Researching OpenDental Software

scottalanmiller

@stacksofplates said in Researching OpenDental Software:

https://www.opendental.com/site/sourcecode.html

Tortoise SVN.............

You have to install the trial version to get the initial database tables set up? What is this?

Everything on their site is crazy.

stacksofplates

I'm honestly surprised it's not built with FoxPro.

scottalanmiller

@stacksofplates said in Researching OpenDental Software:

I'm honestly surprised it's not built with FoxPro.

It sure feels like it is!!

flaxking

There's so many industries with niche LoB applications that are ripe for a shake-up by modern competitors. The issue is getting the business knowledge in order to make a competing product.

scottalanmiller

@flaxking said in Researching OpenDental Software:

There's so many industries with niche LoB applications that are ripe for a shake-up by modern competitors. The issue is getting the business knowledge in order to make a competing product.

And getting the customers to care. In many cases, just because you make a better mouse trap, doesn't mean that someone will buy it.

flaxking

@scottalanmiller said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@flaxking said in Researching OpenDental Software:

There's so many industries with niche LoB applications that are ripe for a shake-up by modern competitors. The issue is getting the business knowledge in order to make a competing product.

And getting the customers to care. In many cases, just because you make a better mouse trap, doesn't mean that someone will buy it.

I've seen the prices they are paying, I don't think it would be hard to build a cheaper mouse trap too.

scottalanmiller

@flaxking said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@scottalanmiller said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@flaxking said in Researching OpenDental Software:

There's so many industries with niche LoB applications that are ripe for a shake-up by modern competitors. The issue is getting the business knowledge in order to make a competing product.

And getting the customers to care. In many cases, just because you make a better mouse trap, doesn't mean that someone will buy it.

I've seen the prices they are paying, I don't think it would be hard to build a cheaper mouse trap too.

Oh I know, but even cheaper often doesn't matter. There is a pain to switching, and that alone is more than many will contemplate, regardless of potential profits.

IRJ

PHI complicates things ALOT, too.

Dashrender

@scottalanmiller said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@flaxking said in Researching OpenDental Software:

There's so many industries with niche LoB applications that are ripe for a shake-up by modern competitors. The issue is getting the business knowledge in order to make a competing product.

And getting the customers to care. In many cases, just because you make a better mouse trap, doesn't mean that someone will buy it.

This is so true. It's not simply buying the new software, it's moving the old data over, or the customer now having to deal with two systems, for god knows how long... it's generally pretty damned expensive to change systems...

scottalanmiller

@Dashrender said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@scottalanmiller said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@flaxking said in Researching OpenDental Software:

There's so many industries with niche LoB applications that are ripe for a shake-up by modern competitors. The issue is getting the business knowledge in order to make a competing product.

And getting the customers to care. In many cases, just because you make a better mouse trap, doesn't mean that someone will buy it.

This is so true. It's not simply buying the new software, it's moving the old data over, or the customer now having to deal with two systems, for god knows how long... it's generally pretty damned expensive to change systems...

And don't forget learning curve.

Dashrender

@scottalanmiller said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@Dashrender said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@scottalanmiller said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@flaxking said in Researching OpenDental Software:

There's so many industries with niche LoB applications that are ripe for a shake-up by modern competitors. The issue is getting the business knowledge in order to make a competing product.

And getting the customers to care. In many cases, just because you make a better mouse trap, doesn't mean that someone will buy it.

This is so true. It's not simply buying the new software, it's moving the old data over, or the customer now having to deal with two systems, for god knows how long... it's generally pretty damned expensive to change systems...

And don't forget learning curve.

Exactly.

I'm having this exact with with a client now. They have a 20+ year old AS/400, yes a real AS/400 that is still running their back end systems... I've been talking to them for 5+ years to upgrade to at least a current version of their system or move to something else... still waiting.

scottalanmiller

Linux MySQL Install....

MySQL

Install MySQL from RPM or install package that best matches system from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.5.html.
Setup grant tables on Linux by running the following commands. This is documented at: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/grant.html.

GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY '';GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '';

Edit the MySQL configuration file named my.cnf to disable the use of innoDB tables by default. The my.cnf file is usually located at the path /etc/init.d/my.cnf. Add the following text on its own line: default-storage-engine=MyISAMâ€‹.

When done, the my.cnf file should look very similar to the my.ini file that's described on MySQL Server Variables. There should not be a lot of additional clutter.

Copy a blank or current OpenDental database to the Linux server.

Each Linux installation might have a different MySQL data location or path. The database path is documented in my.cnf and is defined on a line starting with datadir=.

Copy the database files to a folder that you create in the data directory. For example, if the path is /var/lib/mysql and opendental is the name of your new database, copy to /var/lib/mysql/opendental/.

Ensure the newly created database folder has permissions for MySQL to access the files. Either set the owner to the mysql user or set the folder permissions to allow access to all users. Open a terminal window and type one of the two commands (change the directory path to match your actual database path): chown -R mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql/opendental or chmod -R 777 /var/lib/mysql/opendental.

scottalanmiller

So in the above directions, where the heck are we supposed to get the "blank" database from? WTF

Dashrender

@scottalanmiller said in Researching OpenDental Software:

So in the above directions, where the heck are we supposed to get the "blank" database from? WTF

I was wondering that myself.

scottalanmiller

@Dashrender said in Researching OpenDental Software:

@scottalanmiller said in Researching OpenDental Software:

So in the above directions, where the heck are we supposed to get the "blank" database from? WTF

I was wondering that myself.

They even have a page just for that, with zero details...

https://www.opendental.com/manual/usingodblank.html

scottalanmiller

Their blank database page sends you to an installation page, which sends you right back to the same blank database page.

stacksofplates

@scottalanmiller said in Researching OpenDental Software:

So in the above directions, where the heck are we supposed to get the "blank" database from? WTF

From what that page I looked sounded like when you install the trial it stuff up the schema.