Hi there!

Your comparison article is excellent! The only thing is that you should update the actual prices- ie Pentagon forms and Satellite forms have both recently increased their prices dramatically to an even higher level to those that you mention in your article. Pentagon forms now costs $149.00 and the "distribution kit" either $849.00 ("upgrade price") or $995.00. Satellite forms charges an upfront $795.00. The price inflation on both of these 2 softwares is incredible and should be mentioned... thanks!

Regards, 

Al Borges

Great review list, it helped me a lot.

Just one addition to Pendragon Forms....
I read, that they are planning to release ToolBox for $995 (ouch!) which will allow developers to distribute applications royalty free. In addition to ToolBox, you would have to buy InstallShield like tool also (more money). I am leaning towards your observation, that one might as well learn CodeWarrior. How complex is it? I am a C programmer, but on mini-systems live VAX etc... Haven't used CodeWarrior before..

Thanks.

Sushil

Great article on the PalmOS databases. Unfortunately, Puma Technologies when deciding to eliminate the run time cost has decdided to get the additional cost in the upfront price. Gee $795 up front? Someone is going to develop a shareware development package.

Julie:

You did a wonderful review a while back on all of the database products
for the PalmPilot.  I went to http://www.pumatech.com to see what was up
with Satellite Forms.  They now have 2 flavors; standard and
enterprise.  The standard package now allows unlimited runtime licenses!

The difference between the two editions can be seen at
http://www.pumatech.com/satforms_fam.html...just in case you ever decide
to do a database update...

You've got a great page, great work

Pat

The article was very helpful and you went into more detail than the
other sources I've looked for info.  I noticed you didn't mention
FMSync, a conduit that syncs FileMaker databases to JFile.  I think
you could maybe talk more about syncing Palm databases with larger
applications, as most people I think don't keep all their data on
their Palm.  Your article provided me with a lot of resources to look
for more info.  Thanks!

Heather Monica Blair

Hi
I'm quite new Pilot user but happy with my new Palm V. I have tried both
HanDBase and MobileDB and as I use my Palm more as a reference I like
certainly MobileDB more. It is very easy and fast to transfer table or query
from MSAccess to MobileDB. I just made new query to membership database
which collected 1000 names, addresses and email-addresses to 70k Palm
database, everything done in 15 minutes and next time I want to update
records from desktop it goes much faster.

Antti, from Finland

As a (very) new user of Palm products (III) this is extremely useful.
The screen shots are a very good idea of what I can expect, and the
comparison table at the end helps to restrain my enthusiasm for the
$369 item and focus my attention on something with a more modest price
:-)

You have produced an excellent document here!

Note on HanDBase 1.10: The Integer and Float field types still accepted
alpha characters. (i'm not sure if this is a bug or intentional.)

regards,
Tom

I think the sentence above can be included in "Pros:" (4k is quite high
compared to 200 characters limit in MobileDB) :-)

"List" can also categorize records (which can be considered as another
field and used as simple filter).


MobileDB
========
Because I am left-hander, I have installed "LeftHack". MobileBD has problems
with it (some buttons are no longer "clickable" because they are obscured
by text fields).


J-File, MobileDB, HanDBase
==========================
Pros:
All these three databases have quite unique (most Pilot programs don't
have it) and VERY useful button "Cancel" in edit screen.
("Undo" in other applications is nearly useless)


Dictionary v1.7
===============
Perhaps this product can also be included in this database review.
You can find it here:
http://www.evolutionary.net/dict-info.htm


Regards,

Ivan Prenosil

Hi Julie:

Just a quick note.  I think you did a fantastic job on your reviews.

I hope Pendragon and Satellite Forms folks got your review.  Maybe
they'll make some adjustments to their fee structure

Bottom line, I plan on getting all of the packages; runtime fee or no
runtime fee based on the reviews you provided.  I may become a master of
none but maybe something will click.

I hope to read further articles by you and any updates you provide on
the products you recently reviewed.

Patrick E Finucane

One thing you were missing in your database review: size of larger
databases.

I tried to convert my company's phone book to something for the Pilot.
~6000 entries -- name, extension, room number, and a couple more small
fields.
All text/string fields. Name=35 chars, rest were about a half-dozen each
-- ~60 chars per 'record' if I remember.

HanDBase was huge (600K?), JFile was the best (>300K) and MobileDB's
Converter would abort. I talked to Mobile Generation, too much data --
for the converter *and* MobileDB itself. I created 2 files (manually
splitting the list into A-M and N-Z), which worked but total memory was
400K+.

