Easy Database for the technologically impared.

Was talking with a friend the other day about how some new technological device that incorporates a multimedia board just came out and was still in a phase where its not so useful. To my wild imagination, such a device would be awesome, especially if it allowed you to read documents and , regardless of the document format, take notes and create links based on tags, much how it already happens in a blog, where you could easily cross reference through several books with the plus of being portable and usable anywhere. This would help immensely in an investigation setting for you no longer had to solely rely on your memory or note-books and easily go through literally gigabytes of information in seconds looking only for that particular "tag" that's relevant to your research at the time, all this completely customizable by you and based on the notes you created in the documents present in said err notepad. I'm sure something akin to this already must exist in some form - I either dont know about it and probably can't even afford it - but this little wish had me thinking on how i could improve my acess to all the data that i'm either working on or have already worked on without having necessarily to go dig through countless diaries and notebooks, filled with scribbles, ink blotches and a tremendous amount of space occupied. Would this negate the very mystique of operating your own diary of experience and testing? Certainly not, on the other hand, it would help to keep things easily organized, virtually space free, and easily accessible, something that a clumsy, forgetful person like me would very much appreciate.

In the beginning i thought about creating a database in Microsoft Access, but my knowledge of it would prompt me to precisely state what the parameters of search would be, and that, in the long run, would make it counter what initially designed it for: Simplicity in accessing information. It was with this in mind that yesterday I created an Microsoft Excell workbook related only to my herbalism exploits. Now, Excell is really awesome. Its a very vast application that allows you to crunch numbers, data, and text; it allows the input of data and the consequent treatment. So, i created already a bunch of pages in said workbook regarding the plant species I have in store, which ones i actually grow, which ones i want to plant, which part of the plant i have/use, and what plans I have for future acquisition, when are the best seasons for planting and harvesting plus little tidbits of folklore. But this is not all, with the application of filters and data validations linked to mutable and fixed anchors I can cross reference those plants with existent recipes where they play part, and, of course, have a page for the recipes themselves where i decided to give it the most "scientific" treatment possible.
This recipe page is my crown and glory. Since I am developing my own recipes as well as working with a bunch of different texts on the subject, its so easy to follow the progress of the recipes, where i failed and what i think can be improved on, if they need or not further testing...its amazing. I am so proud of myself that I'm filled like a balloon :)

This is an example, not complete, of the recipe database. The cathegories included are: The recipe name, if it was tested on what, how you prepared it and the supposed effects as well if they worked or not. There are also cathegories for its effectiveness (on a 1 to 5 scale), where did the recipe come from, the conditions of preparation (poor, average, good, excellent and perfect) as well as a description of said conditions and also a space for notes and if the recipe requires further testing and perfection or if its good the way it is. Excel's filters will allow me to navigate easily through the recipes using any of the categories as a search parameter. All in all, works great for what its intended for.