[OT] Mac, Linux, Windows, Don't Know? What do you use?

blarg · Post by **blarg** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:43 pm

I'm wondering what operating systems people are on so I can know where I should do the dev work. Please excuse the noise, but this will be very helpful for me.

DreamStalker · Post by **DreamStalker** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:54 pm

I think that if a program could be developed to extract ASCII data stream from the card reader(s) ... then OS platform would be less of an issue since the data could then be easily ported to spredsheet or database of choice.

GoofyUT · Post by **GoofyUT** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 10:54 pm

M A C I N T O S H!!!!!

Chuck

ColoZZZ · Post by **ColoZZZ** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:03 pm

It'd be a matter of what format the ASCII file was and then having a program that could read it. I'd bet that if the Encore folks were thinking stratght they have the files in a comma delimited or other widely used format.

Good luck with the coding, and thanks for your effort, Blarg!

--Andy

jskinner · Post by **jskinner** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:21 pm

ColoZZZ wrote:I'd bet that if the Encore folks were thinking straight they have the files in a comma delimited or other widely used format.

The data is stored in a Microsoft SQL database via Encore. Any standard SQL tools can access it (including apps like Excel).

jskinner · Post by **jskinner** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:25 pm

DreamStalker wrote:I think that if a program could be developed to extract ASCII data stream from the card reader(s) ... then OS platform would be less of an issue since the data could then be easily ported to spredsheet or database of choice.

I think its unlikely that the data is stored on the card in an ASCII format (although I suppose its possible) More likely if you want to get it in ASCII format the driver or an application talking to the card via the driver will have to convert it.

Cheers, -James

blarg · Post by **blarg** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:37 pm

Step 1 is to see if I can even get to the data in the first place. If this will involve writing a driver then yuck. I'm hoping when I plug it into my Mac I'll see it as a disk. Since there was another vote for Mac, I know I'm not crazy.

Whatever piece I write to deal with "Here's the data, now what does it say" will be platform independent and will work on Windows as the baseline. I'm just wondering how much work I should put towards getting everything going on other platforms. If it's just me that wants a Mac and/or Linux version of everything, then I'd get busy on the windows version and worry about the rest of the world later. I'm trying to gauge how much I should "do it right" instead of "doing it fast".

jskinner · Post by **jskinner** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:54 pm

blarg wrote:I'm hoping when I plug it into my Mac I'll see it as a disk. Since there was another vote for Mac, I know I'm not crazy.

I don't think smartcards typically look like drives? They aren't like a flash card, they are have a small processor and you typically talk to them via an smartcard API of sometype. Still if it did that would certinaly make it easy...

If you get a driver working we could potentially integrate it with EPA to eliminate the need for Encore Pro altogether.

-James

Snoredog · Post by **Snoredog** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 12:22 am

They have Whenders & Red Hat 8/9 drivers from http://www.mako-tech.com.

Only problem you may have is deciphering the Respironics encryption key embedded in the special driver they use.

Driver is easy, How good are you at writing with assembly code?

blarg · Post by **blarg** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 12:48 am

Assembly is fine, doing it in Windows is not. Besides, then you probably would have trouble using it side by side with their software.

@ jskinner

I'm all about collaboration.

Julie · Post by **Julie** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 4:00 am

I use a Mac, my husband has a PC, so everything's installed on his machine now, but I don't use it half as much as I would if I had it on mine - he's always using his comp. (business) at all hours, so I don't like to barge in if I can help it, but would sure like to be 'acknowledged' by finding software for Mac (does anyone know if Silverlining comes in Mac?).

yardbird · Post by **yardbird** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 6:32 am

I use linux. I know there's an Infineer DT3500 driver for linux. This would SEEM to suggest that there is at least some sort of operability. I mean.... I havene't seen a driver yet that can recognize a device but not DO anything with it.

Are we sure there's an encryption key in the Encore Pro driver?

I guess the first step is to see if the data can simply be accessed (no pun intended) and read. Then figure out what the format so you know what each piece means.

If I remember correctly, the amount of "space" on a smart card isn't all that much so it would seem logical to me that the card is storing only a data sequence and Encore Pro is reading the raw data, sorting it out and putting it where it belongs for display and in the database.

Ideally, if you could just RETRIEVE the data and decipher what the numbers a referring to, then you should be able to bring the data into a spreadsheet and do all of your chart creation from there. ..

I think I'm dreaming.... I doubt it would be that easy

jskinner · Post by **jskinner** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 9:32 am

yardbird wrote:hen figure out what the format so you know what each piece means.

Also keep in mind that different models may (or many not) have slightly different formats that they use for storage.

jskinner · Post by **jskinner** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 9:34 am

Snoredog wrote: Only problem you may have is deciphering the Respironics encryption key embedded in the special driver they use.

Snoredog,

Do you have any more info on the encryption used? Do you know if its a symmetric or asymmetric encryption being employed?

-james

blarg · Post by **blarg** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 4:20 pm

jskinner

A great place to look to find out would be to poke around in the resources included in the Respironics driver installer. You might even find a file ending in .asc, in which case you win.

[OT] Mac, Linux, Windows, Don't Know? What do you use?

Which Operating System would you like to check your Respironics data with primarily?

[OT] Mac, Linux, Windows, Don't Know? What do you use?

Macintosh