Not much work...in 4 hours work I already have a basic system working.
I'm a *nix system for Emerson Electric in the US and do a bit of
web/database coding in my spare time so this is a walk in the park for
me. I'm getting tired of scratching down my records on scrap paper
and loosing them by the time I need to look back to see what one of
the readings were.

The table structure is pretty simple although I can not make up my
mind on how I want my relations to work out for the other tables
involving the fish and plants. Right now it's only tracking records
of test results and basic tank information. When I get to the fish
and plants it gets a little tricker. Next week I'll probably make it
to that part of it and I'll have my mind made up by then.

As far as the platform...I think web is the best as well, but for that
to work the users would need prebuilt versions of Apache, PHP, and
MySQL. MySQL is a requirement no mater what platform I eventually
decide on as the database would be horrible if kept in a flat file,
but for the front end I could whip something up in C and supply
precompiled binaries for Win32 and Linux.

Another thought I had last night are automated controllers. My
brother is a CS Major at PSU and is quite good with micro controllers
and their hardware level programming. I should talk to him to see how
hard it would be to interface some hardware to a PC via USB for
automatically recording temp, pH, CO2, etc and pushing the data
directly into the SQL DB automagically.

Thx
Dieter

BTW: Can't stand apps like FP and Dreamweaver. Pico, VI, and KWrite
are all I use. I have a MS free house anyway so none of that stuff
works (natively).

Hey Dieter

I think its a fantastic idea, although this may have already been done. Alot
of work there mate. I think for praCTICAL reasons it would be better web
based as you would have more compatible users (everyone has a browser). You
will have to do some serious planning on your database. If you use a
DSN'less connection string you will be able to run the entire application
straight off a cd or hard drive without having to add any software or
applications. Just a thought. Dreamweaver has some documentation on
Connection strings, if you need any help then let me know