|
vb123.com |
|
|
Home Contact Us Order our Software RSS &
Newsletter
Get Good Help
The
Workbench
Find out who has your database open, start the
correct version of Access, easy compacting and backups, change startup
options, mde compile, shutdown database
Read and
Download Garry's Blog
About The Editor
Garry Robinson
writes for a number of popular computer magazines, is now a book author
and has worked on 100+ Access databases. He is based in Sydney,
Australia or try our new site built with
SharePoint Designer |
Is Your Database Corrupt ?
See all newsletters
Access Unlimited is an email newsletter that provides free tips, help and information for skilled Microsoft Access users and related software disciplines.
Produced by Garry Robinson (known below as "Ed") from Sydney, Australia.
In this edition
Software Prizes
Junk Email < 75%
Review Of Access 2002 VBA Handbook
Final Word On Html Emails
The Workbench Has Been Revised
Speeding Up Query Development
Good Reading
VB OR VBA EDITING HOT KEY
A good hotkey sequence is Ctrl+Y for any VB or VBA editor. This deletes the
current line and places it in paste buffer.
SOFTWARE PRIZES
Heather Floyd of New York won a copy of The Toolshed for her terrific suggestions regarding The Access Workbench.
For this months competition, let Garry know what improvements you would like to see in the next version of Graf-FX. The best submission(s) will receive a copy of either The Toolshed, Graf-FX or the Access Workbench.
WELL DONE SCOTT !
Scott McManus who does a lot of work for us has written his first solo computer article. This one is on using Visio Professional to produce data modeling and relationship diagrams for Access.
http://www.pinpub.com
REVIEW OF ACCESS 2002 VBA HANDBOOK
Been comparing styles of different Access books in research for a book that I am writing on MS Access. One book that has caught my eye is the Access 2002 VBA Handbook by Susan Novalis. This book is well organized and written in the style of the old reference books that used to come out in tandem with users guides. In other words if you like to understand the technology behind the product, this book provides lots of good background reading. Probably most suited to those people moving from the basics to intermediate level or those who feel that they need to get an overview of the different parts of programming Access. It tends to read like a graphical guide/introduction to programming. Unfortunately not so hot on the useful samples but as I said, it is more of a reference guide. There is also a 2000 version of the same book.
Click here for the Access 2002 VBA Handbook
Click here for the Access 2000 VBA Handbook
GARRY IS WRITING A BOOK
Yep Garry is grinding his way through a computer book for Apress.com. Its going to be all about MS Access and its going to cover one big topic really well. Whilst there will be a fair smatter of techno babble, there will be an emphasis on solutions and pictorial descriptions where required. And for those of you that like samples, there will be no shortage of forms and code that you can import into your database (for instant gratification). The samples and discussions will be relevant to Access 97, 2000, 2002 and 2003 developers and DBA’s and there will even be some discussions directed at IT Managers.
More information will be forthcoming when the book gets closer to launch time.
THE WORKBENCH HAS BEEN REVISED
The workbench has lots of new features resulting from readers requests including
* A Favorites Tab
* A Do Not Select Workgroup check box to make it easier to turn off workgroups
* Support for all the command line switches such as readonly, runtime mode or
the decompile switch.
* You can transfer these command line scripts to a desktop shortcut. This means
building complicated shortcuts for Access is now just a Cut and Paste away.
* The workbench can detect if a database is encrypted. Did you know that an encrypted database is 15% slower than an unencrypted database ?
Rather than trying the software, a number of people seem to
like downloading the help file to read about the program. Otherwise click on the
Workbench link on the LHS of this email.
http://www.vb123.com/get/wb_help.zip
ACCESS PROGRAMMERS TIP – SPEEDING UP QUERY DEVELOPMENT
When you are working with a number of interrelated queries, sometimes it is hard to keep track of what query belongs where. If you are working with an Access front-end database, try this trick.
Open the relationship window. This should be empty (or out of date) as the database relationship diagram will be in the back end database. Click the show table button and add the queries that you are working on to the relationship window. Now position those queries in locations that reflect the hierarchical design of the queries. If you like, you can even join them on the screen using the referential integrity lines. This will not enforce integrity so it will not amend your database design. You can also add the tables that these queries relate to in the relationship diagram as well. Now you can right click on any query in the window and go directly into design mode. Generally, I find that this approach is far easier than sifting through lists in the database container to find the different queries that you are working on.
Note that it is hard to maintain too many of these query hierarchies on the screen at once due to an awkward bug in all versions of Access. This bug causes the X-Y location of the query in the relationship window to change occasionally.
FINAL WORD ON HTML EMAILS
If you want to switch to HTML emails from text emails, remember that the size
fof the emails may make a difference if you are charged for sending data by the
megabyte. This email is about 60k per email * 3,500 readers which amounts to 200
megabytes in traffic or thereabouts. If the spammers were charged for traffic
like in Australia, they would quickly give up !!!
GOOD READING
Lots of interesting reading Access reading and links on this
page
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnacc2k/html/acacclinks.asp
Running multiple versions of Office including Office 2003 (11)
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=218861
A few web sites to promote your web site plus books on successful internet
promotions.
http://www.vb123.com/books/searchengines.htm
Discussion on the Decompile option in Access (easy to do in the workbench)
http://www.trigeminal.com/usenet/usenet004.asp
Integrating Flash with an Access database
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/010605.htm
Interfacing an Informix database from Access.
http://www.inquiry.com/techtips/info_pro/10min/10min0300/10min0300.asp
Adam Cogan has a list of email good practices here
http://www.ssw.com.au/SSW/Standards/Rules/RulestoBetterEmail.aspx
February 12, 2003
Neil Boyle explains the mechanisms SQL Server uses to secure itself from
unauthorized access, and discusses best practice for selecting and
administering passwords.
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/1582981
Microsoft to add reporting services to SQL Server
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,886780,00.asp
Expensive but interesting way to write your own email application (not tested)
https://www.quiksoft.com/newsletter/issue003/default.asp?page=1
Super Kids Site (my 3.45 year old has a great time anyway !)
http://www.nickjr.com/
If you like this newsletter, why not try the websites of
others who contribute to this newsletter.
http://www.vb123.com/explore/links.htm
So thanks for reading our popular newsletter. Feel free to make comments, copy
the email to a friend or maybe even contribute to the next edition.
WRAPPING THIS EDITION UP
The war is over or so our politicians would like us to believe, the email spammers are starting to destroy the creditability of email and Microsoft is starting to bring out a new version of Office. I can’t do too much about the war, I have told you one way to get on top of email and if you think that Office isn’t that important, remember that Office 97 goes into the final stages of product support in early 2004. This means that upgrades will probably be full price after that time. In my view that means that Office 97 users should start to plan for Office 2003 (or maybe 2002) for the end of this year as that should give just enough time for the first CD-Rom based patches to come out. Read more and find the MS links at
http://www.vb123.com/toolshed/02_docs/upgrades.htm
Garry Robinson - Software
Consultant
--- The
end of this edition of Access Unlimited ---
Click on this button
to read the previous edition of Access Unlimited
Published 2004-02