Ask Sam 6 Standard - Review Of Ask Sam Software By Lamar State College Professor

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Ask Sam 6 Standard - Review Of Ask Sam Software By Lamar State College Professor

Ask Sam Database Presents Possibilities for Computer Users

Professional Review of Ask Sam Software by Jan Collins, MCP

Instructor, Computer Information Systems, Lamar State College at Port Arthur

Our time has been labeled the Information Age for good reason. There is more information available to more people than was even thought about just a few years ago. All this information can become overwhelming and even counter-productive, unless we find a way to efficiently handle it.

Long before this age of information and now familiar digital world, databases were being used to help us get a handle on information, such as a journal, an address book, a phone book, or a medical dictionary. Simply stated, a database is a collection of related data, and the data is considered to be raw facts that technically become information only when presented in a usable format to someone who needs it. A digital or electronic database enables data to be easily altered to meet specific needs, and a Database Management System (DBMS) provides a digital method of not only storing related data, but also manipulating that data into information for innumerable uses.

Database software has been available for many years, and as with any worthwhile product, our free market invites competition. Paradox, FoxPro, and Access are some mid-sized DBMS products. Two very popular systems created to store and manage very large amounts of data, such as with an airline reservation system or credit card accounts, are SQL Server (Structured Query Language) and Oracle. These two products are powerful and very useful, but they require an in-depth understanding of relational structures and design and sometimes require programming skills in order to accomplish the desired purpose.

Businesses are not the only organizations that need to store, manipulate, and retrieve data. Individuals, families, clubs, and other organizations also need to handle their information efficiently and effectively. Mid-sized, yet powerful products, such as Microsoft’s Access, are excellent tools to meet this demand, but there is a fairly large learning curve for the novice user, a person not necessarily new to basic computer skills, just unfamiliar with database products.

Unlike the other two most popular types of application software, word processors and spreadsheets, a database normally requires the user to develop the structure that will hold and process the data. Upon opening a new document in Word or WordPerfect for example, the screen is ready for the user to begin entering data. Similarly, a blank worksheet is available as soon as Lotus 1-2-3 or Excel is loaded.

However, in most database applications, data cannot immediately be entered. The database must be created, i.e. the actual file must be named and saved, and tables with field names and data types must be designed. Data types limit the kind of data that can be stored in the various fields, and limit the size of the field in some cases. Only then can data be entered into records.

A database field is the storage method to identify a single, meaningful element of data, such as First Name, Last Name, Part Number, or Manufacturer. A record refers to all the fields that relate to a single entity within the database table or file. For example, a record in a membership database would hold all the data for a person, and for an inventory of parts, all the data for a particular part.

With this sort of complexity, what are the options for a beginner, new to the electronic maze of databases? Certainly, there are database developers who can create a database for a client, resulting in a custom application that is easy to use and meets the client’s specific needs. This is however, usually very costly.

The beginner could also use a product like Microsoft’s Access with its online Help files and some of the dozens of books available to create a database of their own. For one to really learn the proper methods of planning and designing a smooth-functioning database, this usually requires a large investment of time and effort.

The Florida-based information management software development company, Ask Sam Systems, Inc., offers another alternative. Their Ask Sam Professional version database software is "A Different Kind of Database" according to its creators, an affordable, simpler way to organize and manage data.

Ask Sam Systems, Inc. advertises Ask Sam database Software to be capable of searching "hundreds of megabytes and millions of documents in a matter of seconds" with full-text indexing included. This claim indicates this product is able to handle millions of records and is capable of searching for indexed words in the fields within these records.

As a matter of honesty, and perhaps a disclaimer for this article, let me state that I did not test this product using millions, or even hundreds, of records. It is my opinion from the testing that I did with this software, and my knowledge of other database products, that anyone working with millions of records is probably going to want to use one of the heavy-duty, traditional databases, such as Oracle.

