Bento: The Snack-Size Database

By Mary Branscombe, published on January 18, 2008
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: , , | Themes: Business, Laptops and Notebooks, Software
Contents
  • 3. Bento: The Snack-Size Database

3. Bento: The Snack-Size Database

The latest version of FileMaker’s venerable database adds Leopard compatibility. But the interface is the same as it has been for years and while FileMaker is one of the simplest databases on any platform, that’s only simple compared to other database tools. FileMaker announced a $49 database tool at MacWorld called Bento, using drag and drop and links to iCal and Leopard’s Address Book to let you create simple tools that organize your information.

filemaker bento

Organizing information with Bento is like building your own simple applications.

With iCal and Address Book the link is two way, so you can extend the details by adding extra fields and items like video clips but you don’t have to update phone numbers in two places. If you group records into ‘collections’ by hand or using rules, you’ll still see these as groups when you go back to Address Book so you can separate personal and business contacts. The layout reflows as you add or delete fields and you can choose from 20 pre-designed themes as well as creating your own form layouts, so you get a professional result.

There are 23 more ‘library’ templates for organizing information like expenses, iTunes downloads or an eBay business and you can link two collections without needing to know anything about relational databases. Bento doesn’t have the power of a full database tool like FileMaker itself but it’s an appealing tool for organizing the kind of personal information you often keep in an unwieldy spreadsheet into a sleek Leopard-look interface.

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Comments


mbmcavoy 01/18/2008 9:20 AM
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mbmcavoy
"For an additional $1,300, Apple offers a 64GB SSD instead of the standard 80GB HDD."

$1,300 will get you both the SSD and the faster processor. The SSD alone is "only" $1000. Yes, even Steve Jobs calls it "pricey"!

My question is, can you use the "remote disk" if you need to re-install the OS?
Deleted profile 01/19/2008 4:16 AM
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PATA has a burstrate of 100MB/s not 100MBps, big difference.
Deleted profile 01/19/2008 11:46 AM
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^^^ What? Dude, you just wrote the exact same thing just in two different ways. The p in MBps means "per." Lo and behold, the slash also means per--same thing...
Deleted profile 01/19/2008 11:52 AM
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Now, maybe you meant to point out the difference between B and b...but it seems to me like you don't really know what you're talking about.
Deleted profile 01/20/2008 6:47 AM
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Guess he doesn't know the difference between a bit and a byte.
jklimes 01/20/2008 11:35 AM
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jklimes
Hah, this article made me laugh! Please Mary, are you some kind of agriculture expert? Cos IT is not your friend as we can see here. First off, you mention that MBA lacks lot of ports (seems you wrote down all you know of). I agree, but I am not sure any of the other ultraportables has eSata or Fire Wire - and whats that with the VGA? You already have mDVI and if it was the case to connect an older display - adapter is your way. And ethernet over USB is only 100Mbps - well every other joe has a gigabit switch down in his basement. "You can?t crack the case open in a year?s time", maybe not in a years time, can do it tommorow. You can even replace the battery if you will, changing HDD is a minute job. Now you cant add or replace the RAM, that is true. Mind you OS X has pretty neat memory management and 2 Gigs is far enough for anything you throw at it. Except 3D creation and A/V editing - but you wont do that on an ultraportable would you? In case you use MBA during long flights I would suggest flight power adapter. And I cant really remember the last time I ve seen someone with ultraportable carrying two spare extended battery packs around. The part about CPU and HDD is best to be skipped altogether, since you had hard time with numbers and units. Let me tell you just one thing - no 4200 nor 5600 hard drives can utilize SATA theoretical bandwidth, you wont notice any difference between PATA and SATA in this case (like with Raptors using still SATA 1). What is interesting for us - PATA uses less power over the same SATA drive. Finally, the R500 is a fine piece of technology, but 1,2 Ghz ULV and Vista do not like each other very much (tried it myself). Plus 12 inch disp and limited baterry pack give you the impression at whom are R500 and MBA aimed at. To make myself clear, I am not mac addict, nor am I going to buy MBA or any other apple stuff. But the next time you are going to write an article, please make yourself sure you understand the topic quite well.
cc3d 01/20/2008 3:17 AM
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cc3d
There is no reason to buy this laptop. He list more things it does NOT have than it does. It's thin and it's light. I guess that's important when you're sitting in Starbucks pretending to update your resume becasue nobody will hire your tree-huggin a$$!
Deleted profile 01/21/2008 12:35 PM
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LOL. 100MB/s = 100MBps

Perhaps you meant to say 100Mbps ( notice the lower case b )
Yes, it changes it by a lot - a factor of 8 really
fyi - 8bits=1Byte
rta 01/21/2008 2:42 AM
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rta
why do i just have this urge to bend on in half until it snaps?
Deleted profile 02/06/2008 8:10 AM
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I have long missed MS Access on mac OSX. This looks promising and I want to know more!

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