Stuart said:
I have an Access database I created that I would like to share with several
of my friends who do not have Microsoft Office Access. Access can write
intermediate files in many formats to interface with freeware. I have a lot
of macros they will not be able to use, but just the basic data viewed in
various sorted orders would help them.
Recommendations?
Stuart//
I don't know which caliber solution you had in mind, but for simply
replacing Access the natural coice would be OpenOffice.org Base
<
www.openoffice.org>. In addition to being a fully functional standalone
DB comparable to Access, Base can also function as a front end for a
server database.
On the meatier side, there's of course the classical client-server
-configuration. Main options there are the industry standard open source
champion MySQL <
http://www.mysql.com/> and the runner up, which some
consider better allthough it's not as well known, PostgreSQL
<
http://www.postgresql.org/>. With server DB you would of course need a
client or a front end application, as discussed before. In case you
would want to, at least MySQL can also be run on a single workstation.
In summary: Your options would be to get your friends install OO.o, and
why not try it yourself in the process, or set up a server with
Postgre-/MySQL and give them web access either with OO.o or some other
frontend. Perhaps Apache with PHP?
I hope this wasn't too confusing, if you don't know what client-server
configuration is, you don't need to worry about it. Just get yer OO.o
and I'd guess you'll be happy as a clam.
K
