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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>For those not following my blog, I’m a candidate
missionary with Fellowship International Mission (FIM). I’d be taking
over the support of their website and all things technical. That means I’m
doing the deputation thing, raising support in the form of prayers and funds.
Details on all that are at the site I put up for the occasion: <a
href="http://missions.ritchietribe.net/">http://missions.ritchietribe.net</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>With that in mind, I’m in need of a good linux or
web-based program for managing contacts with churches and people. There is a
free program called TNTMPD available for Windows that I looked at. My initial
impression was that it was overly complicated. Maybe I’d change my mind
about that once I finally got around to really using it, but I’m not
going to because it only runs on Windows.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I have started using my limited ruby knowledge on a Ruby on
Rails program that would seem to fit the bill, at least to start. I’m
calling in theMCP (Missionary Contacts Program. Yes, that’s a reference
to tron also. </span></font><font size=2 face=Wingdings><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Wingdings'>J</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'> I’m wondering if there are
any other rubyists on the list that might take interest in this sort of a
project. If so, I’d look into sticking it online. I’m still trying
to figure out how to get certain boxes to look certain ways and stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>It has a MySQL backend and put together, at this point,
almost entirely using the scaffold creator in rails. My vision for a first
usable release is a very simple UI to allow the insert and removal of data from
the database. Then, I’d like to build on that some reports that would
integrate the data from various tables into useful packages. Maybe something
like a list of churches I’ve mailed a letter to and not yet seen a
response.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The long-term vision would be to see this reused as a
service FIM (and other mission agencies) could provide to their missionaries,
so we’d need to build in the ability to authenticate users and also
identify certain information as belonging to the user. I have no idea how to do
this from a programming standpoint so my current structure is based on an
individual.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>If you have been thinking about getting into this and would
like to mess around, let me know. Maybe we can stick the project on rubyforge
or some such and to work together on it.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Don, is this something the freely project would take
interest in or somewhere else you’ve networked your way into?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>JSR/<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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