http://www.osnews.com/story/5170/theKompany_com_s_Data_Architect_-_A_Linux_and_Windows_Review Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:10:03 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Perhaps the most useful feature of Access for small business users is the "Reports" feature, which allows users to build fully formated documents from query results, such as mailing labels, certificates, fully addressed envelopes, etc. I've never seen an open source tool with comparable functionality, and from my brief review of Rekall's feature set it doesn't seem to provide this either. Tue, 18 Nov 2003 21:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? For what I can see it does not compare too well with FabForce's DB Designer 4 ( http://www.fabforce.net/dbdesigner4/ ). It does all that this program does but also does Reverse Engineering. Give it a try. I have and haven't stop using it since then. Tue, 18 Nov 2003 21:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Indeed, this DBDesigner tool is very sweet. But it only supports MySQL, and DB2, Oracle and PostgreSQL would be desirable too.. Tue, 18 Nov 2003 21:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I've used a previous version of Data Architect and one feature I sorely missed was the ability to copy columns from one table into another, such as primary keys in a parent table to foreign keys in a child table. Has this been added in the newest version? Tue, 18 Nov 2003 22:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I believe if you read the review again, you will see that Data Architect does, in fact, do reverse engineering. The author mentions doing it twice in fact. Tue, 18 Nov 2003 22:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "You can design and use forms and reports"

Straight from the Rekall webpage.

and here is a screenshot of creating reports from the site as well:

http://www.thekompany.com/products/rekall/_img/screenshots/reportde...

as far as the "such as mailing labels, certificates, fully addressed envelopes, etc." I am not totally sure...but I always thought that was more of a function Office (more specifically Word)? and OpenOffice/StarOffice can do that.

I think Kexi
http://www.koffice.org/kexi/
also looks very promising and has even better integration with KOffice to do that other things you talked about. Tue, 18 Nov 2003 22:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I haven't used either product, but from what I can grok from screenshots and documentation, Data Architect stands out in that it supports more database servers (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, MS SQL Server, Oracle, etc.) and it runs on a Mac in addition to Windows and Linux. DBDesigner has a cleaner looking interface though. Tue, 18 Nov 2003 22:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Gnome-DB is another such application, but it is not as advanced: http://www.gnome-db.org/
And then there is Aqua Studio too, which is also multiplatform and free. Tue, 18 Nov 2003 22:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? "Basically, the answer is TKC is bankrupt."

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=rekall+group:comp.lang.python&... Tue, 18 Nov 2003 22:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? from the online docs: "Rekall is fundementaly just a too to extract" Wed, 19 Nov 2003 00:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Anyone know what toolkit(s) they're using to build these apps? Wed, 19 Nov 2003 02:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Bascule (IP: ---.atmos.colostate.edu) - Posted on 2003-11-18 21:11:52
Perhaps the most useful feature of Access for small business users is the "Reports" feature, which allows users to build fully formated documents from query results, such as mailing labels, certificates, fully addressed envelopes, etc. I've never seen an open source tool with comparable functionality, and from my brief review of Rekall's feature set it doesn't seem to provide this either.

Hence the reason why a large number of us "pragmatic *NIX users" suggest to people wanting an alternative to Windows but without the learning curve or lack of software to go with a Mac.

A small business owner could easily run everything they needed on an eMac plus 4D, MYOB, Office X and a few other bits 'n pieces, possibly Corel Graphics Suite if they're interested in a low cost graphics suite which would enable them to produce their own brochers, leaflets and other marketing material.

Anonymous (IP: ---.dip.t-dialin.net) - Posted on 2003-11-18 22:26:34
"Basically, the answer is TKC is bankrupt."

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=rekall+group:comp.lang.python&......

Not to sound cynical but they would be alot better off being porting company; licensing and porting proprietary software to Linux. It is alot easier to license and port than trying to build an application from scratch to compete with an existing solution which exists either on the same or alternative platform.

If it were me, I would first licensed 4D and ported it, then move onto Lotus Smart Suite or Wordperfect Suite, then ported those. These are commercial products that would fit real needs in the Linux community but unfortunately a large number of programmers don't get it(tm). Wed, 19 Nov 2003 02:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Hi folks,

How does Data Architect compare with ERwin Data Modeller?

--Jeff Wed, 19 Nov 2003 02:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? QT Wed, 19 Nov 2003 02:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? like I'm gonna believe the word of someone that just got fired and is pissed off about it. read all the information and stop perpetuating the FUD. Wed, 19 Nov 2003 04:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I just got home and re-read this article to see how many typing errors escaped my attention. Not as bad as last time, I'm pleased to say. However, I was a bit disappointed by the editor's addition of the line about Rekall, which has absolutely nothing to do with the review, and the subsequent squabling over that one irrelevant line.

In my opinion, Data Architect is a good product and well worth the money. I realize that there are feebies out there, but none of them are as versatile, in my opinion. I guess it all depends upon your needs though. Wed, 19 Nov 2003 04:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Holy Crap that is one sweet application! Thankyou so very much for posting the link.

I've been looking for something like DBDesigner for ages. Might donate some money if it makes my life easier (which I think it will). Wed, 19 Nov 2003 04:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I was the one who added the line about Rekall, not Clinton. We didn't report on it yesterday, and so it seemed appropriate to mention it in this article.

Eugenia Wed, 19 Nov 2003 04:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? OpenOffice has a reporting tool very similar to Access, unfortunately few seem to know it exists, probably because OOo doesn't install a little icon to tell you it exists. Instead (and probably rightly so) it exists inside the other OOo applications as the Data Sources choice under Tools.

Check this link for more information or check Data Sources in the help files:

http://articles.linmagau.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sectio... Wed, 19 Nov 2003 06:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I have been using DA at work for a couple of months now. The features in version 3.0 are really nice, but there are still some bugs. In fact, I can get DA to crash by simply trying to copy or cut an object in the physical model. I tried reporting the bug, but thus far I have had no luck. I think what DA needs is some better technical support. Thu, 20 Nov 2003 11:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? ..is Sybase / Powersoft PowerDesigner.
Supports most databases and even handles versioning of your DB structure. Worth checking out! Sat, 22 Nov 2003 23:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Dezign for Databases: http://www.dezign.com

Far wider database support than DataArchitect. With optional modules, can be used to reverse engineer database schemas as well. Tue, 25 Nov 2003 01:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments