Tony's Microsoft Access Blog

"a new portal is opening, connecting your planet to the sun"

Now this is one for the sci fi writers. (Hi sis.)  Except it's not fiction.  

"...something will happen high overhead that until recently many scientists didn't believe in. A magnetic portal will open, linking Earth to the sun 93 million miles away. Tons of high-energy particles may flow through the opening before it closes again, around the time you reach the end of the page."

Magnetic Portals Connect Sun and Earth

Ken's Code Examples for Importing / Exporting With EXCEL Workbooks

Ken's Code Examples for Importing / Exporting With EXCEL Workbooks Nah, no need to add any gushing comments or explanations.   The title says it all.  <smile>

Access 2007 and ACE 12 hotfix

Description of the Access 2007 hotfix package (Access.msp): October 28, 2008 mentions some performance problems when creating an RTF document and using some controls bound to linked tables.  Given that 99% of Access form are using controls bound to a linked table this hotfix could be quite useful.

Also a somewhat obscure problem in ACE from my unilingual perspective however to our multilingual friends this could be important.  Description of the Access 2007 hotfix package (Ace.msp): October 28, 2008

Note that if you don't need to use a hotfix then Microsoft suggests you don't install it. 

(It would appear that unilingual isn't a word according to Windows Live Writer.  Oh well. Not that Google is always correct but there are 96,000 hits for that word.  And you don't want to know the second word which was suggested by Windows Live Writer in place of unilingual.)

MVP Profile – Tony Toews

I was randomly chosen to be profiled as the MVP of the month by Microsoft Canada at the beginning of this month.  Well, I forgot about this until a friend noticed it and reminded me.  So here's the link MVP Profile – Tony Toews.  Any spelling, punctuation and grammar errors are all mine.

Here's my more formal MVP profile on the Microsoft MVP website.

Microsoft to Extend Office to the Browser

Microsoft to Extend Office to the Browser, Office Goes to the Web and PDC: Microsoft to put Office online.

Given that the Access 2007 runtime is free I think it would be awesome if you could run an Access app from inside a web browser.  Let the user take the large hit of downloading the Access runtime stuff from Microsoft once then downloads the FE MDE/ACCDE from your website.   This would, of course, require that the data resides either in SQL Server somewhere or in the "cloud".   

However, in my opinion, the data should not only be able to reside in Sharepoint.  Sharepoint is a very useful tool in many respects.  But it doesn't have referential integrity.  And that just plain bothers me.

And yes this would mean that Access does not fit the Web Lite model that Google is using and now Microsoft is suggesting.  That is the apps have only the most common features.  Nope, I want all the VBA features I currently have in Access. 

Also I don't want all that space taken up at the top by the browser buttons either.   Hmmm, nah, why doesn't Microsoft just include the Access 2007 runtime in Windows 7 and be done with it.

Access User Group National Seminar - U.K.

Access User Group National Seminar
Thursday 13th November 2008
Microsoft Offices, Reading

The next Access User Group seminar will be on the 13th November 2008 at Microsoft's Office in Reading and we are proud to announce the following list of presentations:

- Visual Studio 2008, LINQ and the Implications for Access Developers
- Adding Business Intelligence to your Access/SQL Server Projects
- SQL Server Reporting Services for Access Developers
- What's New for Access Developers in SQL Server 2008
- Using Enhanced Graphical Components in Access Forms

See http://www.ukaugcommunity.co.uk/Lists/Calendar/DispForm.aspx?ID=6&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eukaugcommunity%2Eco%2Euk%2Fdefault%2Easpx  for the full agenda.

To book please email margaret@gordonassociates.co.uk or call 01242 529820.  £135.00 + VAT for members. Non-members welcome also - please ask for details.

New type of phishing spam targeting domain owners

I get 300 to 500 spams per day and Mail Washer Pro does a darned good job of removing the crap.  This last day or so I've been noticing a new type of spam targeting the owner of my domains.  Text is below.   The right most two domain chunks, in this case com72.biz, have varied substantially among the spams.   Looks like that particular domain isn't working.

