Tony's Microsoft Access Blog : Software Development

How to be a Problem Solver

Tony — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:53:57 GMT

How to be a Problem Solver Or how to deal with an angry customer. In particular note the over communicate concept even if it’s nothing more than we’re still working on it and here’s what we’ve done so far.

Windows 7 development reorganized

Tony — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:02:30 GMT

Steve Sinofsky took over management of the Windows development team after Windows Vista. He was in charge of Office development for a number of years prior. I’ve been reading snippets over the past few years about how the development methodology of Windows 7 had changed. And how Windows Vista development methodology had become too complex.

Now an interesting post by Larry Osterman, long time MS Windows OS developer mentions that. Windows 7 Reflections… In particular read the second last paragraph, the last long paragraph.

Let me also add that I have a great deal of respect for the Microsoft, and other successful, large team development efforts. As you can imagine I mostly work by myself on apps which I have created. With Access when you’re testing things you generally only need to test one or a few related forms or reports. Once the correct data gets into the table you’re done. You don’t need to worry about this bit of external code or that global variable. After all, in my apps, global variables come from the global options table.

But with the Auto FE Updater it’s quite different. There are a lot of global variables and a minor change over here can cause significant problems in an unexpected area over there. Another way of putting this is I really need to figure out some means of doing thorough automated testing with all the possible options. But I’m too busy right now. (Yeah, I can just see some of you shaking your head and thinking “Tony, you’re gonna get real busy if you don’t take the time now.)

My Granite Fleet Manager is being used by a number of Hutterite colonies. Good, intelligent people but they’re not that computer literate. Indeed my app may have been the reason they’re seeing a computer for the first time. Every once in a while I’ll get a phone call about a bizarre problem. Once I realize what they did I realize that I should’ve put better error checking in that particular field. What they did makes sense from their viewpoint. It just hadn’t occurred to me that someone might do whatever it is they did.

As a result I can now understand why there’s generally a developer and a tester working together. And the more “twisty minded” the tester the better.

P.S. I added an Auto FE Updater group in LinkedIn. Feel free to join the group or email me your irritants, pain points and suggestions.

Dual monitors on the laptop

Tony — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:20:47 GMT

I did some searching recently and located some inexpensive devices designed to add a second monitor to your laptop. I'm quite happy with the StarTech USB VGA External Dual or Multi Monitor Video Adapter.

Typically I move the task manager, OneNote and the VBA editor window to the right hand screen. I use OneNote for all my short term notes on what I'm doing.

Details

Note that I've been using dual monitors starting in about 2000 for programming and quite liked it. However when I dropped the one client I moved the tower system that had a Matrox dual VGA video card home. Then as I was visiting other clients for short periods of time I didn't feel like setting up the tower system instead relying on my laptop.

In the past these devices were upwards of $500 so I didn't feel like spending that much money. Matrox have some nice looking cards but they state that it only works on certain graphics adapters. Likely most of them but that seems slightly limiting.

So I purchased a StarTech USB VGA External Dual or Multi Monitor Video Adapter I've been using it at a client along with the DVI output on the laptop. While it has its relatively minor quirks it works quite nicely. That particular device is ten or twenty dollars more expensive than the cheapest version but it supports more video resolutions so I don't mind spending the extra money.

Clearly Windows is smart enough to move the apps back to the main monitor once you disconnect the multiple monitors.

The senior managers at a client started using dual monitors at the suggestion of Jim my friend and the IT manager. They liked them so much, and the price of LCD monitors is so low, that just about every office person is now using dual 22” LCD monitors. With the exception of a few people such as the receptionist or others who don’t spend much time in email or Excel.

Quirks

It is noticeably slower on the screen refreshes when moving applications around. Well, I don't do that often so no big deal. I’m sure the device would such big time at gaming. But not a problem for me.

I use a toolbar on the left hand side of my desktop to launch my favourite 20 or 30 applications. Similar to Quick Launch but it's on the left hand side. After disconnecting this device the LHS (Left Hand Side) Launch toolbar only displays a shadow. Logging off and on redisplays it properly so that's relatively painless. However this problem hasn’t happened lately so I don’t know what I’ve done to solve this.

