For the past several years I've been keeping photo-related records
in a crude database made of linked Excel spreadsheets. Despite
performance issues and the nagging feeling that I really, really
ought to replace so crufty a kludge with something that uses a
mSQL, MySQL, Postgress, or 4th Dimension backend as soon as I get
a round tuit for writing a data-entry frontend as convenient as the
spreadsheets, this has mostly worked pretty well.
Until I started using a PDA.
Of course I want to enter data on whichever device is handiest, and
if I'm not already sitting in front of a computer that means the PDA.
Syncing a simple spreadsheet between the copy on the file server and
the copy on the PDA is easy enough, but all those VLOOKUP() and
HLOOKUP() calls give Documents To Go (the PalmOS spreadsheet app I'm
using) indigestion. So I've got, on the LAN, a master copy of each
spreadsheet, and the simplified (for file size and screen-space as
well as functionality) copy from the most recent HotSync operation
on the PDA, and I'm manually reconciling those every so often (not
_too_ painful as long as all the data entry was done on one side,
but it still pushes my "I should've automated this by now" buttons).
So that's one problem: maintaining parallel versions due to
differences in the capabilities of the two environments. The other
problem is simply size: right now the only records in the PDA copy
of the exposed-roll table are a) stuff I've shot since I started
using the PDA (well, since I got a spreadsheet app for it), and
b) stuff I've developed (or paid someone else to develop) recently.
I'd like to have that entire table in the palm of my hand, but it's
over a thousand records and the PDA is a wee thing with a lot else
already cluttering its memory (and I'm not sure what DTG's limit is).
At this point I'm not really at the "ask specific questions" stage,
more musing aloud and hoping others who have gone in similar
directions have insights to offer.
I haven't really investigated the DBMS options for PalmOS yet --
perhaps there's something out there that'll play nice with one of
the free SQL databases than run under Linux? (I'm into hosting
most of my infrastructure / back-end on Linux and accessing it via
Windows and MacOS desktops and telnet. Using Excel under Windows
as my database is a bit of an anomaly for me.) Or should I hold
my breath and wait for a hand-me-down laptop? (There's a small
chance that an OS X machine might be coming my way "soon" for a
very loose definition of "soon"; but nothing definite or even
solidly in the "likely" category yet.)
So who else here is logging film on a PDA? How ambitious is your
recordkeeping, and how's it working out for you? What are you
using?
And as long as I'm thinking of it, is there a WLAN module for the
Sony Clie?
-- Glenn
