Tony's Microsoft Access Blog : Humour

Dilbert 2009-06-30

Tony — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:43:35 GMT

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-06-30/

Hey, I thought it was funny.

Exceeding 2 Gb MDB file size (and a bit of TGIF humour)

Tony — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:14:50 GMT

Exceeding the 2 Gb MDB file size gives you an exceedingly misleading error message:

In Jet 4.0 one message that is received when the 2 Gb file size is exceeded is invalid argument. This is, of course, utterly confusing and can mean other things such as corruption.

In A2007/ACE (I was running in an ACCDB) I got the following message

3049 Cannot open database ''. It may not be a database that your application recognizes, or the file may be corrupt.

running the following code. (Watch for line wrap.)

Const FillText As String = "ASdlkjSLDJKADSLJADSLJ ASDLJK ALSDJ LASJKD
LJASLDJK ALSJKD LAJSD lJKA SDLJK ASDLj ASDLj ALSDJ LJ " & _
    "ASdlkjSLDJKADSLJADSLJ ASDLJK ALSDJ LASJKD LJASLDJK ALSJKD LAJSD
lJKA SDLJK ASDLj ASDLj ALSDJ LJ " & _
    " AS:LK:ASDK A:D :AKSD :ASDK:AKSD :AKS D adfasdf asd fasdf asdf"
Sub Filltable()
Dim rs As DAO.Recordset
Set rs = CurrentDb.OpenRecordset("Table1")
tagTop:
    rs.AddNew
    rs!field1 = FillText
    rs.Update
    DoEvents
    GoTo tagTop
End Sub

Now this code runs for several hours so be patient. I only ran it inside Access 2007 and ACCDBs. I'll run it in Access 2003 just to double check that message. (Out for steak, Caesar salad and mugs of red wine with friends.)

Now note that you don't want an autonumber key on the table. Just the text field. I suspect by the time you hit five million records the overflow areas of the index will get real, real slow. But I don't feel like testing that.

Humour

Bill Mosca, fellow Access MVP, had the following to say about my FillText string: Here's a site for greeking text...in case you need to fill a longer string without monkey-typing it yourself.
http://www.duckisland.com/GreekMachine.asp

Of course another alternative is Lorem Ipsum. I used a paragraph from that in a reply to someone who stated "Of course, we're going to have to argue that one for a while."

I sure hope there is a final exam on this course

Tony — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:02:22 GMT

Project title: Need 15 Queries in Access

"I need someone who can make 15 queries in Access 2007 and have to be done in sql view (this is a must). I want this for school home work and need them fast, as soon as possible. I will provide you with the tables and the queries I need, they are attached so you can tell me if you can do it or not. Payment will be made in full after project is completed. I will not consider anyone without any reviews. Bid only if you can do this project, I need it fast so don't make me waste my time. I wil... "

And if you click through the link Place my bid for this project! you will see the replies. Wow.

Twitter and Swine Flu

Tony — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:13:00 GMT

Swine Flu

I don't get Twitter. There is so much crap on there I just don't care about. And my life is far too boring to post any such minutiae. So I laughed quite hard when I saw the XKCD cartoon.

Ok, so it is interesting reading about my sisters life over in Sri Lanka because it is so different than here. The lizard in the back yard was just cool.

Humour: Mac users and VBA

Tony — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:51:36 GMT

"We've solved the problem with lack of VBA support on Macs, and it was very easy: we got rid of the Macs. Typically our mac users were pretty expensive to support, being on average less skilled and lacking in knowledge of basics like what a file is, how to search the web, etc, and additionally were routinely late to work and were relative to the rest of our staff unprofessional in demeanor. So in addition to getting rid of the Macs, we got rid of the Mac users.

Trust me, this methodology can clean up lots of your companies processes and deadwood employees. Give it a try!"

http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2008/01/16/clarification-on-vba-support.aspx#7149910

From a blog about the future of VBA in Excel.

Humour: Engineering specifications

Tony — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:03:57 GMT

I worked on an ERP system for a welding shop which had a lot of pipe so I found the following to be particularly funny. For example the price book was 40 pages, with 17 pages full of tables with diameter and wall thickness of the pipe on the x and y axis and the price in the grid. Each of the 17 pages being a different type of weld or joint. The other 23 pages were the exceptions.

Do you get fired for doing things like this?

I'm still chuckling.

