Re: Orchid Inventory

Thanks for the idea of Open Office, Aaron. How ya been, boy? Seedbank
keeping you busy? Saw the new book. Congrats! Hope its selling well.

K Barrett

"Aaron Hicks" <ahicks@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1207333513.584695@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I don't use anything to track potted plants, but I have a
custom-built database for the lab. It got to the point where paper wasn't
good enough, so now the Access database keeps it all straight.

For the uninitiated: Excel and other spreadsheets are "flat"
databases, although it is possible to tie things together if needs be-
with a bit of programming. Access and other relational databases have a
lot more power, if needed. For example, Excel could give you a nice
breakdown of the average pot size (if someone wanted that information for
some weird reason) of all your cattleyas. A relational database would be
more useful if one needed to produce a list of all plants belonging to
cattleya species starting with the letter "m" that were last repotted more
than 16 months ago.

In my case, I could have a list generated on command of all flasks
still on the shelves after X number of days- along with the shelf
location, and container identification. At the end of the day, I could
(and do) get an average age of containers on the shelves, and a standard
deviation of that age. Helps keep things fresh, you see.

A little tip: Open Office has a free (as in beer) office suite
that mimics that of Microsoft's, including its own database program and
spread***. Lots of power there. And it's all free.

The address in the header is bogus. Send no email there.

-AJHicks
Chandler, AZ




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