WEBMASTER CONTEST FOR Omaha-2004 SPECIAL NOTES: 

A.  The Webmaster Competition is one of the "BYOC" (Bring Your Own Computer) events at this year's AITP National Collegiate Conference.  What does this mean for you?  You can bring your own computer with whatever development and server environment you prefer to use already installed.  Once the competition is over, you will have to leave your computer with the judges so that your solution can be evaluated.  For those teams who do not want to lug along their own computer, there will be PCs in the computer lab that are Microsoft running Windows XP, Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft IIS with FrontPage Server Extensions installed.

Here is the complete/formal rule set for this contest:

Webmaster Competition Contestants will be required to develop a corporate intra/internet system and submit their URL to the competition supervisor at the conclusion of the contest time period.

As part of the “Bring Your Own Computer” initiative, contestants will be allowed to furnish their own computer (laptop or desktop) running Windows XP, Windows 2000, or Windows 2003 and development and web server software of their choice. No network connectivity will be provided so web sites MUST NOT depend on remote resources and may ONLY relay on resources local to the machine. Please remember that your machine will need to be running some type of web server (IIS, Apache, etc…) and since database connectivity may be required in the problem statement, plan accordingly (MS Access, MySql, etc…). All computers, web services and database services should be patched to the latest level and proper security measures put in place.

If a contestant chooses not to bring their own hardware, a limited number of computers will be provided with Microsoft FrontPage2002, running on Windows XP with Microsoft IIS HTTP server installed. The default tools, installed automatically when FrontPage installs itself as a "Typical Installation", are the only features that will be available.

Since the web servers will be running on the machines used in the competition, the computers must be left after the competition to be judged. Machines will be secured overnight and may be picked up the morning after the competition in a location to be named.

Please be prepared to leave a short document outlining technologies used in development and any special considerations for the website (address of page, passwords, etc…). Please ensure that your computer will not automatically “lock” or password protect itself as we will not be able to judge a machine we can not attain access to.

Basis for Competition Evaluation:

 

B.  Here are some sample code blocks and directions needed to set up a "File DSN" to make your web portable:

  1. Create your Microsoft Access database and import it into your web.
     
  2. Create a simple text file (using Notepad) named "somefile.dsn" -- for example, you might name it "msaccess.dsn" -- that will contain the ODBC setup parameters.  This file would also need to be imported into your web directory.  Here are the lines that would appear in such a file:

        [ODBC]
    DRIVER=Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)
    UID=admin
    ReadOnly=0
    UserCommitSync=Yes
    Threads=3
    SafeTransactions=0
    PageTimeout=5
    MaxScanRows=8
    MaxBufferSize=512
    ImplicitCommitSync=Yes
    FIL=MS Access
    DriverId=25
  3. Create a simple text file (you can use the FrontPage source editor or Notepad) named "somefile.asp" -- for example, you might call it "dsn.asp" -- that will contain the VBScript commands needed to create a string variable that will contain the connection string. This file will be included at the beginning of every .ASP file you create that needs to manipulate the database file. The sample shown below creates a string variable named "sDSN" that you can use with the ".Open" function of an "ADODB.Connection" object.  Here are the lines that would appear in such an .asp file: 
        <%
    ' set up variables
    Dim sDB, sPath, sDSNDir, sDSNFil, sDefDir, sDSN, sScriptDir

    ' The variable sDB contains the database path.
    ' It is physical with respect to your
    ' main project or web directory.  In
    ' other words, it assumes that you
    ' have the subdirectory "fpdb" beneath
    ' your web directory and that your Access
    ' database file (named mydatabase.mdb) was 
    ' imported into that directory.
    '  

    sDB = "fpdb\mydatabase.mdb" 

    ' Retrieve the script directory of this currently executing file
    sScriptDir = Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME")
    sScriptDir = StrReverse(sScriptDir)
    sScriptDir = Mid(sScriptDir, InStr(1, sScriptDir, "/"))
    sScriptDir = StrReverse(sScriptDir)

    ' Set the virtual Directory
    sPath = Server.MapPath(sScriptDir) & "\"

    ' This is the DSN file Name for Access database ODBC general specs
    sDSNFil = "msaccess.dsn"

    ' Build the resulting DSN string SDSN which can then be used in the .Open method
    sDSN = "filedsn=" & sPath & sDSNFil & ";DefaultDir=" & sPath & ";DBQ=" & sPath & sDB & ";"

    %>
  4. At the beginning of every ASP file that will manipulate the database, you need to include the file created in step 3 (above) using the #include directive.  For example, if you had a file called "storedata.asp" that was going to open the database, insert some data, and close the database, the first few lines at the very top of the "storedata.asp" script file would read as follows:
    
    <%@ LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" %>
    <!-- #include file="DSN.asp" -->

    These lines, included at the beginning of the script file, would create the variable "sDSN" which could then be used as follows:
    
    set myConn=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
    myConn.Open sDSN
    This approach makes your entire application portable from one web server to another. Of course, there are other approaches that you can use to achieve the same result.  This is simply provided for your convenience.

C. Past AITP NCC WebMaster Competition Details and Problem Statements:

If you have any questions, please contact the overall NCC event coordinator: Dr. Brian Reithel or the Webmaster event coordinator Mark Grimes.

Copyright 1999-2004, Brian Reithel