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Off topic: Good, inexpensive database
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Oct 3, 2009 at 02:59 PM
Thank you to everyone who has responded to my inquiry. (What a great community this is!!!)
I actually own a copy of Alpha Five version 8. I tried this on my PC at work (a relatively new machine) and found it to be extremely slow. In fact, I found that the dialog boxes sometimes didn’t change even as I clicked a new tab in them. This, of course, was very frustrating. Add to this the fact that, while easier than Access, A5 still takes a lot of set up and it just seems way more complex than my simple needs. (I need a database with about 12 fields, which can also print various reports.)
Database Oasis has been pretty good so far, but as I said, I would love it to have a note field with rich text. Also, while not expensive, it does seem relatively costly for an application that relies upon the Net framework.
I had forgotten about File Amigo… there free addition may do the trick. I’ll give it a try next week.
Thanks, again, everyone!
Steve Z.
Posted by pereh
Oct 3, 2009 at 07:47 PM
Achim wrote:
>Hello alltogether and especially Steve Z.,
>
>I’m here as a reader for some years but
>now there’s the chance for a first post (maybe my english is a bit clunky - I’m german).
>
>Few days ago I stumbled upon
>http://www.brilliantdatabase.com/
>and it seems
>that it is not yet mentioned here.
>Had not much time to fiddle around with it but here’s
>what I found out so far:
>
>+ starts at 79,- (One can obtain a free license for
>translating the UI into a yet missing language.)
>+ supports various types of links &
>relations
>+ uses forms instead of tables
>+ provides calendars & diagrams
>+
>supports scripts
>+ database size up to 4 GB
>+ supports rtf-fields (important for me
>as a writer)
>+ exports to Access, Word, Excel, Webpage, Email and various text
>formats
>+ imports from the same - plus Outlook and various database formats
>+
>displays forms and records in a tree
>+ supports attachments (up to 64 MB each)
>+ seems
>pretty stable so far
>+ continuous development (current version is 8.3)
>
>I hadn’t
>yet the time to test it with big amounts of data, but performance with the sample
>databases seems OK
>
>o it’s even a bit more geeky than Ultra Recall but also much more
>flexible - and more convenient than Access or FileMaker
>
>- interface is not on the
>stylish side
>- drag & drop could be more developed
>- can create standalone databases
>(exes) but only in the sdk version - for 1500, $ :-(
>- no user forum (at least I didn’t
>find one) but lots of tutorials, videos, samples and a good help-file.
>- weak
>outlining features (only through the forms tree)
>- no mind mapping features
>- afaik
>no dedicated feature for web-capturing (maybe it’s possible with some workarounds,
>scripts or whatever)
>- no compression (besides compacting)
>- no indexing (but
>convenient search-features)
>
>All in all I would say it’s a very interesting desktop
>database.(errors excepted :-))
>
>best regards
>
>Achim
>
Hello Achim,
there is another very important possibility this software has: it allows 1:1 and 1:n relations between database tables. For me, this is essential, because I want to build up relational databases. Now my list of suitable candidates has two entries: Alpha 5 and Brilliant DB.
Thanks very much for mentioning it here!
Peter.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Oct 4, 2009 at 06:58 AM
Hello Achim, and thanks for your first post; I hope that more will follow :-)
Thanks for the heads-up on Brilliant Database; I think it has been mentioned here in the past but I hadn’t noted it at the time. Indeed it seems like a capable product at a very competitive price.
@Steve: As expensive as the SDK sounds, I find the price reasonable as one can use it to develop commercial applications and make money selling them. On the other hand, even for databases used in a corporate environment, one can simply use a copy of the commercial Pro version ($149) to develop the base and a copy of the server ($199) to run it on; from then on it’s just one Workplace license per user ($39) which sounds like a good deal.
Regarding Alpha Five, I admit that I haven’t used it much, so I can’t vouch for its performance.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Oct 4, 2009 at 07:01 AM
Sorry, I put @Steve in the wrong place; this is how it should have been:
(continued to Achim) As expensive as the SDK sounds, I find the price reasonable as one can use it to develop commercial applications and make money selling them. On the other hand, even for databases used in a corporate environment, one can simply use a copy of the commercial Pro version ($149) to develop the base and a copy of the server ($199) to run it on; from then on it’s just one Workplace license per user ($39) which sounds like a good deal.
@Steve: Regarding Alpha Five, I admit that I haven’t used it much, so I can’t vouch for its performance.
Posted by moritz
Oct 5, 2009 at 01:21 AM
Doesn’t then Microsoft Access come into play again where the runtime allows for free redistribution of your database & code?
Apparently street price has come down to $150 including free shipping ...
I personally like the reporting + email options (Outlook metadata and contacts integration, data collection) in 2007 a lot (+ works well with SharePoint for simple multi-user scenarios) ... another bonus is that it’s so ubiquitous that there are probably a million ready to use templates available on the web (including on microsoft.com/office).
Disclaimer: I am not currently using it much as most of my current applications are either fully spreadsheet based or require more flexible conventions than what a standard database can offer ...
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>Sorry, I put @Steve in the wrong place; this is how it should have been:
>
>
>(continued
>to Achim) As expensive as the SDK sounds, I find the price reasonable as one can use it to
>develop commercial applications and make money selling them. On the other hand, even
>for databases used in a corporate environment, one can simply use a copy of the
>commercial Pro version ($149) to develop the base and a copy of the server ($199) to run
>it on; from then on it?s just one Workplace license per user ($39) which sounds
>like a good deal.