 askSam SDKby asKSam Systems
   The askSam database engine is a flexible, full-text searchable, database engine designed to deal with both structured and unstructured information.
  The Flexible Full-Text Engine to Drive Your Applications 
The askSam database engine is a flexible, full-text searchable, database
engine designed to deal with both structured and unstructured information.
Unlike traditional databases, the askSam engine frees you from tables and
pre-defined structures. There's no better tool for handling applications with
free-form data, data with differing formats, or data that needs to be quickly
and easily searched - applications that organize email, medical records, legal
texts, resumes, imaged or scanned documents, meta-information, and document
management. askSam will save you time and money in your development efforts.
  
The askSam advantage 
The askSam Engine was designed to be fast and flexible. It provides a different
approach from traditional databases for managing and searching information.
  
Flexibility
    
      
          
            - askSam was designed to deal with unstructured and structured
              information.
            
 - A single database can contain data with multiple structures. The
              askSam Engine is a great met repository for applications that
              gather different types of information.
            
 - Save text, data, and information without pre defining structure
              or tables.
            
 - The askSam Engine can automatically use structure inherent in
              your data as fields. For example, the words Subject:, Date:, To:,
              and From: in email messages can be used as fields in an askSam
              database. Similarly, Web Forms can post directly to an askSam
              database with tags for the information.
            
 - No predefined field lengths and no limits to field size.
            
 - Support for repeating fields (for example multiple fields for a
              contact history).
            
 - Import API supports importing different data types text, RTF,
              HTML, Word, Delimited, and more.
            
 - Sort and Output fields or output document fragments from your
              data (for example hit context).
 
           
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 Ease of Development 
    
      
          
            - Import and publish the askSam Engine is ideal for
              database-driven Web sites. It can import a variety of common
              formats into the database and natively return data in HTML format.
            
 - Flexibility leads to simplicity. Because askSam does not require
              structure, field lengths, or tables, you'll find that many
              applications are quick and easy to get up and running. They are
              also easy to maintain and modify.
            
 - Native support for outputting data in Text, HTML, or RTF format.
            
 - Simple, but powerful reporting features are built into askSam.
 
           
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 Searches - Powerful & Fast 
    
      
          
            - Extremely fast full text searches.
            
 - Full text indexing of entire database askSam can search in
              specific fields or through any field or text in the entire
              database.
            
 - Support for Text, Date, Numeric, Proximity, Wildcard, Fuzzy,
              & Boolean Searches.
            
 - Search in Remembered Document Sets.
 
           
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 High Performance / Low Resources
  
    - Database engine size - approximately 1.3 MB
    
 - Low memory requirements for server connections
    
 - Supports a large number of users and many databases on a single server.
 
   
System Requirements 
To create your documents and databases, you will need a copy of askSam 5. askSam requires:
                      
 	- 16 MB of RAM
 	
 - 130 MB of disk space (plus the space required by your documents and databases) 
 	
 - Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP, 2003
  
To create Web-based applications:
    
      - IIS Web server running Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, or 2003 (We
        recommend Windows NT, Windows 2000, XP Professional or Windows 2003
        running NTFS) 
      
 - IDE (Integrated Development Environment) such as VisualStudio.NET,
        Visual Interdev or Notepad (ASP applications)
 
     
To create Windows applications:
      
        
        - IDE such as VisualStudio, Visual Studio.NET, or Borland C++
 
       
Programming Languages/Platforms Supported:
        
          - Visual Basic, ASP
          
 - .NET, C#
          
 - C++
 
         
Plus, the askSam 5.1 SDK includes sample applications and code.
Features
The askSam engine is feature rich. 
  - Entering & Editing Data
 
            askSam is extremely flexible in dealing with data. Information is
            stored in documents rather than in tables, and the database can
            return specific fields, document fragments, or all data from a
            document. askSam can return data as text, HTML, or RTF. 
  
  - Ideal for Unstructured Data and Multi-Structured Data
 
            askSam has features to simplify working with unstructured data.
            Structure inherent in documents (for example words like
            "To:", "From:", and "Subject:" in an
            email message) can be used as fields by askSam. askSam allows
            documents with different structures to be stored in a database. 
  
  - Fast, Powerful Searches
 
            AskSam uses a powerful and efficient indexing routine to make
            all information in a database instantly accessible. AskSam
            searches through huge databases instantly. In addition, askSam
            offers a wide variety of searches: full-text, date, numeric,
            proximity, fuzzy, and more. 
  
  - Flexible Search Results
 
            Search results can include document names, specific fields,
            hit content, and fragments from a document. The results can be
            sorted by relevancy, date, or by any other field. 
  
  - Report Features
 
            Powerful reporting features are built into askSam. askSam
            can group and sort data, total fields, and more. 
  
  - Security / Encryption
 
            AskSam allows you to password protect and encrypt your
            databases. AskSam supports 128 bit encryption. 
  
  - Email Applications
 
            askSam supports features that make it an ideal tool for
            applications to organize and manage email. Special
            filters for importing email, capabilities to recognize
            To:, From:, Subject: and Date: as fields in email
            messages. In addition, askSam properly interprets the
            date format used in email messages and can search and
            sort using this date format. 
  
  - Bibliographic and Library Applications
 
            Bibliographic and library applications often require
            flexibility not found in standard databases. The
            ability to easily handle multiple data types (books,
            journals, reports, articles, etc.), capabilities to
            support multiple authors, long titles, and more.
            askSam provides features to handle bibliographical information. 
  
  - Hypertext
 
            askSam supports hypertext links. You can include links in document that help navigate through your
            databases. You can also include links to Web pages. 
  
  - Return Data as Text, HTML, or RTF
 
            You can return data from askSam in several different formats: Text, HTML, and RTF. askSam's
            Export API allows you to export an individual document, selected documents, a remembered subset
            of documents, or an entire database. 
  
  - Self-maintaining databases - No DBA
 
            askSam databases do not need to tuned or optimized by a DBA (database administrator).
            Indexes automatically update, and an optimization routine can automatically pack and
            optimize databases. 
  
  - Graphics / Images
 
            You can include graphics and images in your databases. askSam supports a variety of graphic formats as well as OLE. 
  
  - Attachments / BLOBs
 
            You can attach files to your askSam documents. This attachments are handled as blobs and askSam can return them in their 
  
  - Support for Large Databases
 
            askSam can support databases up to 16 terabytes in size. 
  
  - Multi-user support
 
            The askSam database supports multiple users. 
  
  - Web-Ready
 
            Easily create Web applications with the askSam database. Since askSam can return data in HTML format, it's quick
            and easy to Web-enable your askSam applications. 
   
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