Zoho Creator and DB online databases
If you haven't already followed my advice to check out Zoho, I'm going to give you two more reasons go look into this online SaaS provider. Zoho is a provider of hosted Software as a Service applications including an office suite with word processor, spreadsheet, presentation app, etc., and if it stopped there it would still be cool, but an also-ran to Google's Docs application offerings. Zoho goes the extra mile with an ever growing list of online applications from a project manager to a full CRM offering. Additionally, Zoho has two database offerings, Creator and DB/Reports. While it's my understanding that Creator will eventually be able to use DB as it's back end engine, the SaaS layer differs in that Creator is a drag and drop online forms and application creation engine with a powerful scripting language, while DB/Reports exposes the database layer and is intended for online reporting and graphing functions.
If you have ever struggled with creating a simple database application with MS Access, fret no more. Now I'm not talking about a simple table of data, you could do that with Google's spreadsheet app with the new "publish as a form" option. What you can do with Zoho Creator is to design and publish an application with data validation logic and if/then/else statements, drop down boxes, radio buttons, etc.
And, if you want to crunch some datasets and publish the equivalent of MS Excel pivot tables, then DB/Reports is your answer. Instead of setting up a MS IIS server and struggling with publishing an Excel spreadsheet (with limited options and success), go to Zoho's DB/Reports, import your dataset, and create graphs and table presentations of your data ad infinitum.
Then, with both options, you can embed the DB/Reports graphs and tables as well as the Creator Forms into your own website.
As with most Zoho applications, there is a personal use version of both applications for free, and paid versions for multiuser access and addtional feature sets.
