Geekiness

We're hoping to have a holiday in late January (risky, I know, what with school starting and all). In order to let ourselves get away for a wee break, I've been starting to look at the new year's organising jobs. But first, the geekiness.

My PC blew up earlier this year, and I changed teams to another provider, which for various reasons I won't recommend. It left me with a minor dilemma of what to do with my Access database (I keep all my youth registration info on it, and put together a basic database for the church). So I've been geeking around, looking at various options. Most things come with a free trial period, and I've been able to test a bit out.

First, I tried Filemaker, which was good except for the fact that I'd have to find a spare $700 somewhere to get a full Filemaker Pro. I don't need a database that much.

Then, I looked into setting up a parallel desktop for my computer, to allow me to run Windows as well as my other operating system. But I'm really enjoying my non-Windows environment, and I'd still have to fork out $150 for the program + $???? for a legitimate copy of Windows. It would then let me run Access, but who wants the bother for a single program? 

So, I've now tried a pared-down version of Filemaker called Bento. And I'm loving it. (Geek alert!) It automatically links with my address book and calendar, so I can automatically link events with the team members I have to communicate with, print out class rolls and allergy lists, etc. It's lovely. And it's a far more affordable $79, too.

Oh, and my lovely brother gave me a wireless router for Christmas, so I've been getting geeky with that, too...