Editorial Feature - askSam

Tucows Editorial Feature

askSam by askSam Systems

by Michael E. Callahan aka Dr. File Finder

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Part of the editorial series on free form databases

Real Flexibility

askSam, by askSam Systems, is a powerful "freeform"database can help you to easily keep track of all your importantinformation. It's an award-winning tool that lets you utilize data froma wide variety of sources. You can add data that doesn't conform to anyspecific form. Type it in, or you can also import a wide variety offormats like HTML, text files, Rich Text Format (RTF) files, and evendocuments from Word, Excel, and more.

Now, if you want you can use templates that make it easierto enter certain types of data. The screen shot, for example, shows atemplate used for putting in contact information. askSam comeswith a variety of templates that help you get off to a quick start.

askSam is flexible enough that you can import your emailmessages. This makes it really easy to search through old emails to findexactly what you're looking for. askSam has really powerfulsearching capabilities. And, the searches are fast and efficient.Putting data into a database is one thing, and finding that data whenyou need it is another, and askSam makes it easy. You can search in avariety of ways including wildcard searches (*.*) when you aren'texactly sure what you're looking for, and Boolean searches where you canuse operators like NOT, OR, & AND. If that weren't enough, you can alsosearch for things by date, any word or phrase, and more. Very nicelydone!

Plenty Of Power

With the ability to import email messages, Web pages, Word documents,Excel spreadsheets, and much more, askSam is amazingly powerful. It gives you great flexibility by letting you import a large range offile formats including other database formats. That means that you cansave yourself some time and import data from other sources.Remember, it's a free form database, but it gives you the powerto use forms for data entry if you want to.

The screen shot shows a dialog where you can define fields to suit yourneeds. That means your data can be the way you want it to be. Youcan generate reports in a wide variety of formats, put text in bold,italic, and underline, and lots more.

askSam can appeal to a wide variety of audiences. It's perfectfor business, but it's also great for doing research and educationalprojects. You can put your data in it, make it look the way you want,and then share that data with others. That's the beauty of a free formdatabase and that's the beauty of askSam.

Summing It Up

askSam is a full-featured, award-winning, free form databaseapplication. It's powerful while also being easy-to-use. The interfaceis intuitive. You can enter data randomly or you can utilize a range oftemplates to give you some form. You can import data from a wide rangeof other sources including email. askSam also makes iteasy to find the data you place in it. It's powerful and it'sflexible. What more could you want? I'd say not much! Give it a try, Irecommend it.