Navicat Review

I do a good amount of work in MySQL so that I need a good database admin tool.  I come from a Microsoft Enterprise Manager/Management Studio background so much of this review compares to that as a benchmark.

The Good

• Import/Export Data feature rocks.  Much easier to use then DTS for simple imports & exports & supports multiple formats (db, dbf, txt, html, xls, wk1, wq1, xml, mdb, ODBC)
• Dump as SQL.  Will write out your table to .sql file with the full inserts.  Microsoft so needs this.
• Maintain Tables.  Easily able to
• Backups.  Straight forward step by step.
• Saved Queries.  Navicat saves then within the application at the database level not a sql file, this makes finding queries much faster.
• Scheduled Job.  Again straight forward step by step
• Manage Users.  They make it as simple as MySQL can be (which isn’t that simple sense you have to create a user multiple times to have access from localhost and from anywhere)
• Data Transfers.  Their version of DTS, not as robust but gets the job done.

The Bad

• Query Windows.  This is my biggest complaint of Navicat and almost a show stopper for me. Tabbed windows are great BUT having multiple tabs within tabs causes my eye to lose focus of which tab I need.  Not good for quick tabbing, I have to think before clicking which slows me down. I much prefer how Management Studio has tabs for queries but shows results at the bottom of that window.

 

• Query Builder.  I do most of my SQL by hand so this doesn’t effect me to much but Navicat’s query builder uses the dreaded Grave `instead of the Quote ‘.  So if you use their query builder to get a sql statement started, maintaining it could be a nightmare.
• Designer. Seems clunky and implemented as a second thought.  Big improvements here.

Overall Navicat is the most feature rich MySQL tool on the market (I’ve tried ~4 so far). Pricing is at $139, well within reason. Besides a reworking of the query window, Navicat is a finely tuned.  2 TechToolBlog thumbs up.

Written by Tim on April 26th, 2007 with 5 comments.
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Adobe Open sources Flex - Who Cares?

Yesterday, Adobe announced they are open sourcing Flex, their all wiz bang Flash based web application builder. This seems to stem from their concern about Microsoft Silverlight/WPF/WP or whatever they are calling it today. This looks to be a Adobe’s last ditch effort to save Flash aka to Sun open sourcing Java. There is a reason Flex has never taken off, Adobe sucks at writing tools & programming languages/API for developers. Macromedia was bad (see Actionscript), Adobe is worse. Some companies can compete with Microsoft in terms of IDE & programming languages (Borland does a decent job) but Adobe is not one of them. Not to mention their Eclipse based IDE is not part of the open source release.

Most Flex/Flash users are designers in nature that want to go further so they pick up action script for a programming language on the side. Now you want these people to tear into some Java code? This could get ugly real fast. I’m not saying Silverlight/WPF/WP is going to be the end all, but sorry Adobe who cares?

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Trying to write your own Java or Flash code? It might be easier to start with custom PHP/Perl script writing. Writing code can be tricky if you’ve never attempted it before, so look at free PHP scripts online first. Custom web programming is great if you can pull it off.

Written by Tim on April 26th, 2007 with no comments.
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Passport Finally Here

Checked the online status of my passport this morning and bam, it has been overnighted. We got it on 4/5. Oh yeah, this is good. Some lessons learned from this experience:

1. Our government is completely a reaction factory, no forward thinking or proactive thought comes from the bureaucratic mess in Washington.

2. The State Department bureau of consumer affairs has handled the overload pretty well in my opinion. They did a good job of explaining the problem and what the public should be aware of by reporting to the media and via their website. I never had a big problem getting thru to the passport centers via phone, 3 or 4 tries by 10:00 am and I was thru with a ~10 minute hold time.

3. Some passport reps are more helpful then others. On 3/27 a gentleman informed me that the State Department had waived the expedition fee and gave me the scope how to get my passport early. Other reps were….kindly not so helpful.
   

4. Congressman’s aides aren’t the sharpest & with a little leg work you can find more info then they can. Jean Schmidt’s aid gave no real help, besides tracking my passport was in New Orleans. They need to talk to the rep above on how things work.

5. Florida, Texas, Alabama, & the cruise lines will benefit for a long time because of the changes in passport requirements. For a family of 4, passports will run $400, some people are going to bark at that and take their vacations in the US instead. College spring breakers are normally last minute planners so they won’t have time to get it them. If I was in the Mexican tourist industry I’d be ponying up the dollars to lobbyist to get a “smart” drivers license that was cheaper then a passport and more distributed, that is what Canada wants too.

Written by Tim on April 6th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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