Database and server admin #2

Right now I have my wee manufacturing database running on Open Office Base, on my laptop. Its only 1.5mb, so I back it up onto several memories cards a couple of times a day. I'm the only person who uses the database, but the reports it churns out are used throughout the company, its neat like that.

This isn't very sustainable though. I think I'm reaching the limits of what Open Office Base can do, I might be wrong, other people use it for far bigger things, but I'm finding it very slow sometimes. Its version 2.3, I understand 2.4 is out, but when I tried upgrading to it, none of my queries would work, that was a dark day.

Anyhoo, I think the situation I'd like to be in is running the database off of a server, and being able to access it wirelessly via my laptop or any of a dozen ucomputers in here. Actually, it would be neat if it was an Oracle database that could be accessed from the web.

So, lazy-web admin crowd, I need a simple plan of how to get from where the database is now to where I want it to be, in small easily affordable and doable steps, where I don't lose functionality of my database for more than an hour at a time.

I don't care how long it takes to do this, as long as it remains in budget of £20 a week.

Can you do it?