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  Welcome To The Access Unlimited Newsletter - Edition 37
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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,

Garry’s Xmas Stocking Suggestions
Win a copy of some of our software
Option Explicit
The Access 10 Commandments
Good Reading

--- GARRY’S XMAS STOCKING SUGGESTIONS

If I was to fill a stocking with the software that I need to help run my Access / Office Programming company, here is what I would like to see on every computer.

Last year has seen the online turkeys get a lot more orgainised in their spamming and hacking so I would suggest

A firewall is now an essential tool on every machine. Microsoft Windows XP has a firewall option built into it but this will only protect you against some intrusions and will not stop errant programs from communicating from your PC to the internet. We use Zone Alarm from
http://www.zonelabs.com/

Having just come home from a 4 day holiday, I was treated with 350 emails which were mostly spam. I cleaned these out quick smart with a tool called Mail Washer that concentrates on making it easy to delete spam. This tool works especially well if you turn on the DNS Spam filters.
http://www.mailwasher.net/

Managing Emails gets harder as the lists get bigger. The full version of Outlook has many features such as Categories and dragging emails to Tasks and Calendar that make this all a little simpler. Knowing a bit about Outlook will make you look better with your clients next time you peer over their shoulder at a clients office. So contemplate upgrading to Outlook next year if you haven’t already.

If you like to capture screens for your help files, web pages or word files, throw away MS paint and try SnagIt. You will find the capture options are a real time saver.
http://www.techsmith.com/products/snagit/default.asp

All day I am switching workgroups and versions of Access. I now use our Access Workbench for these tasks and it saves me a bit of time and a lot of confusion. The workbench gets a good review from Mike Gunderloy, the editor of Access Developer news.
http://www.vb123.com/workbench/reviews.htm

Changing the names of objects and controls is still an important part of the Access programming environment. For this I use Rick’s tool at
http://www.rickworld.com/

Backing up your computer files and keeping them offsite or in a fireproof safe is essential. For this we use a tool called SecondCopy. This works especially well with the latest external Firewire or USB 2.0 devices with more disk space than you current computer.
http://www.centered.com/

Zipping files is a major part of the development process. Whenever we send out a new version of a database, we will update the version number on the main form of the database and then store the version in a zip file with a version number. This is critical because it easy to compare new changes against previous working versions of databases and software. Other recent enhancements such as zip and SendAsEmail are also very useful. http://www.winzip.com


--- WIN A COPY OF SOME OF OUR SOFTWARE
To win a copy of some of our software, copy the following web page to your web site and keep all the links on the page. Once the page is on your web site, register the page at Google. Prizes will be announced in our newsletter and it doesn’t matter how popular your web site is.

http://www.gr-fx.com/vb123Prize.htm


--- THE 10 COMMANDMENTS FOR MICROSOFT ACCESS DATABASES

This page had a biblical theme from a group of wise men (and women).
http://www.mvps.org/access/tencommandments.htm


--- OPTION EXPLICIT

Had the weirdest bug the other day where the option explicit statement at the top of a form module didn’t actually work. The fix was to delete it and then type it in again. Whilst this is probably very unusual, one message for the readers is always put option explicit at the top of your modules. No Exceptions. Ed


--- GOOD READING

Submitting your website to MSN is worthwhile but difficult to find where to do it for free.

http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

From Mike’s Access Developer News magazine, a link that we could be useful for generating flexible crosstab reports
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q328320

Recover records from a corrupt table
http://www.mvps.org/access/tables/tbl0018.htm

A page of Access tips
http://www.computerbooksonline.com/tips/access.asp

A good resource for ADO connections strings
http://www.connectionstrings.com/

Recently I was asked to write articles using an Active voice rather than a Passive voice. So now I will show you where to find a page to understand what that means in the Queens English, if you know what I mean and I sure don’t. Ed
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_actpass.html

Interesting page on Access 2000 performance
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Databases/MS_Access/Q_20264154.html



WRAPPING THIS EDITION UP

Have a great Xmas and hope you can stay tuned for the New Year.


Ed. Garry Robinson



PEOPLE WHO READ THIS NEWSLETTER, ALSO READ

Access Developer News by Mike Gunderloy
http://www.larkware.com



-- OUR SOFTWARE AND RESOURCES -----------------------


Manage your databases and users, login in quickly, change workgroups
quickly and securely and more
---> http://www.vb123.com/workbench/

Explore your data visually using our popular Access data mining shareware
---> http://www.vb123.com/explore
 

View our web site as a searchable eBook and have access
to all the downloads discussed in the articles and information
pages at the popular vb123.com web site.
---> http://www.vb123.com/Toolbox/



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.


Garry Robinson - Software Consultant

Software Resources http://vb123.com/


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Published  2002-12