Welcome To The Access Unlimited Newsletter - Edition 45
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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 ... 

Spell Check an Access Field
Single Record Locking, Bloat And Citrix Bugs
A New Access Add-In and Garry’s Access Security Book
Good Reading

CODE TO CHECK THE SPELLING IN A SINGLE TEXT BOX ON A FORM 

Whilst we would all appreciate if our users checked their spelling before saving a large memo or text field, expecting that your users will press the F7 key or use an Access menu to start the speller is highly unlikely. Also if the user does use the Access built in spell checker, this can start off a sequence where every record in the table is checked. To counter this, you can setup a button on your form that will invoke the spell checker for one field. To illustrate this, see the code below that spell checks a field called Assessment. In this example, the field is spell checked using VBA. Note that the RunCommand method is the spell checking component of this process.

 With Me!Assessment
  If Len(.value) > 0 Then
    DoCmd.SetWarnings False
    .SetFocus
    .SelStart = 1
    .SelLength = Len(.value)
    DoCmd.RunCommand acCmdSpelling
    .SelLength = 0
    DoCmd.SetWarnings True
  End If

End With

SINGLE RECORD LOCKING, BLOAT AND CITRIX BUGS

Did you know that the record-level locking option (menu Tools~Options~Advanced) that is used by Access 2000 onwards has an interesting twist. To achieve a single record lock, each record that is locked uses up all of an Access page in the mdb file. This page of data, most of which will probably be empty for records with only a few fields, consumes 4000 bytes. This space is later recovered when the database is compacted but if you have a database that seems to expand fast, this could be your culprit. For more on this database bloat and a possible cure for Access corruptions for Citrix head to this page.

http://ewbi.blogs.com/develops/2004/01/access_corrupti.html

and an other blog on the same topic
http://dbforums.com/arch/213/2002/10/551337

 Then read this gem at Google Groups

And more on this record locking phenomenon at Microsoft MSDN

Finally here are lots of thoughts on reducing bloated Access databases

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/bloatfe.htm

I would happy to hear from anyone who has more information on this topic.

GARRY’S MS ACCESS PROTECTION AND SECURITY BOOK

Garry’s book has now been printed and is selling well.  Amazon USA and UK now have five 5 star reviews on the book. If you want to find out more about the book, what people have been saying, read the table of contents and the free book chapter, head to the following address (the book is for Access 97 users onwards)

http://www.vb123.com/map/

Garry’s book gets a mention at DataBaseJournal.com and VBWire.com finds out about the free book chapter.

http://vbwire.com/brief.asp?7082

http://www.databasejournal.com/news/article.php/3318981

A NEW ACCESS ADD-IN

When you purchase or upgrade any of our software this month, you will receive a free copy of a new Access 2000 Add-In called GOA. This Add-in will rapidly analyze your database tables and inform you of things like if you are missing Primary Keys, if tables or fields are named with odd characters and if tables are joined by fields of different sizes. These are all issues that you need to test for regularly as they will help keep your development costs down.

http://www.vb123.com/orders/

As some of the more experience SQL Server specialists will notice, the above Add-In produces lists that are handy for those contemplating upgrades to SQL Server. Whilst this tool is very quick and the output is in a handy format, I recommend that you have a look at the SSW Upsizing tool as well as this will report just about all the errors that you are likely to encounter before you encounter them.

http://www.ssw.com.au/ssw/UpsizingPRO

GOOD READING

Access databases on the web including caching. This article gets better the further it goes.
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/010514.htm

What coming in Windows XP Service Pack 2. Lots to think about in this version. http://entmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=6138

Microsoft Graph Object Model for Access 2000 and Access 97
Link to MSDN for Access 2000

http://www.microsoft.com/officedev/articles/OMG/naug25gr.htm

Examples on  Programming the Chart Object in Microsoft Office Web Components
Link to database journal web site

Danny Lesandrini shows how to simulate hyperlinks on Access forms
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/msaccess/article.php/3298161

Identify performance problems with your database.
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/oracle/article.php/3309341

Find out how you can create Web sites for SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 using FrontPage 2003.

Windows SharePoint Services
SharePoint Portal Server

SQL Server gets a reporting tool
http://members.microsoft.com/partner/salesmarketing/expertcolumns/stayahead.aspx
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,p29,1,6yoo,md9x,39gr,amjy

A .Net Tool for manipulating Excel without actually having Excel
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,oju,1,hho,9h86,39gr,amjy

Following are a list of some Windows services (software) that can usually be disabled or set to start manually (instead of automatically when you boot up).
http://www.winxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=040127HT-Tips

Cold Fusion users discuss Access on the web, locking db’s and upsizing
http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=152117

And yet more Access blogs by web persons about Access
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/010514.htm

Rod Stephens mentioned this as a great introduction to RSS, and free news aggregators and other useful stuff:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2175281

Some great .Net and Office articles here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/office/

How to FTP with Visual Basic
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/981203.htm

A number of Access add-ins including an Excel importer and a query builder
http://www.4tops.com/

A list of prominent Access sites
http://www.highindex.com/Computers/Software/Databases/MS_Access/

How to change the version of your New database in Explorer when using Access XP
Link to Utter Access Thread

Smart Access In March

In March 2004, Peter Vogel shows you how to utilize the pivot table object in Excel from an Access database. This article expires at the end of the March

http://www.pinpub.com/html/main.isx?sub=29

If you like this newsletter, why not try the websites of others who contribute to this newsletter.
http://www.vb123.com/explore/links.htm

 WRAPPING THIS EDITION UP

Its been a busy month or so for us with some new Access clients and other existing work picking up briskly for this time of the year. I hope the other consultants that read this newsletter are also finding an improvement in business conditions this year.

Interesting for some will be that I recently choose to purchase an Acer c300 TravelMate tablet computer rather than a normal laptop. This tablet uses a 14 inch screen and packs as much punch as most Centrino laptops. Whilst this machine would be useless as a handheld PC (it weighs 2.5k), I am comfortably hand writing this newsletter in a coffee shop whilst the tablet sits on the table. My view on these devices is that you will probably find a way to utilize the intuitive pen interface in addition to using the tablet as an ordinary laptop. For example, I quite enjoy working through a bunch of emails whilst lying on the floor. The only thing about tablets is that they are quite a bit more expensive than an ordinary laptop but as my wife Fran told me, you live on that computer, hang the expense and get something that will improve your life. So far, its been a positive experience. 

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. And if you can, have a look at our software by using the Marketing section on the left hand side of this newsletter. If you really like this newsletter, why not purchase The Toolshed and you will get all the other newsletters and plenty more in a developer’s knowledge base tool with super searching facilities.

Garry Robinson - Software Consultant and Author
GR-FX Pty Limited
Sydney, Australia.
Ph +61 2 9665 2871 Fax +61 2 9665 8448
Software Resources http://vb123.com/

Chief Unlimited Assistant - Jenni Komarovsky from New Zealand

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Published  2004-03

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