Welcome To The Access Unlimited Newsletter - Edition 54
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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.

Feature Article – How to setup Version Numbers in a Database

One of the more annoying things that happens to a developer is talking through a problem with a user for long period of time only to find that the user is using an old version of the software. Well this happens with Access databases just as much as any other environment and way to solve it is to be religious in incrementing the version number (or release number) of the database before sending it to your users. This article shows you how we handle it (all source code included).
Read it here

Use The Workbench To Manage Your Release Version Details

This version number system has stood the test of time on our 100+ databases and now it is easy to manage in the brand spanking new version of the Access Workbench. Thanks to the new delivery form, you don’t even need to open the database to view or change the version details of the database. This is really handy for situations like when a database is tucked away in the zip file and you need to check the version number. Read more

Internet Explorer Cookies

One good way to stop unwanted cookies is to change the settings for cookies to prompt mode. To do this in Internet Explorer, Choose the menu

Tools ~Options ~Privacy ~Advanced ~Override Automatic cookies

Now select 3^rd party cookies Prompt and maybe even 1^st party prompt

The 1033 Folder

Did you ever wonder why all the Office software always ends in a folder called 1033. eg

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\LocaleID folder

The reason is that the 1033 is the locale identifier (LCID) for your installation of Microsoft Office. For example, the LCID for English - United States is 1033. For a list of LCIDs, see Microsoft Office Help.

Windows XP Folder Permissions

I have published a document that describes setting up folder permissions for Windows XP specifically for Access databases. This supplements the Windows security details in Chapter 12 of my book on Access security. One of the tricky little XP tricks that I struggled with lately on a new Win XP computer was the Simple File security setting in folder options. This and the rest of the topic is explained on Page 9 of these notes.

http://www.vb123.com/get/Ch12WinXPProNotes.pdf

Access 2003 Linker Problem

One of the problems that occurred on Ed’s machine, one that has 4 different version’s of Access installed, is that the Access 2003 linker didn’t work properly. After the usual hunting around, I found that this could be fixed with the regedit command.

Windows Key ~ Run ~ and copy the following into the run box.

regsvr32.exe "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\accwiz.dll"

Thanks to this page for solving that issue

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Databases/MS_Access/Q_21159613.html

This led me to the Microsoft page where a solution similar to the problem is detailed. Here there is a funny section where they detail how you can install Access 2002 to ensure that you also have the same problem.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;835519

GOOD READING

SQL Server Express 2005 hits the streets and this review explains that the maximum number of users in now a thing of the past. http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3492296

Google desktop search is now in full release mode and includes searches of images, music, PDF files and doesn’t include password protected word files.
http://desktop.google.com/

Pricing details in USA $ for Visual Studio .Net and Office and Express edition
http://www.codeguru.com/Csharp/.NET/net_general/toolsand3rdparty/article.php/c9483/

VB.Net Security (Part 1)

http://www.developer.com/security/article.php/3483866

http://www.developer.com/security/article.php/3488861

Set NTFS Security Whilst using Win XP Home
http://www.fajo.de/portal/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=

Winzip Companion For Outlook

The best known makers of compression tools, Winzip has now released a small companion program to work directly with Microsoft Outlook. www.winzip.com

Service pack 2 for Windows XP has reached 150 million pc’s already.
http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=6581

Want to find out what threat modeling is.  Look down the page at this good article
http://blogs.msdn.com/ptorr/archive/2005/02/22/GuerillaThreatModelling.aspx

How you might start Excel Add-Ins when doing Automation
Click Here to view a group discussion on the topic.

Microsoft Knowledge Base article 889829 describes how to prevent access to MSN within a corporate environment
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889829

Access Security can prevent database corruption – well its in Access Advisor so it must be true !!! (Members on Access Advisor only)

http://msaccessadvisor.com/doc/16033

A list of reference material for using Access with MySQL
http://www.sourcekeg.co.uk/www.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/msaccess-setup.html

Microsoft is phasing out vb6 support and not providing service packs.  Gee thanks for that guys…

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=61800130

Sign the petition to stop the dumping of vb6.
http://www.classicvb.org/petition/index.asp?lang=en

Software to test your memory. Runs by booting from a floppy drive.
http://www.memtest86.com/

An Access Database Corruption Repair Guide
http://www.everythingaccess.com/tutorials.asp?ID=0

Recovering what you can from an MDE file
http://www.everythingaccess.com/tutorials.asp?ID=1

Windows Sharepoint Services – 10 top reasons why Microsoft thinks it’s a great idea… Well because we told you so …
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/sharepoint/top10.mspx

Checking the status of rebooted SQL server computers
http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3484421

Create a custom default user profile for Win XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;319974

A summary of anti spam servers
http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?EditorialsID=466

FilemakerPro 7 hits a million copies
http://www.filemaker.com/company/newsroom/releases/1282.html

Tablet PC – The show rolls on ..
http://www.ftponline.com/channels/net/2005_03/gocinski/

Microsoft buys Groove Networks – A tool to enable office workers to work together in virtual networks using wireless computers
http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3488951

Remembering user information in vb.net
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/04/AdvancedBasics/default.aspx

Building a user defined data model
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/050324.htm

Access KB Articles

ACC2000: How to Import a Word Table Containing Carriage Returns
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;198919

887035 Your XML data may appear to incorrectly import when you try to import that data to Microsoft Office Access 2003
889186 Description of the Access 2003 post-Service Pack 1 hotfix package: November 12, 2004
889490 Contents of the Memo field may appear as control characters when you use the GROUP BY clause on the Memo field in a query in Microsoft Access

888696 How to print a check box without borders on a pre-printed form in Access

WRAPPING THIS EDITION UP  

A month or so ago, the hard drive of my laptop started having fatal cluster errors on my last day on a project in cold cold Mongolia. For a little while it seemed like I had lost my world but once I got over the pain and got the clients files back in action, it was time to head to those backups to get my own world back together again. Whilst I learnt many lessons, the best ones were

1)      Backup your whole computer and if you need to partial backups, make sure that you keep your important files in just a few easy to manage folder trees rather than a very flat structure.  Ie One Development folder tree and one Personal folder tree.

2)     Watch the backups for large personal files like photos. I moved all my photos off the digital camera hours onto the laptop hours before the hard drive corrupted. These files were recovered from a USB2 hard drive case.

3)      Be careful that you keep all the installation details for all your favourite programs somewhere handy and not just on the computer. These could be a nightmare to install again if you don’t have information like the registration details or the location of the web site where you got the software. As programs are generally big, you may not have any backups for this software. You can solve all of the above using Norton’s Ghost but don’t rely totally on it as it is a hard technology to test.

4)      Make sure you know how to go to all those favorite web sites that you depend on. If they have security, you will need details for those sites somewhere else.

5)      When you are ready to recover, think of the whole mucky exercise as a chance to do it all again properly this time and your computer may just become a better world for you.

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/

 --- The end of this edition of Access Unlimited ---

PS Don’t forget Garry’s BRAND NEW Workbench 4… Shutdown your database, send messages to users, colored icons lots of other relevant stuff.

http://www.vb123.com/workbench/

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Published  2005-04

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