I also find database software for Mac computers to be very useful.
Life is full of things and keeping track of them is important. The program that I like the most for this purpose is Bento by Filemaker. It is a sophisticated package and is developed by a large company with tons of experience with this type of application.
But recently I came across a program called Delicious Library from a small company called Delicious Monster. Billed as a program to easily keep track of all your stuff – I was intrigued. Upon first look at their website, I found the interface to be very attractive as the program places all your things on a virtual shelf (kind of like the new iBookstore that has recently launched for iPad). The most promising feature about this program is the ease of input. Delicious Library 2 interfaces with Amazon.com – so product and book cover images are automatically downloaded from there if the item is carried on their site. Also, it has the ability to scan a barcode using an Apple Mac computers built in iSight camera – and using that info, locate the product as well.
I also saw that this software won lots of awards from MacWorld, MacMinute, and the Apple Design Award. Impressive at first but upon closer look – these accolades are a bit dated with the most recent having been bestowed in 2007.
Anyhow – I decided that it was worth a trial run, and although the site does not mention anything about a free trial, when I hit the download button – I was able to get a working copy (I am assuming that this will expire withing a few days).
In a few minutes I was up and running. The first thing to do was to add a few items into my library. Using the handy little + button, a user friendly box popped up with categories of items across the top. I grabbed my older model camera that was sitting on my desk and typed in the brand and model number. Up popped an image of my gadget and a computerized voice built in to the program told me the same information. The very first item on my shelf. I repeated the process with for my portable scanner and a book. The whole process of inputting the data was easy and fun. Just as database software for Mac should be.
Now that I had a few items entered, I wanted to try view them on my iPhone. Part of the draw was to have my library on the go. And the screenshots on the Delicious Monster website shows the content displayed on an iPhone or iPod Touch. And this is the area where I felt the software fell short. Mostly because the support section is too brief. I really have no idea how to make this happen. There is a publish button that can be configured to publish to MobileMe.com, iWeb, FTP or to a folder. There is also the option to choose which shelves to sync. As I only had a few items entered, I went ahead and did this with some reservations. After all, if I had all my worldly possessions cataloged here – I doubt that I would want the world to see each and every item that I own. And there does not seem to be any privacy settings. Since I am a mobileme customer – I chose to publish to that site. Delicious Library created a webpage with my selected shelves on it on my MobileMe account.
So, back to the iPhone – I was still not clear whether to just view the webpage via Safari or if there was another way to get the data. A quick look at the iTunes store did not turn up a related cell phone app that would do the trick. My suspicion is that I need to sync my phone via iTunes and then somehow the data will show up on the device. But at this point I am not going there. I think I have spent enough time to make the decision to stick with Bento.
Delicious Library 2 is a fun database program for Mac, but the lack of solid user manual (I am big on how to instructions) would end up being an exercise in frustration for me.
What is your favorite database software for Mac?