This was HanDbase 0.9x (0.99?), current JFile (3.1f?), Mobile DB 1.2 and
MobileDB's Converter 1.0. I haven't tried since, because...

I also created DOC files -- with compression and an extra space
character (separator) between each field, the DOC file was ~230K. [Using
a non-space separator char (e.g '|') and

Given the memory consumption of the data itself, the DOC file was the
most appealing. Most of the database programs would also have to be
loaded (I think I've got MobileDB freebie/readonly loaded but not the
others) but I've got a DOC reader already, the text becomes even more
attractive. By others as well -- I've got a Palm III but most only have
a PilotPro -- 1M doesn't go as far as it used to :-) No filters or sexy
search (just what the DOC reader supports, which is slower too), but
considering the memory tradeoff...

6000 records may be a lot for "typical" home user databases, but not so
when you hit the business user or technical user (not just computers --
try a database of medical drugs, construction materials, etc.)

    - Howard

I'm designing and developing a database system for cardiac rehabilitation
in Austria/Europe (basically as thesis for my master of science degree). As
a part I'm investigating the practicability of using the PalmPilot to hold
medical data for the PATIENT. Therefore of course I need a stable and full
featured database application (think of security aspects). The only SDK
reasonable was, how else could it be, Satellite Forms.

I think it's a fab, full featured and easy to use product, but the
PRRRIIIIIIIIIICCCCCCEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (After some mailings with Pumatech
they granted me 15% off the SDK - which unfortunately doesn't make it more
affordable).

But obviously they are making enough business to keep the price high. I
hope this will change, because Satellite Forms really is a fab product but
far to pricy. By the way, I think before Pumatech bought Softmagic (the
original manufacturer) the price was $699 and no royalty fees.

Could anyone big enough talk to the Pumatech guys about a reasonable
marketing?

Alfons Grabher

Satellite Forms comments:
You used Download Apps and Table (under Handheld) to send to the Palm.
To feed back to the PC just select Upload Tables from the same menu AND
DO A SAVE (or and Exit, whixh asks for a save).  The data from the Palm
is now in the PCs files.

Bill Oliver

Thanks for looking into the palm pilot database form options.

I'm looking forward to your next update on Listmaker, HanDbase,
Satellite Forms and Pendragon Forms.

I contacted Satellite Forms as I read about it in the O'Reilly book on
Pilot Programming.  I can afford the price of $369 for the product but I
nearly crapped (sorry about the bodily function reference) when the
salesrep at Puma mentioned there is a $69 per device license fee.  Or
you can go OEM and charge $10 per device if you as the developer
determine how many apps you are going to sell and incorporate that
charge into the cost of the project.

At that point I figured what is the point of the product when a
developer can't even develop  for more than 3 Pilots before he starts
coughing up cash.  The products you can design with it require a runtime
module so offering an app on the Internet is not feasable with the
product.   I have some ideas for some apps (to demo skill) I'd offer for
free as a method of advertizing but Satellite Forms (Puma) appears to
frown on doing that.

Most any computer language you buy allows you to create unlimited
runtimes of a product or at least provide an extra runtime package for
purchase so you can distribute royalty free.  Although Satellite Forms
appears to have all of the features I need the overt nickle and diming
greed makes it an unviable product for me.

If you talk to Puma regarding Satellite Forms and the info I just
described is whacko please let me know.   The fees they want are
killers; both for the developer and for the acceptance of their product.

Pat

Your database review (part 1) for PalmPilots was very helpful. All your reviews, incidentally, are very helpful.

The one thing I would add as a registered JFile user to your review is that JFile's column widths feature is not obvious. Perhaps clicking on the column heading is a good idea, but countless times I have struggled to remember or find that simple option. In addition, setting column widths in *pixels* is not exactly state of the art. The most obvious and desirable way to handle column widths would be if JFile allowed you to click and drag some sort of tick mark.

Thanks again for your review.

Trotter Hardy

I use MobileDB Lite (the freeware version) and I find it very useful,
and I've noticed that there is more third-party ready made database
files available for this database app than any other. I do agree with
Julie's comments about the few little bugs it's got - and those
improvements she mentioned should be incorporated to make it that
little bit better than the competition. But as it stands, I'd say that
this is the best database app on the Palm scene at the moment.

Thanks. Christian Oliff :-)
Multimedia Student, Swansea, Wales, UK