View Single Post
Posts: 35 | Thanked: 64 times | Joined on Aug 2006 @ Somerville, MA
#15
Don't have a 770 yet, although I've considered getting one. Given that I have the Zaurus, it doesn't seem like the 770 would really gain me all that much...would be fun to play with and I'd probably find some neat uses for it, but I don't know if I'd really use it on a regular basis. I just make it a point to keep an eye out for new handheld Linux devices...the lack of any real improvements in the Zaurus for the past couple of years has been aggravating. I'd really like to see a new PDA using Qtopia 4, but no such luck yet...

I used Pilot-DB back when I had a Handspring Visor, and writing a replacement for that program (that fixed some of my gripes with it) was my top priority when I got my first Zaurus. One of my friends still uses a Psion extensively, and buys spares on eBay to make sure he'll always have a usable one for years to come; some of the features in PortaBase derived from suggestions he made based on experience with the Psion database.

It does amaze me that there aren't more good basic database programs...it seems like most people looking for something more structured than text files for storing their data end up leaping all the way up in complexity to MS Access or a database server like MySQL. I've found that having sorting and filtering of just one table of data is pretty darn useful while still being easy to understand: TODO lists, financial transactions, possessions inventory, usernames and passwords, and so on. Adding more related tables definitely expands the range of things you can do, but usually pushes the complexity above the point where anybody less technical than a programmer or business analyst is likely to bother. Tried adding support for additional data tables in PortaBase at one point, eventually gave up on it because the code and UI just got vastly more confusing.

Hope you guys manage to find or write something suitable; I probably won't end up doing any coding for the 770, but I might be tempted by a successor model if it's spiffy enough. Meanwhile, I'll try to get a new PortaBase release out which separates the UI from the data storage well enough that it would be easier to port to new platforms and libraries...if you don't find anything else in the next few months, somebody might get some mileage out of that.