What is the best database technology for a simple database of contacts (800+ names and addresses)?

Question

I need to create a database that can be shared across multiple geographic locations to allow anyone to update or add names and addresses to a contacts database. Does anyone have good advise on how to acheive this? We have a website and can put a database online, but we do not share a common network across the different geographic locations. I have a little computer science background but not much. Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

I'd do it over the web using simple HTML forms, PHP and MySQL. Most Web hosts will offer you that service for about $10 per month. You'll obviously need to develop the forms and code to do the management, but that's the way I would proceed.

Barring that, you could always rent a server from some company like Rackspace.com, put up a copy of Exchange server on the Web, and have your folks use that.

Or, you could always buy a commercial contact management product, such as ACT for the Web

Answer 2

I don't know if Yahoo! has a similar mechanism but Google's Gmail for Your Domain allows you to set up a member list (authorized users) who can sign on and diddle the contacts list.

Answer 3

The most feasible way to achieve this would probably to be to set up a SQL database online.

You *may* also be able to achieve this through Perl and CGI.