Why do you *need* Gears?  I don't see how it would help in a data entry
application.

How complicated is the data entry?  Is it like a rebate form (couple
easy fields) or like an benefit enrollment form (employee info, spouse
info, zero or more child info, varying length of items)?  Where is the
data going?  File?  Database?  Is there any special formatting to the data?

As for some of the other responses, I don't think Drupal is the right
tool for anything other than eating up CPU cycles and bandwidth.  There
are lots of things that can be done to speed up a web app and the web
app can be made to be as secure as the weakest password.

If you needs are relatively simple, take a look at the Forms
functionality with Google Docs.  Once you define the form, any submitted
forms get dumped into spreadsheet that can be exported to .csv, .html,
.ods, .pdf, .txt, and .xls.

-Chris



Tom Penney wrote:
> Forgive the off topic post. I was hoping that someone might have some
> advice for me.
>
> I've been handed a home brew data entry system written in VB6 that is
> in need of replacement. Code is poorly commented and the guy who wrote
> it can't be found. What I would LIKE to do is start from scratch and
> write a nice browser based system using google gears or something like
> that but I don't have time. I would think there would be a ton of
> stuff available, open or otherwise, as we are not doing anything
> unusual. But what I've found seems antiquated and expensive. I was
> asked to evaluate some Viking Software stuff which has the features
> that we need but, man, low tech, 8 character file names,  keyboard
> overlays required, etc.
>
> We process about 10,000 hand written forms a month entered from
> scanned images on screen. Each form is entered twice by separate
> people and compared  for accuracy. some fields are looked up in a
> table  to auto populate other fields which can then be accepted or
> edited. nothing to fancy. Has anyone here run across anything I should
> be looking into?
>
>   

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