Peter Dobratz wrote:
I'm working with the Greater Nashua Habitat for Humanity. We have an annual fundraiser that includes many affiliates from New Hampshire and Northeastern Massachusetts. Our current solution to take registration information uses a Microsoft Access Database that one of our members developed. Although our primary focus is having something that gets the job done, I would prefer to use free software where possible. It's disappointing to have to tell people that they can't use the software we developed because they bought the "standard" version of MS Office, which does not include Access. There are ways of getting discount prices for software for non-profits, but any money we spend on software is money that can't go towards building houses.
Does anyone know of any free software packages that we can use? Basically, we have hikers and teams of hikers that raise money. We want to keep track of how much money each hiker contributed, and keep their names and addresses, so that we can mail them a brochure for next year's hike. Most of the laptops that people own or borrow for the event have some version of windows on them. Some sort of bootable CD with USB flash drives for the datastore might be optimal.
OpenOffice 2.0 beta has a database feature. It is available for multiplatforms.
OpenOffice.org always had database frontend tools, but in past versions they were very hidden. OpenOffice.org 2.0 starts to handle databases like any other application, i.e. a new database can be created via the "File - New" menu. For novice users OpenOffice.org provides a new Table Wizard that allows to create database tables without any knowledge of databases and SQL. The new embedded Java technology based HSQLDB <http://hsqldb.sourceforge.net/> database engine allows to create "database documents". These simple database files don't require a backend database server like MySQL or Adabas D. All information (table definitions, data, queries, forms, reports) is stored in one XML file.
I have not used this feature yet. There are undoubtedly many more options, but that's the first one that comes to my mind.
-- Dan Jenkins ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951 *** Technical Support for over a Quarter Century
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