The text of the spams has varied slightly but this is the general theme.  At least from what I could recall as it didn't dawn on me to think about how many of these spams I'd been receiving until just now.

Tony

Dear eNom Customer,

Starting at 1 AM PT on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 until 4 AM PT, we will be
conducting maintenance on our database and datacenter resulting in the following
sites and services being unavailable:

    * Main site
    * All web hosting services
    * Email services
    * Communication with the registry affecting new registrations, renewals, and
transfers

For access your account follow this link - http://www.enom.com.com72.biz

The following services will not be affected and will continue to be fully
operational:

    * DNS will resolve normally - although operational through this downtime, any
changes to DNS settings may be delayed intermittently for a period of up to 24 hours
from the start of the maintenance period
    * Email forwarding and site redirection will operate normally

We anticipate the maintenance will only last up to 3 hours. We apologize for any
inconvenience during this short maintenance and thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,
eNom Tech Support

How to secure your personal data on a removed hard disk drive.

How to secure your personal data on a removed hard disk drive.  That works.  A bit extreme mind you.  I'd also ensure I was upwind.

Why do Corporate DB persons hate MS Access Options

"The dislike for Access/Jet (most don't even know there is a difference) is not technical based.  It is power, control, and ignorance based." by Klaatu

Why do Corporate DB persons hate MS Access is an interesting discussion.  No answers of course for dealing with those IT bigots.  <sigh>

Office 2007 SP 2 announcement

Announcing Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office System  Although the blog entry doesn't mention Access specifically.  So keep an eye on the Access Team Blog to see what changes are in store for us.

Tales from the Interview: The Receptionist Test

Tales from the Interview: The Receptionist Test  This is brilliant if you are hiring a tech support person.

A friend, we'll call her Sheila,  was telling me of how she worked in a telephone call centre and after a number of months was promoted to screening calls for executive positions.   Part of Sheila's job was to score the callers on their attitude talking to her.   One call in particular the person was very impatient and rather rude.  After about the fourth or fifth question he clued in that Sheila wasn't just the dumb receptionist but doing a short interview.   He immediately changed attitudes and put on the facade of being really friendly person.  And she dutifully recorded all that.  We can only assume he never got the job.

Hmm, that reminds of the time I was catching a flight from Calgary to Edmonton in the evening in the mid 1980s.   I could tell from the folks in front of me that the flight I was hoping to be on was canceled and the next one was in two hours.   A guy starting yelling at the ticket agent and shouted he was off to TimeAir, the competitor's.  I knew the competitor ran much smaller and much less frequently operated equipment.  Their gates were also at the other end of the airport. 

So now it's my turn.   I ask the same ticket agent "So let me guess.  Your competitor is all full up this evening."  She smiles and agrees.  "So that jerk is going to be walking to the other end of the airport and going to have to come back, right?"  She smiles even wider and again agrees with me.   We chuckle.  I just ask her for the next available seat and go have supper. 

Sending email via Access

I was asked the following in my blog.

We also launch MS Word docs directly from Access each month (about 1000 letters per month). We'd also like to be able to launch email directly from the application through MS Outlook or Outlook Express? if possible.

Outlook is relatively easy using VBA code but there are quirks.   See the Outlook specific links at the Access Email FAQ at my website.  Once your code is working and debugged then use late binding so you can remove the reference and avoid problems in the future.

Outlook Express was never designed to send emails.  It can be done using SendObject or possibly MAPI but I wouldn't recommend that.

Investigation confirms proper safeguards were in place for stolen laptop computer

So is employee information in your business encrypted?  If not why not?   (Note that just employee names isn't that big of a deal as they would mostly be in the phone book anyhow.)

Investigation confirms proper safeguards were in place for stolen laptop computer

"An investigation by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (of" Alberta) has determined that East Central Health had proper safeguards in place to protect health information contained on a laptop computer which had been stolen."

