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I have done this kind of survey for our little lab about nine months ago
with CLIMS,
Xtrack, HALx and perhaps two others available at that time.
A web server thing not being a problem for me I found Xtrack still the best
solution. OK, OK Clims2 got better than I think version 1.2 but still I
find some things
rather complicated and also I was not able (my fault?) to enter any
other related
kind of experiment into it (not crystallisation). At the moment I vote
for Xtrack - kind of universal even
if there are perhaps things people might not like there ..
Jan
Andreas Forster wrote:
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Hey all,
I've been reminded recently that I owe the list a summary of responses
obtained concerning crystal tray databases. There are actually a
large number of useful implements out there:
- CLIMS2 (http://clims.med.monash.edu.au/, ActaD 60:1691, 2004)
- HalX (ActaD 61:671, 2005)
- PIMS (http://www.pims-lims.org/)
- XtalBase (developed by Winfried Meining, http://www.xtalbase.net/,
beta testing possible upon request)
- Xtrack
- XtalDB (Matthew Zimmerman, http://jurand.med.virginia.edu/xtaldb/, not
publicly released yet)
- Crystal Miner from Emerald (not free, no www interface)
- PIMS (developed at NKI) will supposedly do what I want (and everything
else, from lab management to making coffee), but it's not out yet
- Hampton Make Tray (http://www.hamptonresearch.com/stuff/MakeTray.aspx,
helps you create grids and print scoring sheets, no database)
- WeeChe (developed by Seth Harris, [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Clearly too many to test them all. I narrowed it down to two, CLIMS2
and WeeChe. I picked CLIMS because it looks slick and doesn't need a
web server and WeeChe because me old lab used to use it. In both
cases support is great (from Abdullah and Seth, respectively), but
documentation is sparser than Crystal Screen 1. I got CLIMS to run.
I find account management obscure. Only few commercial screens exist
as templates in the DB. Creating new templates seems difficult for
sparse matrix screens but very straightforward for grids. All trays
need names. Numbers don't suffice. Maybe crystals grow better when
you talk to your plates. The program seems to have all the features
that I wish it had, but I haven't tried them all. On the other hand,
WeeChe works nicely, though not on my laptop. I don't have apache
running yet, and who knows if I ever will. For one person, these
systems are overkill, and if you want to take care of a large lab or
an institute you'd better be a dedicated geek, which I am not.
If you're interested in trying out crystal tray databases, I'd
recommend grabbing and old linux PC, hooking it up to your net and
giving it a try. Your mileage might vary.
Andreas