Future

According to the product page you can have up to five of these devices hooked up simultaneously. Well,that's a bit much even for me. However there might be times I want a third monitor. OTOH what with inexpensive 24" LCD monitors now ... <shrug>

The device driver supports rotation. So I may just see if I can easily rotate the right hand monitor so I can view more code.

GIGO Almost Caused Plane to Crash part 2

Tony — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:36:18 GMT

in GIGO Almost Caused Plane to Crash I mentioned how I screwed up a Dun and Bradstreet database by putting two extra digits for the cents in the data sent to them when dollars were expected. However I forgot to mention the reasonableness check. D & B should've totaled up the annual sales on the tape that I sent them. A reasonable number would've been total sales to all the customers of between $10 and $100 million dollars. However $1 billion or more would be unreasonable for a company that is not a household name in Canada at that time. $5 billion would be exceedingly unreasonable as a guesstimate.

Dreaming of Rails as the Next Microsoft Access

Tony — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:31:01 GMT

An interesting blog posting titled Dreaming of Rails as the Next Microsoft Access (Rails meaning Ruby on Rails of which I know nothing other than having seen the occasional reference it.) Now I disagree with the authors characterization of us as "Office drones". <smile>

Nevertheless interesting reading.

Note that I located this blog entry because I'm now following #access, #msaccess and #microsoftaccess items on Twitter. I'm currently using the Tweetdeck client but I'm not overly impressed with the UI. I also am Tweeting (I think that's the correct verb) my blog postings.

GIGO Almost Caused Plane to Crash

Tony — Sat, 02 May 2009 07:18:20 GMT

A very interesting story: GIGO Almost Caused Plane to Crash "Instead of entering the true weight of 362 tonnes on the laptop, the aircraft weight actually entered was 262 tonnes. " The airline now has a second laptop for data entry.

But I wonder if a better approach would've been a reasonableness check. That is factor in the empty weight of the aircraft. Add the weight of the fuel which has to be entered somewhere somehow. Then enter the number of crew and passengers and guesstimate the weight per person. Which airlines already do. Also enter in the weight of the freight. Then compare that rough computation to the weight calculated by the airline dispatch which is entered. If it's accurate with 5% or 10% then great.

For example

Empty weight is 170,400 kg	170 tonnes
80% of Max fuel 214,810 L at 0.8075 kg/L	139 tonnes
275 Passengers with luggage @ 100 kg	28 tonnes
Rough guesstimated total	337 tonnes
Entered weight which was in error	262 tonnes

Information sources - Wiki - A340-500, Wiki - Jet Fuel

The guesstimated weight is 30% over the entered so a severe reasonableness problem. Unless I've screwed up a computation especially the weight of the fuel. I chose to use 80% of the maximum allowed fuel as this was a long range flight. But even 50% of the fuel would've failed a reasonableness check.

I also had no idea how much fuel is on a typical long range jet. No wonder the landing was hard as they were unable to dump enough fuel.

Finally I'm glad for the sake of the lives of the crew and passengers that there was a control called "TOGA on the thrust levers" which allowed the flight crew to get maximum power.

Other situations

Every few years I read of a similar problem in the stock market. A clerk enters either a stock quantity or price which has an extra decimal place or two in it. And it costs the clerk's employer millions to unwind the stock trade.

My screwup

Your esteemed blogger once did the same 25 years ago. The client, a major Canadian heating, ventilating and air conditioning wholesaler, wanted to send customer data to Dun and Bradstreet including the customers annual sales as well as current, 30, 60, 90 and 120 days overdue amounts. I happily setup the 1200 bpi reel tape files with all the appropriate data. The accountant then calls me in a week or two later and tells me that I included the amounts with the cents when I should've included just the dollar amounts. So a given customer showed $10,000,000 in annual sales rather than $100,000. And $200,000 in 30 days outstanding rather than $2,000.

I was told that Dun and Bradstreet never noticed for a week or so and then had to labouriously back out my clients specific numbers from the data.

Oops.

Can't sleep

Tony — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 04:28:09 GMT

Can't sleep

I got a giggle out of that one. If you don't get it you're not a programmer/developer.

My Manhattan Project - How I helped build the bomb that blew up Wall Street.

Tony — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:42:40 GMT

My Manhattan Project

How I helped build the bomb that blew up Wall Street.