Let me add that Two Hills, Alberta is a village with a population of about 1,000 people.  So it would be quite easy for the supervisor to notice a loitering individual and identify them to the RCMP.   And the RCMP have a very good idea of who the unsavory individuals are in their towns and villages.

That said even if the laptop hadn't been recovered it would appear that East Central Health still followed proper procedures for encrypting the data.

I've forwarded the above to the The Risks Digest - Forum On Risks To The Public In Computers And Related Systems http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/risks as an example of what you are supposed to do.  They have too many postings of the problems encountered and not enough good ones.  <smile>

There are no statistics available on how many readers there are of that digest given the widely distributed nature of it's various communications methods.  However I would suspect that it is in the millions of security conscious computer professionals around the world.

I also cc' d the folks at East Central Health and the local MLA, a provincially elected official.

"Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. ...

"Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius.
A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein."
  ~ Joe Theisman, retired NFL quarterback

Ok, I have no idea if this is genuine.  No hits at Snopes.  It's still funny.

Access to Word Merge utility

I was reminded by a newsgroup posting of fellow Access MVP Albert Kallal's excellent Access to Word Merge utility.  Keep that one book marked as it is easy to use and works well.

Access 2007 and Outlook hotfix

"In Access 2007, you create a linked table to the Contacts folder in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. Then, you add a contact in the linked table in Access 2007. When you double-click the contact in Outlook 2007, a new blank e-mail appears. However, you expect that a contact card that displays the contact information appears."

Description of the Access 2007 hotfix package (Ace.msp): August 26, 2008. 

This hotfix actually updates ACE and not Access.

Only the first 12,000 tables appear in the Link Tables dialog box ...

Only the first 12,000 tables appear in the Link Tables dialog box in Microsoft Access 2000, Microsoft Access 2002, or Microsoft Office Access 2003.    Now who the heck would have an application that large?  Clearly some organization with a lot of pull at Microsoft to get this problem fixed. 

That KB article references an updated version of Jet 4.0 - 4.0.9514.0.  Description of the Jet 4.0 Database Engine cumulative hotfix package for Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and SP2, Windows Vista, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows Server 2008: July 2, 2008.  This KB article mentions Access 1.0 and 2.0 problems and ADO records from an Excel spreadsheet as well as the above mentioned problem.

Interesting WPA/WPA2 and docx, zip, etc. files cracking breakthrough

Slash dot reported Elcomsoft Claims WPA/WPA2 Cracking Breakthrough.  There are some details there though so if this issue affects your corporate network, ensure you read the details.

Note the large number of file formats which it will brute force crack the password including Office 2007 documents and Zip files as well as Windows OS password files.

Now if you use a long pass phrase this may take so long as to be useless.  Because each additional character in your pass word/phrase can lengthen the cracking time by 30 or 50 times.  Note however that I am not a security expert so I don't know what I'm talking about.

Now imagine this as being part of a botnet with thousands of systems cracking away.  There's quite a lot of money to be made if you are the bot herder.

Also do ensure you keep the passwords/phrases in a secure location, including offsite for both personal and business.  If you die or become disabled due to illness your family wouldn't be able to open your personal accounting files to work on your estate.   Yes, even if you're under the age of thirty.   happens.  Be prepared for the worst.

Vote on Tuesday

This is for the 40th Canadian General Election.  Hold your nose and vote for the MP of your choice.

What?  You think I was talking about the US election?  <smile>

The Manga Guide to Databases

"Want to learn about databases without the tedium? With its unique combination of Japanese-style comics and serious educational content, The Manga Guide to Databases is just the book for you.

Princess Ruruna is stressed out. With the king and queen away, she has to manage the Kingdom of Kod's humongous fruit-selling empire. Overseas departments, scads of inventory, conflicting prices, and so many customers! It's all such a confusing mess. But a mysterious book and a helpful fairy promise to solve her organizational problems—with the practical magic of databases. "

More at The Manga Guide to Databases (That's a link to a page at Amazon but I did not put in any associate code of any sort.)

<rhetorical comment>But will it teach Access subforms?</rhetorical comment>