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Recommend me a database program (please)

Started by Mister Six, July 14, 2011, 04:06:11 AM

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Mister Six

Sorry for the tedious, serious thread.

My place of work is looking for some decent database software that we can use to create a searchable archive for our past publications and pictures.

Ideally it would allow for multiple databases. One of these would contain photographs, searchable by keywords and descriptions. The rest would contain PDFs of every page of our previous publications, searchable using the text within the PDFs (these would be divided by publication, so a search for Person X wouldn't bring up every appearance in every publication we've done, just the relevant issues/editions of the relevant mag/book).

It would ideally be located on our own servers, not via the web.

Does anyone know of relatively inexpensive, easy to maintain software that's up to the task? We're based in China so obviously nothing that would require an on-site visit/setup from the software company. And no, I'm pretty sure there are no decent Chinese solutions...

Thanks!

SetToStun

Do you have Windows servers? If so, you can do pretty much all of that out of the box with SharePoint - and it's free if you use the WSS version (Windows SharePoint Services), although it may now be called SharePoint Foundation Level in the latest versions. It's a web front end with HTTP and UNC access, SQL Server back-end, fully searchable for all text entered with documents and pictures plus you can install a PDF filter which will make the full text of PDFs searchable (all Office documents and text files are searchable out of the box).

Start with a master site and create a sub-site for each publication, store pictures and documents in the sub-sites and then you can search by publication just by browsing to the appropriate publication's site and using the built-in search.

You can customize the meta-data held for items and set up your own views. You can also, if you have the skills in-house (C#, mainly) write your own web parts (controls) and extensions, plus you can buy premade ones (some are free, in actual fact).

I won't lie and claim it's perfect (it's far from that - especially when it comes to mass check-out and check-in of documents) but for a free solution it's pretty damn good. There's a paid-for alternative (was called MOSS, don't know what the new version's known as) which is supposed to be properly awesome but I've never worked anywhere that felt the need to go beyond the freebie.

Oh, it also includes full version history and resurrection - ideal for tracking down originals and changes.

Mister Six

Oooh, ta. Is the web front-end intranet-friendly, though, or does it have to work through an internet connection? China being China, the less we rely on the web the better...

SetToStun

If you're in the same domain, or a connected one, then the web front end is entirely internal. As long as you have trust relationships, you're fine. Plus you can use Citrix (or RDP or whatever) to remotely access the disconnected domain if required.

If you can see their servers, you can access SharePoint. But, once again, I'll warn you it's not perfect - it is, however, a great place to start since the basic version is free and has no usage/content limits.

jutl

It might be worth looking at Drupal too, which with various plugins can do what you want.

SetToStun

I'd manged to never hear of Drupal before but after a quick shufti I'd say that looks pretty cool. I might have to see if the boss will let me set up a test server and give that a blast - we'll never drop SharePoint but our intranet is built round some MMPOS[nb]Mickey Mouse Piece of Shit[/nb] CMS they bought before I joined. It's dreadful, seriously so. Cheers for the heads up.

Tokyo Sexwhale

I've had the idea that a wiki-based intranet would be a good alternative to traditional intranets.  Users are familiar with it, and trusted users can update policies, procedures and other company documents very quickly.

Has anyone heard of any free/cheap software that could be used for this? Would the wiki back-end need to be a separate database?

Consignia

Quote from: Tokyo Sexwhale on July 15, 2011, 11:54:59 AM
I've had the idea that a wiki-based intranet would be a good alternative to traditional intranets.  Users are familiar with it, and trusted users can update policies, procedures and other company documents very quickly.

Has anyone heard of any free/cheap software that could be used for this? Would the wiki back-end need to be a separate database?

Aren't there any stacks you can just download and deploy? I'm not sure, I haven't looked

Loads of places I've worked at have MediaWiki installed, which all you need is a PHP webserver and a MySQL DB. You can easily run them both on a single server. It looks simple enough to set up from the website: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Installation

SetToStun

Quote from: Tokyo Sexwhale on July 15, 2011, 11:54:59 AM
I've had the idea that a wiki-based intranet would be a good alternative to traditional intranets.  Users are familiar with it, and trusted users can update policies, procedures and other company documents very quickly.

Has anyone heard of any free/cheap software that could be used for this? Would the wiki back-end need to be a separate database?

At the risk of sounding like a Redmond fanboy, SharePoint provides a wiki interface which also does the "trusted user" bits. Would I use it for an intranet? Probably not - unless the whole wiki thing was the most important aspect.