I’m using a speradsheet instead of a database. Access is too difficult for me. Any ideas, please? Think along the line of a database for your grandad 🙂

Can you carry on using excel? That’s pretty much already a database for grandads 🙂

Keep using the spreadsheet.

is access is too difficult for you then stick to excel.

Yup. Access is as easy as a database gets and if that’s got you stumped, excel is your only option

Filemaker is easier to use than Access. There are versions for Windows & Mac OSX. If you were using a Mac, then Bento would be the answer.

Definitely FileMaker.

What are you going to use it for?

It depends on what you want to use the ‘database’ for, Access is fine as a single user database but once you have a few users accessing data concurrently it becomes a huge pain in the arse to maintain as its (contrary to popular belief) not really designed for that.

Tell us a little more about what your excel spreadsheet does, what it stores, what it looks like, how many users, etc…

Filemaker is very intuitive to use but not sure you’ll get it for free unless you get it for “free”…

Recent versions (7 onwards) are very powerful for building multi-file/multi-table relational databases and it has some pretty neat UI and scripting tools and with proper server editions it’s very stable for very large databases with many users. I use it all the time at work for school MIS development and maintenance.

It’s also very easy to build a simple flat-file database as well.

Open office

I’m trying OO but I honestly don’t understand how to go about the bleeding thing. Have to learn it somehow 🙁 Are there any good books (Database for Idiots?)

I’m guessing that the bit you’re finding difficult in Access is creating relationships between tables, creating keys etc? These things are intrinsic to databases, so there’s no getting around learning how they work if you want to create a proper database. Have a look on the internet for database tutorials, there’s thousands of them, some of them are even quite good. Better still, pay someone like me to do it for you 😀

Dom, email me if you can, please.

MySQL and EMS MySQLManager? More complicated than Access but good (if you like Open Source) and free…

Got a copy of EMS MySQL Manager somewhere if you want it.

Before recommending something – What are you trying to do with your database?

Is is possible that there is already a free/low cost/open source project that may already do what you want without the need for you to set up a database.

Feel free to get in touch direct if you need some advice.

i was thinking the same thing. if someone asked me to do them a database i’d try and point them towards something they was already build doing a similar job. why reinvent the wheel?

Don’t use the Open Office database. I’ve been using it for our bookings and it’s driving me mental. Not on the same planet as Access.

You can’t even manipulate dates with it FFS, so, for example, I can’t get it to give me a report on who’s arriving next week because it can’t handle something as simple as TODAY()+7…