LETTERS
ISSUE 379|COMPUTERSHOPPER|SEPTEMBER (^20197)
What Ronrequirestakes eight clicks
betweenGmail accounts.The free MultCloud
accountallows 50GB of transfers per month.
Paul
Realitybytes
Thankyouforpublishingthe article
that Ihad asked forabout small
organisations’optionsformembership
databases(Shopper375). It will sound
ungrateful of me to saythat Iwas
disappointed, but the truth is that it’s not
your article but reality that disappointsme.
The reasonis that there really is adearth
of affordablerelationaldatabasesoftware.
Ihavetried the only real contender,
LibreOffice,and it appearedpromising.
Unfortunately there are some drawbacks.
First off,there is the nonsenseof findinga
viable ‘runtimeJava environment’that works
on your computer.Setting up the tables –if
you have any prior experience–isn’t too
bad. Thekillershortcomingisthatthe
query-maker,which looks at first as
thoughit can mimic Access’s, turns out
not to have the ability to appendor modify
data, which makes it virtuallyimpossibleto
incorporatedownloadeddata (typically,
from an electronicbank statement showing
subscriptionsreceived).
It’s true that LibreOfficehas aSQL
feature that might do the job,but that’s like
asking aSundayjogger to take on Usain Bolt.
Iguess the underlyingproblemis that
databasecreationhas moved upstreamto
the preserveof professionalIT staff and
web-basedofferings, or downstreamto
crude Excel spreadsheets.
Thank you forindulgingme.
Paul Martin
Headedoffatthepass
In reference to the securityor lack of
inherentwith cloud-basedpassword
managers(Le tters,Shopper378), surely
having the passwordto your passwordfile
gives access to all your passwords–oramI
missingsomething?
Email passwordsshouldbe the ones most
carefully protected. Hands up those who
haven’t pressedthe ‘Forgot password?’
button when we can’t be botheredto find
the existingpasswords.My hand stays
down. Anyonewith access to your email
accountand passwordcan do this.
Anotherbutton Iavoid is the invitation
from PayPal to staylogged intomyaccount
when buyingsomething.Still, 100% credit
to PayPal forthe feature advisingme when
apayment is to be made.Why don’t the
banks do this, sayfor transactionsover an
agreedamount?It would dramatically
reducefraudulenttransactions.
ChrisAdam
Hibernationstate
In your reply to Dean Harris (Help file,
Shopper377), you state: “Hibernation
reducesnoise,power consumptionand heat
output,so it’s ashame not to use it.”
All true,but as the rest of your article
makes clear,nothing’ssimple.
NAS-rated drives are,asyou say,
designedto run continuouslywithoutfailure.
But regularstartingup and shuttingdown
leads to prematurefailure becauseof the
torque appliedduring startup,and the
stressescausedby the temperature
fluctuationsassociated with rapid heating
and coolingduring wake-upand hibernation.
So the cost benefits of hibernationhave
to be offset againstthe cost of buying
replacementdrives earlier,and the disposal
costs of the old ones. Not to mentionthat
while the drives are spinningup,there’s a
user waitingfortheir data to load.
Paul Barrett
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