Typical of most computer programs, when programmers give up complexity, this usually means they also give up flexibility as well. Very large databases usually require the flexibility of customization that is beyond the Ask Sam Professional product. For example, programming a report to print one set of records if a certain condition is true and a different set of records if not, is not a capability within Ask Sam Professional.

However, many users may indeed find Ask Sam Professional to be just the database that will meet their information management needs. The best feature in this neat program is the learning curve is minimal and the learning process is easy. The software comes with Getting Started and User’s Guide manuals and includes very good tutorials.

The first step in using software once it has been obtained is, of course, installing it. Ask Sam has clear instructions for easy installation, and technical support is available from a variety of sources, including telephone, fax, email, BBS (Bulletin Board System), or the Internet.

Once the product is loaded, there are two sets of tutorials to instruct the user on the product’s operation. The tutorials focus on managing structured data (where field sizes are predictable and relatively the same for each record), and managing freeform data (less uniform record entries). A seemingly small, but quite helpful inclusion in each lesson is the approximate time and number of steps required to complete it.

The structured data tutorial includes four lessons, and the total anticipated completion time is one hour and 35 minutes. The lessons include creating a new database, searching and editing a database, creating reports, importing data and using mail merge, all very fundamental steps anyone would want to know when working with any database.

There are three lessons, requiring about 55 minutes to complete, in the second tutorial, focusing on working with freeform data. Most of this material covers the same topics as the structured data lessons, but with a different purpose. Handling freeform data is one of Ask Sam’s most valuable features. Not only does this product deal with large blocks of text, but it does this with remarkable ease. The Ask Sam database file can import (copy from another source) an entire text file, such as a letter compiled in a word processor, or a document from the Internet. The source file can be imported with or without the formatting, such as italicized words and bold headings.

After the two sets of tutorials, there is one more lesson on creating hypertext menus. This 15-minute exercise explains how to set links to other Ask Sam files, other external applications, and Uniform Resource Locators (URL’s) or Internet addresses.

The significance of this is that in about three hours, a computer user with no prior electronic database experience can install the product and become remarkably knowledgeable about its capability. To be proportionally equipped to use Access, for example, a beginner could unquestionably invest ten times that amount of time, or more! I know, because I teach students every day how to learn Access.

If there are gaps between what the tutorials cover and what the user would like to do in Ask Sam Professional, the User’s Guide will fill them. From starting Ask Sam to including graphics in Ask Sam, to using the Ask Sam Phone Dialer option, this guide provides very helpful detailed instructions and explanations.

Ask Sam Professional is a database software program that can be considered for effortless storage of data, and there are many highly commendable features that add to the user-friendly characteristics of this application. The search, variable field lengths and types, text retrieval, and import capabilities are just a few.

As with any software today, there are limitations to consider. Many of the elements within Ask Sam Professional have the look and feel of earlier versions of Windows, prior to Windows 95. Some features such as intelligent commands, those that dim when unavailable, are absent. Also missing are some standards that experienced database developers would expect, for example, table relationships and data integrity safeguards.

Some of the Ask Sam Professional search features are more cumbersome to gain comparable information than with other databases. For example, when using a multiple search request, if the Count check box is selected, the results will show the number of records (Ask Sam Professional calls a record a document and does not group these records by tables), that resulted from the search. In order to actually see the documents (called records in other databases), the user must go through the multiple search request window again. Most database products show both automatically.

Additionally, this product primarily handles text, and there is no function for numeric computations. This necessitates careful consideration of the processing requirements desired. For example, if a database is used to store rates of pay and hours worked for employees, a typical processing step might include calculating gross pay, then deductions, commissions, overtime, and finally net pay. While traditional databases are equipped to handle such maneuvers, Ask Sam is not.

In a business situation, or even personal use that might involve numeric manipulations, I would prefer a traditional database product that would allow a more professional looking printout and arithmetic computation. However, I would use Ask Sam Professional for personal, text-based information handling, I recommend it for any database-product novice under the same stipulations.

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