Flippin' Bits Software, Ltd.

Data Collection

Data Collection Programs

If by "programming" you simply mean "collect some data", there are several programs for the Palm that might do what you want. These range from glorified card files to full-featured database engines and spreadsheets.

Pendragon Forms

Pendragon Forms is a commercial database system that allows you to define a Microsoft Access database and a Palm program that work together to allow users to collect data on the Palm that is automatically synchronized with the PC database. All the data that is collected on the Palm magically appears in the Access database, and any changes made to the data on the Palm or on the PC are automatically synchronized.

The basic package costs $150 for a single-user license. For every additional user of your application, there are additional licenses in the $30-45 range, depending on quantity. These licenses include the ability to create new forms and such. If you just want to distribute your app to your company's employees or similar, you can get a $1000 package ($900 if you have Pendragon Forms already) that includes a royalty-free runtime license that limits your users to running canned applications.

An additional product is the Sync Server, which makes multi-user network synching practical. The main Forms product can either synch to a local Access database (i.e. running on the same machine that the Palm is connected to), or you can use the Palm Network Hotsync to synch a bunch of devices to a central machine. The problem with the latter is that everything on every device gets synched to that central server. To let your users synch only the data from their Forms applications to a networked database server, you need to use the Sync Server. There is a free version that only supports one connection at a time, and then there are multi-user versions in the $700-4000 range.

Satellite Forms

Satellite Forms from PumaTech is a commercial database/forms designer with enough functionality to be a direct replacement to full blown C development for database applications. The SDK comes with a PC based Application Designer, which will help you create the tables and forms that the application will use. The first big difference between Pendragon Forms and Satellite Forms come out at this point. Satellite Forms can create multi-form applications with interaction and data exchange between forms.

Using these controls, it is possible to create forms with flexible positioning using the WYSIWYG forms designer. This is the second big difference compared to Pendragon Forms which only allows either one control per page or a list view of the controls. Another big feature is the availability of "actions" on the 'Tap" event for any control. When tapped, controls can trigger one of several actions, including launching other programs. These actions coupled with the powerful "Filters" allow the creation of full-fledged database applications in allmost no time. The filters are defined and activated on the controls and are the applications way of communicating between the forms.

When you synch the Palm device, it puts the data into a dBase table. Other products like Microsoft Access and FileMaker Pro can then use that table, letting you design a PC-side component as well. There's also a product called Satellite Server, which allows you to sync data to an ODBC-compliant database server.

This product costs $800 for the base package, or $1000 for that plus the Satellite Server.

Kinectivity Studio

Note that as of this writing (26 Feb 2003) the pencel site below seems to be malfunctioning. We'll keep our eyes peeled. In the meantime:
Kinnectivity Studio from Pencel Corporation is similar to the above two products, being optimized for mobile applications that synch to dump their data into a Windows-side Access database or a networked database via ODBC or OLE DB. The core application designer package is $700.

If you want to just distribute applications that synch one at a time to a single database, that's all you need to get. There are no royalties. If you need fancy synchronization to make sure all users of a given app have a consistent view of a shared data repository, you need their $1500 server package, which includes 10 user licenses. Additional user licenses range from $55 to $125, depending on quantity. Or, you can get an unlimited per-processor license for $20,000.

IBM DB2 Everyplace

DB2 Everyplace is a SQL-based relational database for the Palm. It comes in two versions, Personal and Enterprise. Both versions have free evaluation versions available for download.

You have several choices for developing Palm-side apps. On the Palm itself, you can use the the Personal Application Builder, which comes with DB2 Everywhere. You can also use Metrowerks CodeWarrior, PRC-Tools (DevToolsCCPP), and VisualAge MicroEdition (OtherHighLevelLanguageSystems). There are also other options for developing Windows and Linux-based DB2 Everyplace apps.

The Personal edition includes the Personal Application Builder and the Palm-side runtime (130 KB). I suspect that there's no easy way to use the data once it's synched to the PC, as you probably get an opaque PDB file. Thus, it's probably only useful for basic data collection. This edition is $47 if you download it, $51 if you want a box and media.

The Enterprise version adds the Sync Server, which lets you bi-directionally synch your data to a full-fledged DB2 networked database. It also ups the Palm-side requirements to 325 KB. The package costs <pucker> $5005 for a 1-user, 1-processor license. One presumes that this software gets rather more expensive rather quickly.

FileMaker Mobile

FileMaker Mobile is a $50 package which adds two-way automated synchronization between your PC or Mac-based FileMaker database and the Palm.

Flat-File Database Managers

There are several cheap ($15-25) shareware and freeware database products for the Palm. Most of these are flat-file table managers, though a few have some rudimentary relational database management support. The biggest names are, in no particular order, JFile, MobileDB, DB and ThinkDB. All of these offer tools that let you convert between the PDB file format and a CSV file for import to/export from a PC or server-based database system. The quality of the PC-side PDB manipulation tools varies widely with these programs. Some of these programs also have add-ons that do manual or automated two-way synch with PC or server-based database systems. Check their web sites for details.

Spreadsheet Software

QuickSheet from Cutting Edge Software is an Excel-compatible spreadsheet program. This can be used for quick data collection as well as data modeling on the fly. Business users should be particularly interested in this as this uses a model that's familiar to most computer users. QuickSheet costs $30. TinySheet is a similar but cheaper package at $20. PDAGeek did a full comparison of these two packages.

19 Feb 2003