Managing a pgsql backend on both a Linux & WinNT workstation with a MSAccess Frontend?

Hi all,

I was wondering if I am using MS Access as my front end on a WinNT OS
could I connect with ODBC to a PostgreSQL/WindowsNT/Cygnus database
running on the same machine.

I know that I can connect up to PostgreSQL on a remote machine but I
want to be able to do it on the "Same" workstation. So now you ask why?

Well I have an existing geochemical database (frontend & backend) in MS
Access. I am ready to make changes to update it to version 3 and I want
to put the backend in PostgreSQL so it will run more efficiently on a
server. My users will be geologists. So they will sometimes be in the
office connected to the server and typing their sample data into a blank
pgsql database which they will have write access to. But often they
will be out in the Peruvian Andes "way" far and beyond a link to the
server. So they will be working (adding new samples) on an isolated
Windows NT notebook with the same MSAcess frontend but with the backend
database residing on their personal hard drive. When they return to the
office, down load their personal database to the DB manager and then he
will append it to the master database.

Since I know that I will have to re-write many/all of my Visual Basic
functions that I use in queries to C++ or pl/pgsql, I want to avoid
having to maintain two versions in 2 different programing languages. I
figured I will try to write my functions in C++ since I know it better
than C and I figured I would be able to re-compile on for must about any
backend database or OS. It would be easier to keep the local harddrive
database in an Access database but then I have to keep 2 versions of my
modules/triggers/functions.

I have been using this system of a blank db to input new samples and a
main server residing db with all the samples for the last 4 years and it
works easily and smoothly in MSAccess. But I am a little unsure how it
will all work when I migrate the backend to pgsql. Migrating the the
Win NT workstations/notebooks to Linux is not an option since we need
some windows based programs such as ArcView, MapInfo, ERMapper &
MedSystems (for the mine modeling). Also I am planning to utilize the
pgsql database information with these window programs through ODBC. (I
suspect that MapInfo will be the biggest or most impossible hurdle since
likes only "its" ODBC drivers).

Any comments or suggestions will be very appreciated. And any progress
I make I will keep you posted if anyone is interested. Any
geologists/geochemists out there using pgsql?

Thanks,

Phillip J. Allen
Consulting Geochemist/Geologist
Lima Peru
e-mail: paallen(at)attglobal(dot)net