web databases

[Piotr Naskrecki]

Mark (and all FileMaker user),

Stay away from FileMaker 5. This so called "upgrade" actually removes the
best feature of the previous versions (4 and 4.1) - unlimited web serving.
If anybody tries to look at your database (as I just did), they will be met
by a message "User Limit Exceeded". Version 5 limits the number of visitors
to 10 per 12 hours. If you want the version that does exactly what the
previous versions did (unlimited number of Internet visitors) you will have
to shell out about $1,000 (and such version is not even available yet).

The new version of FileMaker was introduced mostly to satisfy the corporate
greed of FileMaker Co. with outrageous pricing scheme and please users of
Microsoft products (it has interface elements that chillingly resembles
Microsoft Office). It offers no significant improvements and has a new file
format, backward incompatible with all previous versions. It is also
incompatible with third party Internet CGI's, such as Tango or Lasso.

So, unless you don't plan to serve your database over the Internet, don't
buy FileMaker version 5. Instead try buying versions 4.0 or 4.1 or consider
other database solutions.

Sincerely,
Piotr

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Piotr Naskrecki
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Connecticut, Storrs CT 06269, USA

e-mail: pin93001 at uconnvm.uconn.edu

An Illustrated Catalog of Orthoptera (http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/cd) - a
database of the Orthoptera of the World on a CD ROM

Orthoptera Species File Online (http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/Orthoptera) - a
database of the Orthoptera of the World Online

Katydids of La Selva Biological Station Costa Rica
(http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/interkey/titlepg)

Taxonomy and Collection Manager software
(http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/interkey/database.html)