Spotlight on Freeware: Specialized Databases
Welcome to part six of my series on Palm freeware. This week I am highlighting specialized databases. Specialized databases are small standalone applications designed to store and easily access a specific type of data.
This article showcases three of these applications:
Food by Alan Harder is a specialized database for tracking information about restaurants. Food allows you to categorize restaurants by cuisine type, location, and four special features (by default take out, reservations, free refills, and my favorites). Food supports 16 cuisine types and 16 locations, all of which are configurable. The four special features are also configurable and should reflect the restaurant features most important to you. Once this global configuration is finished you can start adding restaurants to the database. For each restaurant you can write a brief description noting favorite foods, driving directions, or other information as well as choosing its location and cuisine type. You can also rate each restaurant. All of the entered restaurants are listed in the main screen, ordered alphabetically by name by default. You can also sort this list by cuisine type, location, or rating. You can filter the database by location, cuisine type, any combination of the four special features, or hours of operation. For those of us who have difficulty choosing a restaurant, Food will randomly select one by spinning a wheel with restaurant names on it.
HandyShopper by Christopher Antos is a specialized database for managing shopping lists. It lets you define multiple stores and categories. Each item can be assigned to one or more stores and assigned a category. Unless specified as a one time purchase, items will permanently remain in the All panel. Check off any item in that panel when you need to purchase it. When you go shopping, move to the Need panel. All of the items checked in the all panel will appear unchecked. You can filter this list by store and/or category if desired. Once you purchase an item, you can check it off and enter the price you paid. You can tap the button at the top of the price column for the current total cost of your purchases. There is also a Coupon panel that works like the Need panel but only shows items for which you have coupons (specified by checking off the coupon box when you enter the item).
SoftTrack by PalmGear HQ is a specialized database for tracking Palm software. It automatically reads in each application on your Palm and makes an entry for it containing its name, version number, date installed and whether it resides in Flash or RAM. Each entry also has a place to specify if the proqram is freeware, registered shareware, unregistered shareware, or commercial. Built-in applications are automatically categorized as Palm OS. You can specify the software author with contact information for all programs and specify the registration codes and place of purchase for registered shareware.
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