"Last month, my neighbor, a retired schoolteacher, offered to deliver my oysters into the city. He had lost half his savings, and his pension had been cut by 30 percent. The chain of events from my computer to this guy’s pension is lengthy and intricate. But it’s there, somewhere."

Very interesting reading about software from a different perspective.

Microsoft DreamSpark enables students to download Microsoft developer and design tools at no charge.

Tony — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:05:50 GMT

"Now, for the first time, Microsoft is giving its valuable software developer and design tools directly to students worldwide at no charge! This site enables students, like you, to download professional-level Microsoft developer tools to advance your learning and skills through technical design, technology, math, science and engineering activities. "

Microsoft DreamSpark enables students to download Microsoft developer and design tools at no charge.

Hmm, Microsoft Access isn't on that list. <sigh> But the Robotics Developer sounds real cool!

Which date is more understandable by the user?

Tony — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:31:50 GMT

While the left screen shot is more technically accurate and appeals to the accountant the right screen shot is much more understandable by the user. They also have a button where they can drill down to get the exact date. But really if the unit hasn't had an inspection done in 11 months or needs one in 4 weeks the exact date isn't relevant.

These screen shots are from the form showing all the overdue and upcoming inspections from a client with about 1200 pieces of equipment in the Granite Fleet Manager.

This code was based on the Access team blog entry Constructing Readable Time Elapsed Strings – MSDN article. I had one minor grammatical suggestion which is viewable as community content on the bottom of the MSDN article.

I've seen these kinds of dates on various web sites and had vague thoughts of writing the code but it was way down on my roundtuit list.

Nice stuff. Thanks to Kerry Westphal of MS for creating this.

School sends letter to parents of dead teenager complaining about her poor attendance

Tony — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:04:09 GMT

School sends letter to parents of dead teenager complaining about her poor attendance

The relevant paragraph is:

He said: "Unknown to the school, Megan's details had remained in a different part of the computer system and were called up when the school did a mail merge letter to the parents of all Year 11 students. The letter called up details of each student's attendance for the whole year to date and because Megan had been on roll in September, she was included.

As heartbreaking as this story is I can see how easily this could happen. Furthermore if a power user created their own query and did their own mail merge that makes this problem even easier to happen.

Mind you that bit about details in a different part of the computer system sounds like bad data normalizing.

I frequently have an Inactive Yes/No field on my tables as appropriate. And frequently it's somewhere near the end of the list of fields so it's easy to miss for someone not thinking about such.

In the Granite Fleet Manager on the equipment table I went a step further. I have a status field linked to a status table. This handles the situation where equipment is temporarily out of service due to lengthy maintenance/rebuilds, loaned out to other organizations or whatever the client desires. That status table has a Yes/No Inactive flag.

"Slacker DBs" Vs. Old-Guard DBs

Tony — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:06:52 GMT

A very interesting summary at Slashdot - "Slacker DBs" Vs. Old-Guard DBs on an InfoWorld article Test Center: Slacker databases break all the old rules

I saw this problem from a different perspective in 2000 or so when I purchased my Palm Vx. I was taken aback to only see room for exactly five phone numbers and/or email addresses. But when I thought about it I realized that was a reasonable limitation given that the concept of Joins almost certainly isn't built into the Palm OS and program. I quite liked the Palm desktop interface and so that's where I entered much of my information.

A while later my sister purchased a Palm but was using the contact manager built into Outlook. She occasionally had more than the five contact means in Outlook and was rather ticked that the sixth or seventh wouldn't import.

But getting back to cloud computing.

Microsoft is joining the cloud as well with SQL Server under the name Microsoft SQL Data Services as part of the Azure Services Platform. This is a good thing as I really, really like relational data systems. With all the other utilities and safeguards available when MS comes at this problem from the SQL Server perspective.

The perspective that folks with no relational database experience bring rather concerns me.

An example of this is MS bringing in Dave Cutler to lead the Windows NT 3.1 team with their multi user, multi tasking experience. The DOS based folks at MS would've stumbled badly and, in my not so humble opinion, could've done a better job in the Windows 95, 98 and ME family.

For example, formatting a floppy in Windows 95/98 or ME took over the entire system. You couldn't do anything else. And yet within OS/2, a true multi tasking system, you didn't notice a floppy being formatted and the task manager showed it only took a few percentages of the CPU.

