Something very nice this way comes or Bend it Like Bento

After coughing my lungs up all night, I feel semi human this evening.

Oh, the things you can learn from a RSS feed . . . I subscribe to the MacFixIt.com feed for Version Tracker. VT is a site that lists new software releases for Mac OS X, Mac OS Classic, Windows and Palm OS. New software releases including things like virus signature files for antivirus suites, security updates for core operating systems, and updates for applications major and minor. If you want to make a Mac so something that Apple has not provided a program for, say, ripping DVDs to your hard drive, look at Version Tracker. Want new iTunes visualizations or updates to World of Warcraft? VT's got 'em.

Something very interesting came in on the OS X feed tonight: FileMaker, a Mac software company so venerable that Apple bought it some years ago, has a public beta / trial version of Bento, their new personal database software application.

Database software is usually one of the most user-unfriendly of the common applications. On the one hand you have general purporse database apps like FileMaker Pro. dBase, Microsoft Access (an oxymoron if there ever was one!), etc that are very flexible tools for designing exactly the database you want to build. Very nice until you need to retrieve something from it. Then you need to learn a query language -- basically a specialized scripting computer language -- in order to search that database. On the other hand you have special-purpose applications like WotC's D&D eTools that are very easy to use -- no programming and no data structures knowledge needed -- but are one trick ponies, inflexible, unusable for anything else.

This gap has long been recognized by software developers. OpenOffice, NeoOffice, Claris Works, Microsoft Works (another oxymoron) and other suites have database programs that attempt to address the issue; all of these apps require a degree of familiarity with database software conventions and programming that is beyond most users, and is not worth the trouble for even someone like me to learn to use.

Bento hits the nail on the head. It is a very flexible database editing and search application aimed at folks who do not want or need to learn SQL. Three things about this app: Start with the source list / app work area of iTunes and the iLife and iWork applications; add to that drag and drop database design and tie that to Leopard's Spotlight metadata search functions and you have Bento in a nutshell. If you can make an iTunes playlist, you can make a functional and usable database.

My test of this nice little tool is the creation of NPC databases for D&D and Serenity.