We have a case where we wanted to develop the dedicated (stand-alone)
use of a single database from a Windows service. We installed the
stand-alone Firebird engine and the Firebird .Net Data Provideer
for .Net 1.1 and we figured out how to create and connect to the
database and how to create the schema, populate tables and query
data. Cool.

1. I am very new to Firebird (less than 4 days), but it seems
incredibly difficult to find any documentation on how to do simple
things, like format the connection string. Information is scattered
all over the place, and I finally found most of my answers indirectly
in newsgroup entries while researching other issues.

2. Support for stand-alone databases is extremely sparse, or perhaps
I so not know where to look.

3. Is there any way to get some of the tools out there to work with
stand-alone databases? I have downloaded a few, but they all seem to
demand that I am running a Firebird server.

4. On the same note, can I install the Firebird server and have it
communicate with my stand-alone database as well? Obviously I would
not want the server and my service attempting to access the same
database concurrently, but...

5. Are there any command line tools that I can use with the stand-
alone database? Do I have to do anything special to install them?

6. I know that Firebird has a history from another product
(Interbase?), but all of the constant cross-references get confusing
real fast! When does one know that an IB feature/function also
applies in FB and when FB differs from IB?

-ken