Tony's Microsoft Access Blog

Added an Initial User Install page to the Auto FE Updater site

I added an Initial User Install page to the Auto FE Updater web site. 

If you use a different method of setting up initial startup for your users please let me know.

Also please let me know if you managed to figure out how to email a file share URL so Outlook doesn’t mangle it.  <sigh>  Either I’m dumb or Outlook is being way to frigging helpful.

Jackcess is a pure Java library for reading from and writing to MS Access databases.

I just came across this interesting Open Source project - Jackcess is a pure Java library for reading from and writing to MS Access databases.  Also read the FAQ.  Also note the link to MDB Tools which hasn’t been updated since 2004.

Jet Engine History

A question started a bit of digging and poking about.   I’ve always been interested in the history of Access and Jet and the code names used way back when such as Cirrus.  The Wiki Microsoft Jet Database Engine article had a footnote referencing a page titled Jet Engine: History

Regretfully all the links mentioned on that page no longer work.  Although some of the MS white papers mentioned might still be available by digging.

Which reminds me. There are two versions of the Microsoft Jet Database Engine Programmer's Guide.   I have the first edition which is the one with the light blue cloud cover which was sort of the theme of Windows 95.   I should purchase the second edition which has a white cover just to ensure it’s part of my collection. 

And I should spend a few minutes rereading the table of contents just to refresh my memory so if I ever need some information I’ll at least know that it’s available.

Office DevCon in Australia

For those of you who don't know, Office DevCon (http://www.officedevcon.com.au) is the largest and most popular annual community-driven conference in the southern hemisphere. It allows Microsoft Office developers and power users to come together in one location to hear expert speakers from around the world present on a wide range of Microsoft Office-related topics.

Over 2 days, you will hear in-depth presentations on advanced Office System technologies for Office 2003 and 2007, and 2010 (the next version), including Word, Access, Excel, SharePoint, Groove, and InfoPath. In essence, we are launching Office 2010 in Australia, so if you want to get up close and personal with Office 2010, you'll see it here first!

This year, the conference will be held at the University of Queensland (St. Lucia campus) over the weekend 31st October-1st November 2009. The  conference is FREE to attend, but to allow the organizers to plan resources, please register at http://www.officedevcon.com.au/2009/register.htm.

We'd love to see you there. This only happens once a year, so don't miss out.

Regards,
Graham R Seach
Microsoft Access MVP & Conference Organizer

Sites pulling sneaky Flash cookie-snoop

“What's far less well known is that Adobe Flash software also features cookies that can be used in much the same way as HTTP cookies. Flash cookies can be used for storing the volume level of a Flash video but the technology can also be used as "secondary, redundant unique identifiers that enable advertisers to circumvent user preferences and self-help", the academics warn.

A significant percentage of websites including federal government sites use this Flash-based technology to track users, the researchers discovered. The technology is sometimes used as a means to "undelete" the information in browser-based cookies that a user might have thought they had cleared from their system when they deleted their browsing history, the academics explain.”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/19/flash_cookies/

More info and a script here Online Privacy Tips

Added - Jim Mack informed me of the CCleaner (apparently the first C is short for cr*p) that cleans those up.  I cleaned my system using the above mentioned script an hour or two ago and since found three flash cookies from a website ytimg.com for which no web page exists but is apparently for YouTube.   Which makes sense as I had indeed visited YouTube in there.

Is Nothing

I’m working on some largish updates to the Auto FE Updater and I wanted to ensure that the new routine which logs errors would properly handle the situation if there were errors in the error logging routine.  A great deal of searching a dimly remembered discussion brought me to fellow Access MVP Dirk GoldGar’s posting on this topic.  How to know when a Connection or Recordset is open in Programming

If Not rs Is Nothing Then
    rs.Close: Set rs = Nothing
End If
If Not gblLogdb Is Nothing Then _
    gblLogdb.Close
MsgBox "The following error occurred in procedure Log_NewSession of Module Log" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
    Err.Description & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & Command()

Note that the standard error handling routine, including the sub/function name and module name is created by MZTools.  An excellent free utility which I use all the time.

I was rather startled.  This isn’t even documented in Access 97 help.   Allen Browne has a page on this general topic - Nothing? Empty? Missing? Null?