involved. If I were doing it, I'd write a script that automates the export/download/load cycle. Assuming that Outlook has at least as complex an Address Book as Outlook Express the complexity of your data model could be fairly high if you use all of the different types of data available. For instance, if you store several different types of phone numbers for each person/business, keep home and business addresses for the people you know professionally, etc. your data model will be a bit more complex than if you simply use name and phone number. The other issue is what you mean by 'templates'. From your note, I'm not at all clear on what you mean. I use Outlook Express but I don't recall ever seeing templates in it. Are you talking about techniques for selecting subsets from the table? For example, list all people whose last name starts with 'L' who live in Montreal? If yes, MySQL should do that quite nicely. If you simply want to display that information, a few simple queries should do the job. If you need to print reports that list this information, you're probably looking at some programming requirements or at least some scripts. What operating system are you using? It is getting easier to handle many requirements with scripts rather than writing full programs these days. If you are running on Linux for example, bash provides quite a few capabilities for writing simple but powerful scripts that could write reports, among other things. A script would also be my first choice if I wanted to refresh the MySQL data from Outlook regularly. Well, it's time to shut up and let you get a word in edgewise ;-) Rhino ----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'Rhino'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 1:01 PM Subject: RE: AddressBook CMS > Yeah, I realize that asking any of you guide me through this kind of project > would be asking way too much. That's why I said "point me in the right > direction". I'd just like some recommendations as to what is required to > setup something like this. The last thing I want is to slave over a setup > for months only to realize that because of my initial lack of knowledge I > should have done things differently. Maybe these questions can help clarify > what I'm asking of you: > > What are the cosiderations behind this? Should I use an Apache/PHP type > config or maybe there's a client/server software I don't know of... > > Should I forget about importing from Outlook and start from scratch to > ensure the db is clean? > > Maybe you know of something similar to MyGroupWare, phpGrouWare or > moregroupware that only deals with contacts like some sort of glorified db > driven Phonebook. > > I'm just looking for insight from people that know databases... that's all. > > Thanks, > Phil > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Rhino [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 12:34 PM > > To: Philippe LeCavalier > > Subject: Re: AddressBook CMS > > > > I don't understand your question. Are you asking us to tell > > you how to design a database for your contact information or > > how to write a program to access your database? Surely you > > realize that these questions are far too big to be answered > > in a simple email. Or are you asking for recommendations for > > courses that teach these things? > > > > We'll help if we can but I think you'll need to clarify just > > what you're asking first. > > > > Rhino > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Philippe LeCavalier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 12:06 PM > > Subject: AddressBook CMS > > > > > > > Hi Everyone, > > > > > > Fisrtoff, I know nothing about databases and even less > > about web design. > > > What I do know is that I want to move my Outlook contacts > > (~10,000) to a > > > real database :) > > > I've looked at FileMaker Pro and MyGroupWare and the likes > > but I just want > > > something simple where I can export my contacts and sort them into > > > templates. And those have either to much cost attached to > > them or simply > > try > > > to offer to many features for what I want. > > > > > > Can someone point me in the right direction? I know I need > > to learn MySQL > > > and that I will (I'm getting more and more comfortable with > > PHPmyAdmin). > > My > > > main concern is how to access and manage the content in a > > user-friend way. > > > > > > Cheers, > > > Phil > > > > > > > > > -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
