Database Suggestions?

by Little Miss Attila on December 6, 2009

No, I am not keeping my Christmas Card list and my client list as text documents, and I don’t care for the accusation!

(Thanks, guys. You people are awesome. Parameters = must be Mac-compatible, should be free. Speaking of which, why is all the best software either free or incredibly expensive?)

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

smitty December 6, 2009 at 6:19 pm

Desktop: http://sqlite.org
Enterprise: http://www.postgresql.org

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Gregory December 6, 2009 at 7:42 pm

Ahem. Use a bazooka to swat a fly much?

Attila, if you are just keeping *lists*, then may I point out that most people just use Excel to do so? If you have a copy of Mac Office already installed, then that would be your best bet.

It does depend on what you need to do with the database. If we’re talking some heavy lifting, then Microsoft also has the free SQL Server 2008 Express, in addition to the two already mentioned above.

But if you just want a static, flat-file kind of stuff, then Excel will do admirably.

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smitty December 6, 2009 at 7:47 pm

@Gregory,
The free version would be GNUmeric. http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric
Or OpenOffice.

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Little Miss Attila December 6, 2009 at 8:23 pm

Gregory:

Excel is scary. It has formulae and stuff. (Okay, formulas. Whatever they are, they are scary.)

I know, I know: I put the “Amish” into “Amish tech support.”

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smitty December 6, 2009 at 8:30 pm

@LMA,
“Excel is scary.” And a correlated subquery is not?
Are we speaking of arithmetic, algebra, or calculus here?

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Gregory December 6, 2009 at 11:23 pm

smitty: Sure, as far as calculations and some financial analytics go. But Excel is far, far better at *lists* than the free spreadsheets. Which was sort of my point.

Attila: Again, it really does depend on what you want the database to do. If it’s just lists, then Excel doesn’t *need* formulas and stuff to do its magic. I should know; my ‘little black book’ is in Excel format.

If you’re looking for more complicated stuff, then a step up would be to run Access in Parallels or VMWare or WINE (if you have an existing Office Pro Plus or better for PC). Two steps up would be to use SQL Express… but then you need a nice frontend, and that’s a PITA to design.

So… generally speaking, what would you like to do with your database? 🙂 Like smitty says, arithmetic, algebra or calculus? 😛

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I R A Darth Aggie December 7, 2009 at 8:52 am

sqlite and the sqlite firefox extension:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5817

A quickie google search of “sqlite mac os x gui” turns up this:

http://saxmike.com/MySoftware/MySoftware.asp?Menu=MYSOFTWARE

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