Hello,

Im going to be using windows for the user aspect.

First I need to create a small program that 'phones home' when a client starts their windows machine, to connect to my database on linux.

The database needs to contain entries (name, addresses, etc), but I also need the database to countdown from 24 hours, and if its longer than 24 hours since the user started their machine, the database flag it up to me.

I've got no database experience, so I have no idea if this is possible,

If you are in a windows domain this is as easy as sending a log over and parsing it and putting it into your database.

If you are NOT in a windows domain and you want to do this on a computer running windows then you can use a windows script and plink to connect to the remote computer and output into a log which you can then parse and put in your database.

You could also use the windows mysql client to put the record into your database.

Or you can create a client/server program where the client runs in windows and forwards auth events to a listener on your linux box that then parses it and puts it into your database.

In short, its possible in lots of different ways.

Thanks szboardstretcher,

I want to create a way that informs me when an elderly person dont start their machines in 24 hours maybe because they have a medical problem.

But If they start their machine and the program connects to my database in 24 hours I know they're alright.

you could do that with just a "ping" to your server from the client

Without knowing all the details IMHO not sure I would not rely on something like as a way to check on an elderly person.
You could use windows task scheduler to run a client app at boot up. Something as simple as nc that sends a message. Nc on the server that pipes the name to a script that saves it with a time stamp. A cron job could be used to check times and send a signal of some type. Kind of messy but no complicated programming skills required.

http://kudithipudi.org/2011/07/14/ho...-on-windows-7/

Thanks guys