One thing that people keep asking me is when Microsoft is going to add Access to the Mac.  I eally don’t think that will happen. Microsoft is committed to their operating system, and I rather doubt that they will want to port something as vital to their interests as Access over to the Mac.  Apple has seen this and that is why they added CoreData to their operating system services.

CoreData is data persistence and querying built into the operating system itself.  In order to take advantge of this system you will have to know objective c and the xcode development system.  This is not Access though.  Acces is databses for the rest of us.  I started to look around for an Access-like database system.  I thought Bento might be it, but Bento is really for organizing information on a more simplistic system.  Yojimbo really does not have the ability to make form based data like Bento.  So what is the answer?

The answer comes from an unlikely source;  OpenOffice, or NeoOffice.  Right now OpenOffice is in 3.0 Beta, but the cool thing about that is that 3.0 has been rendered into a Universal app for Macs.  What that means is that we have access to hsqldb databases created in the Base portion of the application.  Now we had this since version 2.0 NeoOffice.  I am not putting down the efforts of the NeoOffice group, but a Mac Native app from OpenOffice is more interesting to me.

OpenOffice uses hsqldb, a database written entirely in Java which is platform independent as long as we have the Java runtime in our system.  In fact if you create a database in OpenOffice on the Mac, that database is completely portable to any system that has OpenOffice installed on it (and Java of course.)  Reporting is quite capable in OpenOffice (It uses the Wrtie component to build it’s reports.)  Base is also capable of linking to any system for which is has ODBC drivers or JDBC Drivers.  I’d like it to use JavaDB, but that requires 6.0 support in Mac OSX.

Right now if you want to make databases with a solid product, I would recommend you use NeoOffice until OpenOffice 3.0 is nearer to production quality.  I know that  few people have been screaming at me for me to mention FileMaker pro, et. al.  The poblem with FileMaker pro is the cost.  If all you want is Access-like functionality OpenOffice’s Base is probably the best bet for the price, free.

When I am home I try to write something in here.  I’m not in San Antonio directly, so I decided that I would just let you know that I might or might not be entering something in here for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Sty tuned.

This might seem a little weird, but I have another winner in the Note managment side of things.  Yesterday I talked about Notebook being the winner for Note taking software, and it still is, but I have a change in mind.  Note management can take the form of any different metaphors.  For some people a notebook metaphor works best for them, but I am project based more often than not.  Project based systems work with collections of documents for a single purpose, and being able to search through all documents is more important than organizing everything.

The winner in the category is Eaglefiler.  It wins because of two considerations.  It does not force me iinto some kind of mental gymnastics to make everything work.  Eaglefiler works like a super-directory list.  In fact the libraries are directories that contain certain files.  Everything moved into Eaglefiler is actually copied and placed into subdirectories of the library.  The thing that makes eagle filer a little different from a directory list is the ability to make rtfd documents from within the software.  The directory list is a view on the EagleFiler database.  Searches are fast, but only on titles in the database.  Spotlight search if you want to search the insides of documents.

The interesting thing about EagleFiler is the ability to tag files for use in smart folders, something you can’t do in OSX, just yet.  You can even move files into the library with drag and drop.  the problem with other applications is that they want to import the file into their system.  I want to be able to work with the file from inside the note managment system.  You can’t work with a file if it is in a database, somewhere.  I’d rather work with linked files.  At least I can find them easily within the EagleFiler window.

Eaglefiler does not have the forms that other programs have, and it really isn’t a database in the traditional sense as bento and yojimbo are.  It’s that rare program that gets out of your way to allow you work as you like with it.  If you’re not interested in a notebook metaphor system, then take a look at EagleFiler
EDIT————————————————————
I made a statement earlier in the entry and I want to correct it. Rather than correct it in a hidden fashion, I wanted to show the correction. Earlier I said that EagleFiler does not search inside the documents, and I was in error on that score. Eagle Filer does indeed search inside the documents, which makes all that much better if searching your notes is what you need and want.

For the Macintosh the plethora of note management software is huge. I spent the last 6 months looking for the note management software I would recommend and use on my projects. I can at last reveal my findings.

A few caveats before we begin:

• This is my opinion

• Just because I don’t mention your favorite does not mean that I hate it.

• Feel free to comments about my choice

The winner of my favorite note taking and management software is Circus Ponies Notebook. My first note taking and management software introduction was using MS OneNote on the PC. That software used the notebook metaphor with pages and tabbed dividers and etc. That metaphor has worked for me, and so Circus Ponies Notebook, which also used the notebook metaphor, had me going great guns right from the beginning

As I stated before Notebook uses a notebook metaphor, and each notebook is contained in its own file. You can have more than one open notebook. There is one thing that’s missing which I wished it had, but I made it happen any way is to have a Notebook aggregator, a view in which all the notebooks in a directory or attached to the aggregator can be accessed. I made do with a single notebook which is opened automatically. I linked the other notebooks in the directory onto a page. All I have to do is double click, and the file opens in Notebook.

I use this note taking and Management software to also manage files in the various projects I have. By being able to link files in the section of the notebook, I bring together all of the chapter files into one location. I don’t have to dig through the folder to find the file. Other kinds of Note management software wanted to import everything into the file, which is not how I work. I build chapter modules and then link them together in a file. Sometimes one can have too many open windows.

Notebook also indexes the notes in the file for quicker searches. Some of my project notebooks can get quite large, especially when I start to aggregate my web surfing into the files. Yes, I know that Devonthink allows me to bring in files and then have DevonThink’s very powerful search engine work it’s magic. It didn’t have the notebook metaphor that I’ve come to love. If I had a second choice, it would be DEVONthink pro.