Geeks? Mac/PC best database software?

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 12:47 pm

I've been bequeathed the geek seat on the local Community Concert Association Board.

(why? Oh, don't even ask. My mother runs the ship there, and I'm not afraid of computers. Listen. Really. I pooped out on teaching Sunday school a few years ago when my personal theological conflicts kept causing me to short-circuit. Not pretty. Especially in front of kids. Plus, I could imagine the fall-out when Suzy and Billy started to tell their folks that today they learned all about pantheism.)

Anyway, the gentleman from whom I'm taking over gave me a tour of his Appleworks database set-up today, and I anticipate some revisions will be needed.

I have Appleworks. Trouble is, it's basically a lame duck in that everyone else uses MacOffice or whatever. MacOffice does not, as far as I can tell, offer any sort of database. And given that I may decide to totally redo, I'm looking for thoughts on best cross-compatible database to use. Would this be FileMaker? I don't want to store the stuff online. Comcast isn't always that reliable.

It's information of the address list, membership status, mailing label, sort.

chrisoff · Post by **chrisoff** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 2:57 pm

MYSQL is available for Mac. It's excellent and as it's open source it's also free.

On a PC I'd rate it up there with the big guns like Oracle (my overall favourite for speed and power) and MS SQL Server.

Although depending on your requirements these may be sledgehammer and nut options.

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:05 pm

FileMaker is a nice user friendly application. It has a simplified user interface that can be learned quickly and many people know it much like M$Access (which,as you know, is not available on MAC).

MySQL may be over kill, depending on your data, but I think that it may continue to grow and nice front ends may follow.

It all comes down to the amount and type of data.

I'm not a real hacker though.

chrisoff · Post by **chrisoff** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:11 pm

I.D.10-t wrote: MySQL may be over kill, depending on your data, but I think that it may continue to grow and nice front ends may follow.

There's a couple of good front ends available for it just now, but yeah it depends on your needs really.

Just don't use Access. I hate Access.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:33 pm

Most likely I'll plod along with what I've got for now, but the advice will be of help should PC compatibility become a necessity.

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:43 pm

emmline wrote: It's information of the address list, membership status, mailing label, sort.

That kind of information doesn’t seem like it really needs the heavy-duty database program like MySQL. Filemaker now (I think) can burn CDs that can be opened (read only) on a computer without having the Filmmaker software installed. It has some kind of built in reader.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don’t worry, chrisoff, Access is not available for the Mac. I always thought that it was a pain that to do anything useful in it you needed to buy visual basic.

I remember that Open Office was doing dome work with gui’s for Databases, but never had the opportunity to work on it.

http://dba.openoffice.org/index.html

bigpalooka · Post by **bigpalooka** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 10:22 am

Don’t worry, chrisoff, Access is not available for the Mac. I always thought that it was a pain that to do anything useful in it you needed to buy visual basic.

That's not exactly true. Visual Basic is included with Access (and Excel and Word). You don't have to buy it separately, just find in the manual how to get at it. But he's right that if you want to do anything useful in it you need to learn it. I make my living with Access and the other Microsoft stuff. Access is an expensive option with a big learning curve if you're doing mailing lists and membership lists. MySQL and SQLServer Express have big learning curves too, but they're free.

lenf · Post by **lenf** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 10:35 am

emmline wrote:Most likely I'll plod along with what I've got for now, but the advice will be of help should PC compatibility become a necessity.

It sounds like a pretty simple database, so I'd second the idea of plodding along with AppleWorks for the present, or at least as long as it can stay on Macs alone. FileMaker is easy, almost fun to use, if you decide the database needs improving though. I wouldn't sink much time into expanding or rebuilding a database in AppleWorks.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 10:39 am

bigpalooka wrote:
Don’t worry, chrisoff, Access is not available for the Mac. I always thought that it was a pain that to do anything useful in it you needed to buy visual basic.
That's not exactly true. Visual Basic is included with Access (and Excel and Word). You don't have to buy it separately, just find in the manual how to get at it. But he's right that if you want to do anything useful in it you need to learn it. I make my living with Access and the other Microsoft stuff. Access is an expensive option with a big learning curve if you're doing mailing lists and membership lists. MySQL and SQLServer Express have big learning curves too, but they're free.

I make my living programming in VB, but often (like for my website) when I just need data entry type stuff, I do it straight in Access using VBA (visual basic for applications) and Access forms. No need to buy VB at all. It's built right into the database.

bradhurley · Post by **bradhurley** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:15 am

Although it's generally a bad idea to use spreadsheets to manage a database, the tasks you describe (managing address lists, membership status, and generating mailing labels) could be handled by Excel or another spreadsheet program. (I think you need Word to actually format the mailing labels if you're using Excel, but if you have Excel you probably already have Word).

You don't need a high-powered relational database for these sorts of simple tasks. If, on the other hand, you need (or think you might eventually need) to track information about the members, such as which concerts each member has gone to, or how many times they've given a donation to the organization, then a relational database is the way to go.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:19 am

lenf wrote:
emmline wrote:Most likely I'll plod along with what I've got for now, but the advice will be of help should PC compatibility become a necessity.
It sounds like a pretty simple database, so I'd second the idea of plodding along with AppleWorks for the present, or at least as long as it can stay on Macs alone. FileMaker is easy, almost fun to use, if you decide the database needs improving though. I wouldn't sink much time into expanding or rebuilding a database in AppleWorks.

Yes. That's where I stand on it.
If necessary, then FileMaker, but I hope not until there are other compelling reasons to upgrade from G3 to whatever's newest.

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:41 am

I just dropped by to say I couldn't help. But I wish I could. I really do.

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:54 am

Flyingcursor wrote:I just dropped by to say I couldn't help. But I wish I could. I really do.

Fly, I could unquestionably wrangle you a seat on the Anne Arundel County Concert Association Board. It's far too chick-heavy.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 12:01 pm

Back when I did mac work, I worked with Filemaker and I liked it quite a bit...but you know, that was like 15 years ago, so I don't really feel qualified to help much now

djm · Post by **djm** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 2:06 pm

If you're not a programmer of any type, MySQL is going to be the death of you. I program, but as I also instruct beginners, I am also familiar with the need to simplify. Do you want to be a programmer, or do you just want to keep up a simple address list? You might find that all the functionality you need is in a spreadsheet program like Excel, etc.

djm