Tony's Microsoft Access Blog

Tot dies after Internet 911 call fails to reach dispatchers

"The EMS investigation centres on why the Voice-over-Internet protocol company's call centre did not appear to transfer the emergency phone call to Calgary's 911 dispatch."

A friend had a situation where a foster child was choking.  They had called 911 using a cell phone.  But the 911 call was answered in a different city.  The operator insisted that address didn't exist.   The operator didn't think to ask what city they were in.

Also if your ADSL or cable modem and router aren't on a Uninterruptible Power Supply then your Internet phone is not going to work in a power failure.    I'd suggest testing that this will run for at least five or ten hours every year by unplugging the UPS from the wall socket.  Batteries have a shorter life after a few years.

Tot dies after Internet 911 call fails to reach dispatchers

VB/VBA line numbers

So you're looking at this posting and thinking "how retro".  What is that old fart Tony up to?   Well, yes, I did use line numbers a lot when I first started as a programmer in this business almost thirty years ago.  The IBM 5110 computer booted from 32 Kb of ROM, ran in 32 Kb of RAM and had two eight inch floppy drives.  Basic on that system used line numbers and had variable names that were either a single letter or a single letter and a digit.  For example A or Z9.  

Among other things we ran clients with a complete General Ledger, Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable on that system.   I also worked on a payroll system which had 700 employees.

But these days?  Well, yes.  I got a email about my Auto FE Updater stating Type Mismatch in one subroutine for two PCs at a location in Australia.    All the other PCs are running just fine.  That's a pretty generic message so how do I debug that?  I decided to add line numbers using MZTools and email the person a special copy of the Auto FE Updater.

MZTools has a very handy command button which adds line numbers to every executable line of code in a function or subroutine and another command button to remove them.  

Not surprising there is nothing in the help text so I had to do some searching but I found the key system defined variable Erl.   So the code looks like the following.

740       FindMatchingMSAccessEXE = True

tagExit:
750       Exit Function
tagError:
760       Call ShowMsgBoxForm("1018 - The following problem occurred in routine 'FindMatchingMSAccessEXE' " & _
              "Line Nbr: " & Erl & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & Err.Description)
770       Exit Function

End Function

Note the line wrapping on line 760.

Fixed prices for IT projects are unethical

Fixed prices for IT projects are unethical is an blog posting with a provocative title.  It in turn links to Why Fixed Bids Are Bad for Clients.  That article explains quite well my philosophy of doing software development for clients.   I start delivering something useful within a week or two.  

If working at client sites then I deliver updates every few hours or day or two.  Which is why I created the Auto FE Updater.

Access 2003 hotfix package - April 16, 2008

Access 2003 hotfix package: April 16, 2008

"- In Access 2003, when you save an .mdb database in the design view, the properties of the sub-database in the .mdb database are lost.
- You install the Office 2003 Service Pack 3 on a client computer. Then, in Access 2003, the Append dialog box of an append query does not show all the tables within the database."

Changing Allow Design Changes while at the Form View

Tired of creating forms in Access 2003 with this option?  Allen Browne suggests creating default forms, reports and databases.  I did get quite irritated about having to switch the form to design view, click on the small black box in the upper left hand corner to get to the form properties and then change that property.

I've discovered that if you click on the record selector the property sheet will now show the forms property sheet.  So you can change that property with a few less mouse clicks.

By the way does anyone know why Microsoft introduced this property in the first place?   It's no longer present in Access 2007.

The expression On Click you entered ...

I was getting the below error message in Access 2003 when I clicked on a command button.  Likely because I was working on a form module and possibly saved it while the form was in regular view and not in design view.

"The expression On Click you entered as the event property setting produced the following error:
Object or class does not support the set of events."

Commenting all the code behind the form did not fix the problem. 

Setting the Has Module to No and saving the form, surprisingly, did not fix this problem.

Decompiling the MDB also did not fix the problem.

This problem also existed when I opened up the MDB in Access 2000 and clicked on a button on the form.

Importing all the objects into a new MDB finally did the job.

Hint: when importing lots of objects into a new MDB minimize the database container window before importing. Access will import much, much faster.

As a bonus a child sub form which wasn't saving the parent value in the child table also started working properly. 

As a side note every hour or two I always go into Windows Explorer, click on the MDB and do a Ctrl+C and a Ctrl+V to copy the FE MDB.  Every few days I zip all those and move them to an archive folder.

The Truth About IT Consultants: Some are great but most are not.

The Truth About IT Consultants: Some are great but most are not.  in particular, read the second paragraph about American LaFrance, a respected manufacturer of fire engines.

Another very useful Access 2007 blog

Help and How-to for Microsoft Office Access 2007  This blog  has some useful and interesting tidbits even for an experienced person.

Also see Help and How-to for Microsoft Office Access 2003

You may have to right click and copy the link location and paste into your RSS reader.  Or visit RSS Feeds on Microsoft Office Online

Description of the Access 2007 hotfix update: March 31, 2008

Description of the Access 2007 hotfix update: March 31, 2008

"You cannot save customized printer settings in the Page Setup dialog box in Access 2007."

This hotfix can be requested online so you do not need to phone anywhere.