Bento is a stylish, personal database that helps Mac users organize their work and personal life. Designed specifically for Mac OS X Leopard, Bento is an exceptionally easy way to organize contacts, calendars, projects, events and more, faster and easier than ever before. Since its release, Bento has won numerous accolades from the press. BusinessWeek called it “a powerful organizing tool anyone can use.”
“Bento users are proud of what they’ve created and eager to share their stories with the rest of the world,” says Ryan Rosenberg, vice president marketing and services, in the press release. “And now they have a chance to win a new iPhone in the process.”
Bento also links with Address Book and iCal, allowing users to see their contact data on their iPhone or share it over the Web with .Mac (soon to be MobileMe).
There are hundreds of ways Bento is being used for work and for home, from managing essential business contacts, to tracking home inventory, to more exotic uses such as managing wine collections and recording dreams.
How to enter the Bento sweepstakes
To enter the sweepstakes, participants may send a Bento success story (500 words or less) to with a subject heading of “Bento Sweepstakes.” No Purchase is necessary to enter. FileMaker will award one iPhone 3G to one winner in July, August and September.Contest rules and regulations available here.
FileMaker, Inc. develops award-winning database software. Its products include the legendary FileMaker Pro product line for Windows, Mac and the Web, and the new Bento personal database for Mac. FileMaker Pro won 49 awards, more than its next eight competitors combined, from 2003-2007 in the U.S., and a total of 130 awards worldwide during this time. Millions of customers, from individuals to large organizations, rely on FileMaker, Inc. software to manage, analyze and share information. FileMaker, Inc. is a subsidiary of Apple Inc.
Sending mine in!!
Well, mine is simple. I downloaded the trial. Launched it and a few moments later it locked up and crashed. I repeated this many times and then deleted the program. Do I win?
Doesn’t support Tiger – That’s not “user friendly”.
The Bento demo worked flawlessly for me on iMac 24″ C2D. I saw a lot of potential uses for the software that are currently addressed by standalone applications – home inventory, recipe book, etc.
As usual for a 1.0 release, I found a few areas that could stand some improvement. I plan on purchasing the software sometime soon – hopefully there will be an update before the end of the year.
@Quad Core
I had the same experience as you, except I purchased it 1st
Downloaded the trial, ran it for a few days, then deleted it. Never missed it.
I couldn’t figure out why I was supposed to be using it. OS X already has great organization, why use a different program?
And, of course, Bento is Mac only. No Winblows for you! We’ll soon see more and more of this.
I tried the demo and it looked great, but there is virtually no way to run reports or get information OUT once you put it in. No mail merge for example. No integration with Numbers or Pages. But it sure looks good.
I downloaded the Beta and loved it, but there were a couple of “gotchas” … like no way to print your “reports”. Decided to wait for Bento 2.0 before considering a purchase – especially at the somewhat steep price. Bundling an upgrade into iWork (’09?) and raising the price by maybe $20 would seem reasonable. GOT to have some way to link “reports” out to Numbers or Pages, though, as well as a simple Report Writer. This software is too pretty, too easy to use, too clean to be wasted as a Version 1.0 that more resembles a limited Demo than a Full Working Version.
I downloaded it, couldn’t figure out what to do with – so I trashed and now I’m writing about my shortcomings here.
I need “it’s” too…
I’d prefer to tell em my beano story.
Let’s see. You win and Filemaker gives you a $200 phone for free. Almost forgot. There’s an over $1,600 contract you’ll have to pay over the next couple of years…
Wow, I figured I’d get skewered for my Bento story, but I guess I am not alone…..
Might work if it had a report writer. I,m looking a simple database similar to MS Works, too bad someone doesn’t come up with one for Mac users.