Humour: The Microsoft Guide to Valentine's Day

Tony — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:05:08 GMT

The Microsoft Guide to Valentine's Day I thought this was reasonably humourous.

Just catching up on email, blogs, Facebook, newsgroups and other such necessities of life after grandma's funeral. And I was on dialup for four days. All the wireless access points in the range of my laptop at that point were all encrypted. Darn!

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Tony — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:56:49 GMT

Thanks to my friend Jim - Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard My favourite quote - "Everything is just a few hundred clicks away"

Scroll down

You did realize that the Onion is a parody website, right?

Spit does not go clunk at -40 aka Converting to Metric

Tony — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:16:44 GMT

I just had to laugh long and loud when I read the Converting to Metric XKCD cartoon. In light of the Canadian prairie deep freeze where the temps have had wind chills in the -40 and -45 C for quite a number of days recently.

Spit does not go clunk at -40.

Mind you there are some videos on YouTube showing boiling water being thrown in the air. For example From Boiling to Frozen

A number of years ago when I was a teenager I was working for my Dad up in Fort McMurray, Alberta on some 3 1/2 story walkup apartment blocks. The recessed balconies had to be painted so they were covered in multiple players of plastic. It was about -45 or -50 C outside without the wind chill. I was really tempted to cut a small slit in the plastic on the fourth floor balcony and see if err, ahhh well you know, that yellow stuff, would be frozen when it hit the snow. However I quickly realized that a rather important chunk of the male anatomy might get frost bite which I figured would be a bad thing.

My sister, who reads my blog, is just shaking her head right now.

Microsoft's Fargo campus mocks Redmond's snow

Tony — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:43:47 GMT

Microsoft's Fargo campus mocks Redmond's snow - A highly amusing mock emergency alert.

I should add that in the last few weeks we've had a few days of wind chill temperatures of -40 as I walk to the coffee shop. And at those temps it only takes about 15 seconds of removing a mitt, pulling out the car keys, inserting them into ignition and starting the vehicle to get painful fingers. Not quite frost bitten but pretty close.

Typically -30 with the wind chill in the last few weeks though which is more reasonable. A bit of an unusual cold spell.

Yo momma jokes

Tony — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:49:45 GMT

SQL Server yo momma geek jokes on twitter

You won't get these unless you know SQL Server.

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

Tony — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:36:11 GMT

"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.

Bill Gates on the Frazier show

Tony — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:34:55 GMT

I'd forgotten about Bill's guest appearance until I was reminded earlier today. See Frasier - 9x8 - The Two Hundredth Bill Gates part but skip to the 2:30 point.

Life At Microsoft - The Truth Revealed

Tony — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:41:28 GMT

Life At Microsoft - The Truth Revealed

Heroes Happen Here {Comic Series}

Tony — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:24:58 GMT

An interesting RSS comic strip - Heroes Happen Here {Comic Series}

The other RSS comic strips I follow are Dilbert (of course) and xkcd

Microsoft conference call

Tony — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:00:07 GMT

Microsoft conference call

Bill's last day at Microsoft

Tony — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:42:45 GMT

I admire anyone who can poke fun at themselves. Bill's last day at Microsoft Yes, there is a short video ad you have to watch. You can also find bootleg copies at YouTube. If they haven't been pulled down by now.

Notice the Microsoft Bob reference that the audience never got.

These videos that Bill or Steve Ballmer have run at previous MVP Summits or conferences where Bill or Steve or the keynote speakers are a lot of fun to watch. They do a fine, fine job of mocking themselves.

Building spreadsheets the hard way

Tony — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 08:12:22 GMT

Colors and Icons

Classic WTF: Fisher Price Technology Integration

Tony — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:01:23 GMT

Ryan H was pretty excited to start his new job as a developer. But his
excitement quickly faded after he started. It didn't fade into
apprehension, disappointment, or regret -- just into nothing; he
simply stopped feeling anything at all. This type of apathy is to be
expected when one is given the type of assignment that Ryan was given:
absolutely nothing. Ryan's day to day job was to sit and patiently
wait for the company to start up a project.

Classic WTF: Fisher Price Technology Integration

You have to read to the end.

BTW if you are reading my blog you should really be reading the WTF blog too.

10 good reasons not to provide free tech support

Tony — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 04:45:03 GMT

10 good reasons not to provide free tech support An amusing read. Thankfully I've never had any situation too close to those mentioned. I will also add though i won't spend more than five or ten minutes working on a friend's computer problem unless they're a very good friend.