That all said I can understand why Facebook or other huge non critical sites with hundreds of millions of records would deliberately denormalize their data. For example denormalizing the contact info or website's would drastically reduce CPU and disk access times thus improving response times.

On the fourth hand all my apps are going to be properly normalized!

What is the best way to understand the tables,queries, relationships,etc?

Tony — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:28:48 GMT

KrispyData asked the following question in the newsgroups

What is the best way to understand the tables,queries, relationships,etc. I
am new to Access and taking over an entire database.

Philip Herlihy had an excellent reply well worth reading. Jeff Boyce, fellow Access MVP, also had some good comments. I'm sure the discussion will continue for a few days so keep checking back to the thread.

Any tips on working with a database that you did not create?

Note that KrispyData's original posting did not somehow make it to Google Groups.

Capturing screen shots

Tony — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:37:34 GMT

Tired of Alt-PrtScn and various jiggery pokery methods of getting out just the portion of the screen you want?

I've quite enjoyed using SnagIt for the various screen shots on this blog and on my web sites. In particular I quite like the ability to draw red rectangles around relevant portions of the screens.

A free alternative my friend Jim, whom I've mentioned in the past, highly recommends is Bug Shooting.

Bug Shooting is a free screenshot utility that was developed for software testers who use bug tracking systems including FogBugz, Gemini, Ontime, BugTracker.NET and Mantis Bug Tracker. Screenshots can also be sent to Skype or a default E-Mail application (e.g., Outlook).

Since screenshots are frequently used to show system bugs or to reproduce the steps for a failed test, it is often very helpful to highlight, notate and/or crop areas of the screenshot. With Bug Shooting this can be done in a matter of seconds.

The case of the form which took 30 seconds to open

Tony — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:36:16 GMT

The client had two transaction file forms which took 30 seconds to open while a similar form took 3 or 4 seconds to open. I went through many of the items on my Microsoft Access Performance FAQ page and none made a significant difference.

The list of items Included "Subdatasheet Name property set to [Auto] should be [None]. " so I'm forced to conclude that while that tip may make a difference when using datasheet view it isn't helpful when using forms.

There are 740K records in the largest two tables of the app. The MDB is about 250 Mb in size.

To simulate their environment I placed the BE on a spare older laptop . I also opened the BE in another instance of Access as performance significantly decreases with the second user into the database. I was then able to get performance times to approximate the client reports.

Note that just opening the form wirelessly caused performance to decrease by a factor of four or five. Although Access frequently crashed. Note that I'm running the 54 Mbps wireless networking version so this number quite surprised me. I'm thinking that the encryption might be the bottle neck there. And is the bottleneck at the consumer grade WAP that I own or in the wireless networking device or the CPU doing the decryption?

In this case the problem was in the form load event somewhere as I determined by putting debug.print at beginning and end of form load. For example:

Debug.Print "BuildAndApplyFilter - " & strFilter & vbTab & Now

Note that you must put the debug.print at the very end of the routines you want to test as well. Otherwise you don't realize that the last line in the routine is the one that's causing the slowdown. <sigh> Ironically that line was commented a year or three ago "'Note: This sub also calls BuildAndApplyFilter - a small performance hit." Yeah, well, it's a small performance hit when the BE is local. A significant performance hit when on the network.

I then sprinkled debug.prints in the VBA code as appropriate to narrow things down.

Turns out the problem was due to a form filter based on an Inactive boolean field on a master Job table which had 792 records. Indexing that boolean field fixed this particular performance problem.

Now given that this forms recordset automatically opens only the last two weeks worth of transactions that field really isn't necessary as a filter. The users may not be that likely to close a job within two weeks of the last time transaction against it. And even if it is closed well, so what. Maybe it's a bit misleading to have some transactions entered yesterday, the job is closed today and now those transactions don't appear on the form. You could argue this case both ways. <smile>

The sordid life of software bugs, exposed!

Tony — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:00:09 GMT

The sordid life of software bugs, exposed! is a very interesting look into the software bug process within Microsoft. While this is about another MS product my impression is that this a very common approach within Microsoft. If you are going to report a bug to Microsoft it helps to have an exact repro scenario including an example file if appropriate and why you think it's important to a lot of people that Microsoft should fix it ASAP versus in the next Service Pack versus never.

