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    Bento [OLD VERSION]

    Bento [OLD VERSION]

    enlarge enlarge 
    From: FileMaker
    Category: Software

    Buy New: $49.00



    New (1) Used (1) from $20.00

    Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars 39 reviews
    Sales Rank: 2334

    Format: Cd-rom
    Platform: Macintosh
    Media: CD-ROM
    Operating System: Macintosh
    Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
    Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 1.1

    MPN: TP934LL/A
    Model: TP934LLA
    UPC: 044866034724
    EAN: 0044866034724
    ASIN: B00123WD40

    Release Date: January 8, 2008
    Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

    Features:
      • Organize all the details of your busy life in one place
      • Manage contacts, coordinate events, track projects, and prioritize tasks faster and easier than ever before
      • Links with Mac OS X Address Book and iCal; Imports spreadsheets and other CSV files
      • Includes ready-to-use templates, and elegant themes designed by Mac artists
      • Just point and click or drag and drop to change the look of any form and see information in a way that makes sense to you

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    Editorial Reviews:

    Product Description
    Bento organizes all your important information in one place, so you can manage your contacts, coordinate events, track projects, prioritize tasks, and more.

    Amazon.com
    Meet Bento, the new personal database from FileMaker that's as easy to use as your Mac. It organizes all the details of your busy life in one place. So you can manage contacts, coordinate events, track projects, and prioritize tasks faster and easier than ever before.

    Manage contacts, coordinate events, track projects, and prioritize tasks faster and easier than ever before.

    Substance, meet style
    It's never been easier to get organized thanks to built-in links with Mac OS X Address Book and iCal, ready-to-use templates, and elegant themes designed by Mac artists.

    Built-in Links to Address Book and iCal
    There's no need to re-enter all your contact and calendar info to get started with Bento. It has built-in links to your Mac OS X Address Book and iCal applications.

    In seconds, you'll be viewing all your contacts, tasks, and events in beautiful Bento templates that make searching, sorting and organizing simpler and faster than ever before.

    Great-looking templates
    Bento also comes with more than 20 ready-to-use templates. So you can easily get started organizing just about any kind of information you have--for work, home, school or community projects.

    Add beautiful themes with a click
    To make your templates look even better, you can add an elegant theme, designed by Mac artists, that suits your style and personality. Themes include coordinated colors, layouts, fonts and text styles that bring style to your templates with a single click.

    Help stop spreadsheet abuse
    Let your spreadsheet crunch the numbers, and let Bento do the rest.

    If you're managing lists in Microsoft Excel or just about any other program that exports to Comma Separated Values, you can import them with a simple drag and drop.

    Bento makes it possible to connect related information together so you can see a more a complete picture of everything you're tracking--all in one place.

    Bring it together
    From contacts and calendars, to projects and events, you can organize just about every type of information you have--and access it instantly--all from one place.

    Get the big picture
    Bento makes it possible to connect related information together so you can see a more a complete picture of everything you're tracking--all in one place.

    Bringing things together to get you organized--that's what Bento is all about.

    Find what you need fast
    Ever search for music with iTunes? It couldn't get much easier. And Bento carries on the Mac tradition by using familiar iTunes-like searching. You can find the things you store in Bento instantly. From phone numbers for friends in Fiji to deadlines due in December.

    Display your information in a familiar spreadsheet-like Table View to see multiple records at once.

    Switch to Form View to see one record at a time.

    What's your type?
    Because Bento is a flexible database, you're not forced into tracking pre-set types of information. You can store virtually any type of information you want in Bento choosing from a variety of field type options.

    For instance, let's say you're putting on your company party and all your contacts are already stored in the Mac Address Book. You could simply add a "Checkbox" to your Address Book form to track who's coming, and add a "Choice" pop-up list to store each person's food preference. It's that easy!

    See things your way
    Just point and click or drag and drop to change the look of any form and see information in a way that makes sense to you.

    Set the table, and sort it, too
    Display your information in a familiar spreadsheet-like Table View to see multiple records at once. Sort columns with a single click, and get quick stats through the handy Summary Row.

    If you use the Mac OS X Address Book, you'll appreciate this new view, because you'll be able to see many contacts all at once.

    Forms flow freely
    Switch to Form View to see one record at a time. This view is especially useful when entering large amounts of text, like notes from lectures, meetings and conversations.

    You can also view different slices of your information by adding as many new forms as you'd like. And each new form can show a different grouping of information, so you can see your data from every angle.

    Customize with a click
    Resize, rearrange, and regroup to your heart's content. Just point and click to change themes, columns displayed, label positions, text sizes, shading, alignment, and more.


    Customer Reviews:   Read 34 more reviews...

