We are in the process of doing some site inspections for a client and I am still having trouble organizing all the data we collect. Here's the scenario, the client has provided us with a Mappoint File of all thier locations we need to inspect, roughly 500 or so before it's over with. We have to fill out an inspection form, take onsite photos, combine all the data and send it to em. This will be an ongoing task so I want to keep all the info in one spot for use next year. Ideally what I want to happen is to be able to click on a pushpin on the map and have it jump to a folder containing the inspection info and photos, and in reverse, I would also like to be able to create a master list of all the sites and when I click on a particular name on the list it will take me to the correct postion on the map. So after all that, first question, is there such a thing as a virtual web server? When I try to create a hyperlink to a pushpin on the map it will only let me input https://yadda...yadda...yadda, not to a destination on my computer. Is there a way to create a virtual server or have it point to a file on my computer? Sorry for the long post...just trying to give enough info to explain what I'm trying to accomplish.

I know this isn't exactly what you're looking for but our accounting software allows us to pull up a mappoint URL from the customer screen. From the customer screen there are also links to the customer docs/ drawings photos etc. The accounting software is Microsoft Great Plains or Great Plains Basic.

Try getting a separate box and setting it up as a web server at your office.

Look at this site for kinda detailed instructions https://www.diywebserver.com/index.php

I suggest a seperate computer just because it sounds like with all those sites to document and index, and if someone wants to remotely access or dump data, you will not be tying up the processing power of your desktop or your bandwidth doing so.

Then you can still surf to the Tech-Support Bulletin Board when you need to

What you want to do can be accomplished. It will take some setup, but in the end, you'll like the result. Please feel free to ask for clarification, as this is going to be a long one

Install IIS
Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000 come with a limited version of IIS (Microsoft's web server software). To install it,

(You'll need your Windows installation disks for this)
<OL TYPE=1>
[*]Click Start, Control Panel, Add/Remove Software
[*]Click Add/Remove Windows Components
[*]Check the box next to Internet Information Server and choose next</OL>

A new tab will appear when you right-click a folder and choose properties. The new tab is called Web Sharing.

Create the structure for storing your files
<OL TYPE=1>
[*]Create a folder where you will put all the sub-folders for each location; this folder name should have no spaces or special characters; use only text and the underscore character, the same will apply for sub-folders
[*]Right-click the folder you just created and choose properties
[*]Click the Web Sharing tab
[*]Click the radio button next to Share this folder
[*]A new window will pop up; make sure read, write, directory browsing, and execute are checked and ignore any warnings
[*]Click OK on all remaining Windows</OL>

You how have a web share running on your machine. You can browse this share by opening the following URL in Internet Explorer:

https://localhost/name_of_folder

The text name_of_folder should be replaced with the name of the folder you created in step 1 above.

Any changes or additions you make inside the folder you created will become available via the url posted above. You can even link to sub folders.

Create your sub-folders and documents, then open up a web browser and navigate to the folder. You can copy and paste the URL into Mapppoint and viola, you'll go straight to the folder.

This is a long one, so I'm sure you'll have questions. Post away. I'm going to need everyone's help here getting started with telco, so hopefully I can bring some of my sysadmin skills to the board to help others

[This message has been edited by bradleyland (edited May 01, 2005).]