MySQL online hosting for Heidi SQL & quick and reliable interface

Hi Folks,
Two things :
1. We desire a recommendation for well priced community popular online hosting for MySQL ( recent stable version ) that HeidiSQL will connect to. Web capacity necessary too. Not large amounts of data ( it's for a small business ).
2. Also we want to move away from spreadsheets entirely but to do that we need a quick way of entering data eg a means of hooking an Excel file to HeidiSQL ( or another means to edit the data base as quickly as edits can be made. Ideally a hook up with Excel ( .csv import all the time for minimal updates not realistic ). Excel allows rapid data entry and it's what most folks know.

Thank you

Kez

well, in principle mysql (and mariadb) have a "CSV" storage engine now, that can work on .csv files; you would have to put the .csv files on the server and set up a corresponding table definition, using this CSV engine, for each one, and then edit this database files with HeidiSQL. This will probably work; since the CSV engine seems to use no indexing, it would probably be very slow, especially for non-trivial amounts of data; YMMV.

then, while moving away from excel has certain advantages, especially when data relations become complex, it has also at least one importatnt drawback: simple data entry without programming, except the hack mentioned above, is finished for good. AFAIK there is no way ariound it; if you use other storage formats, you generally have to provide custom data entry forms and logic. some programming systems (eg ruby on rails, and also the infamous ms access) ease this process somewhat by auto-generating such forms from databases, but they generally have quite some learning curve to set up and use.

also, it is beyond me what you mean by "moving awaya from spreadsheets" but keep using excel format files - what exacly do you hope to gain by this ?

I am currently developing a online data entry form that makes entries into my MySql database on my host. I then use HeidiSql to extract that info into a csv file on my local computer and import into an Access database for processing. You might want to look at 'Simfatic Forms' as a form development tool and then use HeidiSql and the data access method. Hope this helps...