    1 out of 5 stars Broken and no plans to fix it   November 20, 2008
    Ryan
    THere are some serious flaws with this product. When I contacted Filemaker who developed Bento I was told that only bugs that cause data loss will be fixed. I have to live with the other issues or buy v2 which also has bugs that will not be fixed per this policy. Don't believe me? Check out their own web forums.


    1 out of 5 stars read user comments before you buy   November 3, 2008
    Xxnoo Means (Los Angeles, CA)
    1 out of 1 found this review helpful

    There are a ton of reviews for this product on the web, try to filter our the marketing plants and the irate users. I purchased Bento from amazon and here are my thoughts on both usability and the now infamous Filemaker policy regarding NO upgrades.

    The best thing about Bento is that their intention was to make a VERY simple database "oriented" product that looks great. There really is a niche for this product and assuming you can find ways to make it your own then it has value. The greatest strength is its greatest weakness and that is why most people who critique this product find it too crippled for their use. Through tweaking the guts of the program I was able to make it useful for me but it IS a very elementary piece of software.

    So should you buy it? I have reviewed the upgrade to Bento 2 and still find little different from Bento 1 to change my review in the previous paragraph. This certainly is not a full upgrade from 1 to 2 and still can disappoint many a buyer. I have hopes that this will become a mature product but I fear that it will not. To me the issue lies in the attitude of Filemaker as they are not looking at this software as a long term project.

    Based on the research I have done they have either made a major marketing blunder in alienating their core users or they are simply taking a short sighted view on who will buy their product (ie one-time buyers who care little about the long term use of the product.) I myself will wait for Bento 4 (which in Filemaker timelines may be released within the year :)



    1 out of 5 stars Unacceptably slow, surprisingly awkward, feeble capabilities   November 3, 2008
    John Faughnan (St. Paul, MN USA)
    1 out of 1 found this review helpful

    Bento version 2 has gotten some good reviews.

    I can't explain that.

    In my testing it's a toy application.

    I have a large iCal database with about 6,000 events living on a G5 iMac running OS X 10.5.5. This is a relatively large event collection (though it would not stress Outlook at all) and my hardware is dated -- so I expected a few performance issues.

    I did not expect dreadful performance. Minutes to open the Bento (SQLite really) database. A minute to add a single event record. Inability to add a record when viewing a query (filtered list). No drop down for calendar names ...

    If you've used any database you'll be surprised to learn you can't emulate a join; you can't find common names in two lists for example.

    This is a toy application that will only work with small data sets on a modern machine.

    It's awful. Filemaker should be ashamed.



    2 out of 5 stars Cute, but eh - and no upgrade to 2? Shameful!   November 2, 2008
    Stephanie S. (Oakland, CA)
    2 out of 2 found this review helpful

    Bento is a cute way to organize your contacts, etc, but it's certainly not powerful. It's certainly not worth $50, though I guess it's better than paying $300 for FileMaker.

    I bought Bento about six weeks before they upgraded it to Bento 2, and they're not upgrading me at all. How rude!



    1 out of 5 stars The database for people who don't know what a database is for   October 31, 2008
    I am el Jeffe (MPLS)
    3 out of 3 found this review helpful

    I have a major love/hate feeling about this product.
    Many users are upset over the release of Bento 2. First of all because Filemaker has left us high and dry. No bug fixes to ver 1, and NO UPGRADE POLICY!!
    This database is very limited. There are no relational links, only "representations" of other data. If you intend to use this in a business you are out of luck, It is fine for making a home inventory or planning a party or other "Soccer Mom" stuff.
    The interface is so friendly and beautiful you want to use it, but that's on the surface. Underneath the pretty face it is quite shallow.
    Version 1 users (like me) had such high hopes for Bento 2 and were shocked and disappointed with this release.
    Be aware the product listed here on Amazon is the original version. DO NOT BY THIS! Look for Bento 2 which was released a few weeks ago.
    My rating of one star reflects how I feel about the way Filemaker does business. I will NOT be paying another $50 for this poor excuse for an "upgrade". Should they release "Bento Pro" or a contemporary version of Filemaker Pro I would invest. Filemaker 9 looks like it came out with Mac OS9 - needs a serious facelift, or to be honest rebuilt from the ground up. Hey Filemaker there's a new thing called Cocoa. Check it out.

    Excuse my rant, back to the review. I absolutely love the way this product integrates with ical, mail and the mac address book. Filemaker claims Bento is compatible with the iphone. That is VERY misleading. Its pretty much a lie.

    The table view that now works so much like a (sortable!) spreadsheet is wonderful. Import/export is vastly improved, but reports and printing are weak. I am never able to use my data the way I want. There is always a compromise or work-around involved.

    My wish is to record my billable time and expenses on my iphone and drag or paste that information right into an invoice. WHY IN THIS DAY AND AGE IS THAT NOT POSSIBLE?? Oh how I long to be free of MS Money or Quickbooks for my business!


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