I do something similar but vastly simplified in my shrink wrap program the Granite Fleet Manager. With a few minor exceptions. Every time I come across a bug or problem that I can't fix and test in five minutes it usually gets entered into an Access database. Now if the bug or problem in a feature that I'm working on and I'm going to get to it in a day or two then I'll enter it in my active OneNote page I use as a notepad for that particular feature. Then I cross it off once I've done using the strikethrough font capability. (I've added the strikethrough button to my OneNote Toolbar.)

I frequently find that as I go through my list of outstanding bugs that I've already done several but had forgotten they were in my list.

Good developers and bad developers

Tony — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:00:44 GMT

I quite enjoyed reading More flame wars on the way by a fellow MVP. Make sure you follow the link to Coddling is consider harmful and read the comments. The following reminds me of the Therac 25 X-ray machine which killed people.

"The full story is that the software would crash because it couldn't allocate memory IN THE MIDDLE OF A TREATMENT SESSION. Fortunately there was a safeguard in the device that turned off the radiation when this happened."

I also blame these kinds of problems on IT management as well for hiring folks who are mediocre to poor. And their management.

I've come across the occasional mediocre and at least one real bad developer. By the way if you are reading this blog this means you are interested in learning something and thus don't fall in the mediocre to bad category. So pat yourself on the back.

The rest of this posting is irrelevant to my points above and just plain meandering.

The real bad developer? That was so long ago I can't even recall his name. I hardly got to know him for obvious reasons.

Background: The then IT manager was a senior programmer/analyst promoted past his capabilities. John was asked to come in as the interim manager. Senior programmer/analyst decided to take a break and wasn't sure if he'd ever come back. My father had three or four brain aneurysms and a severe stroke so my then employer in Winnipeg, Manitoba find me a temporary job in Edmonton, Alberta to help take care of the family. So I'm new to the organization and I didn't know any of this coming in. Not that it mattered much. I was only 20 or 21 then.

1) So the bad developer, we'll call him Brad, updated the live tables with an irreversible operation during the middle of the day without doing a backup. At least twice that I know of. He was lucky though as they didn't cause a problem.

2) John, the manager, knew Brad had a drinking problem but John was desperate for staff as John had just been asked to come in the IT manager job temporarily.

2a) Brad did have some interesting stories to tell. Mostly involving alcohol in one way or another. I was too young and naive back then to realize just how bad of a problem his drinking was. John, while being a staunch Mennonite, was not naive.

3) A few weeks later Brad went to visit the clients branch office in Calgary about three hours drive south from Edmonton. At 1 PM the folks at the branch office asked where Brad was. We had no idea as he should've been there for several hours already. At 2 PM John got a call from a payphone with obvious bar sounds in the back ground stating Brad had a car break down in Red Deer the half way point. Suuuurrreeee.

4) Almost forgot about the time Brad showed up drunk at 8 am in the morning. He was told to go home.

Within a few weeks of my starting work there as a junior programmer Brad was fired. So I became acting senior programmer until the guy who was on leave came back. Turns out he was very good as a senior programmer/analyst and, to the best of my knowledge, has stayed in that role for the last 28 years or so.

John the manager? His name is John Isaak. One heck of a nice, competent, caring individual I worked for him learning how to treat customers and design systems from about 1981 to 1991. He didn't know anything about how to program in RPG II and III on the IBM S/34, S/36, S/38 and AS/400 but that was our problem. I've kept in touch with him over the years. Next time I'm back in his neck of the woods I'll have to see how he is doing.

Other deals for students

Tony — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 02:06:28 GMT

Thanks to the awesome Canadian MVP Lead Sasha Krsmanovic for informing me of some other deals for students:

Microsoft DreamSpark Professional Development and Designer Tools for students at no charge.

MSDN Academic Alliance However your school must be part of the program and there are restrictions. You may have to ask if your school belongs to the program. Hmm, there's even an offer for high schools*. Now that's one for the keeners**.

I have no idea if these are available in your country as I'm posting from a Canadian perspective.

* Back when I was 13 or so I knew that computers looked quite interesting so I took a introductory book out of the library. I simply couldn't understand what the few snippets of code in the book meant. A summer later the local college offered a free two week course during the summer months to high school students to teach you programming in WATFIV. (WATFIV is a student version of the Fortran compiler.) By the end of the first week the instructors were taking me aside and teaching me more topics. Oh this was all on punched cards.

I asked if I could come back during the school year and if it would cost me any money. They said sure and don't worry about the cost. So in between playing on the high school football and rugby teams I basically taught myself to program. I also dabbled in PL/C and assembler and took a digital circuitry/PLC course involving NAND gates and such. Needless to say I very much enjoyed myself.

And mom had nice cardboard note paper for the next ten or fifteen years from the punched card ends that didn't have any holes. I have no idea how many trees I was responsible for taking down during that era. I was also quite glad to get a job using terminals instead of punched cards.

** Keeners - insert term of your choice for that one person in a hundred or a thousand who has an intense interest in a topic. And yes I was one during my teens. Well, still am.

Fire Your Boss: The best place to cut IT organizations is generally at the top.

Tony — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:43:30 GMT

Thanks to SlashDot I read an interesting article - Fire Your Boss: The best place to cut IT organizations is generally at the top. I completely agree.

I've dealt with two IT managers to any extent over the past ten years. I mostly deal with smaller organizations that don't have any such position.

Jim can easily write code. And he has done so. Of course much of it he has learned from me. <smile> Jim's desk, while not clean, is nevertheless somewhat organized. Jim and I discuss the systems I'm working on right down to the fields in the tables and what needs to be updated where.

John, we'll call him John, doesn't have a clue about this kind of stuff. He couldn't even spell ASP if you asked him. (It's a Microsoft shop not a LAMP shop.) I recall one time making an unexpected stop in his office to chat about something simple.

1) He very quickly closed down whatever it was in Windows he was working on. I presume Solitaire.

2) His desk and his credenza were spotless except for a few knick knacks and a picture of his wife and kids.

3) The rumours were that he was a good friend of the CEO who got him a job out in the field. None of the folks in the field could stand him so he got a job in the office managing the IT department.

So which person should be retained?

(P.S. Jim, who reads this blog, knows who I mean. I strongly suspect my blog is beneath the notice of John. <bigger smile>)

On Our Project, We're Always 90% Done

Tony — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 03:41:05 GMT

On Our Project, We're Always 90% Done The first five paragraphs recommend a book and are off topic to my blog posting. The meat of the blog posting starts "My problem is that I'm almost pathologically bad about writing things down.". I'd suggest reading the rest of the blog entry. Oh, and consider reading that book.

I'm not quite that bad but I do type things down as I come across then. Although I must admit some of those pesky details don't get done as quickly as they should be. Actually it's worse than "as quickly" but we won't go there.

I use a combination of techniques. My own Access database, OneNote and Notepad.

I used to use the excellent open source system BugTracker.Net but I already had an Access database that I'd built and that was simply more convenient to use. My database has many fewer features than the BugTracker.Net but it's adequate for my requirements. Also with the exception of doing work for one other clients I generally work by myself. I tried using BugTracker.Net with a sales agent for features he wanted to request or bugs he wanted to add but he never used it. He preferred phoning me. Which is fine too. So I just started using OneNote whenever he would phone. Once I had organized his bugs and feature requests I would then add them as items to the Access database.

Jim at one of my clients uses BugTracker.Net with great success. But he also has minions doing work for him too. One time Jim was describing how he got an angry phone call from a major client asking why, after two years, he hadn't implemented some sort of computer interface with the client. Rather than explaining in detail the many contacts he had made and roadblocks he had encountered on a very regular basis with a number of folks at the client Jim opened up the item in BugTracker.Net, typed in the email address of the angry client and emailed him the entire history including date and time, contact name, phone number and contact details. The angry client now knew who the road blocks inside his own organization were and, presumably dealt with them. Preferably in a harsh manner.

If I notice a problem or think of a minor feature and it's something that I will get to within a half hour or hour or so then I use Notepad. I also use Notepad to store variable names, form control names or lines of code that I know I'm going to need shortly. However I run a bit of a risk using Notepad. If my system crashes I loose that content. So I should really be using OneNote. Mind you my system hasn't crashed for a few years now.

Now if I see a bug or minor feature that I want to add to whatever function I'm currently working on but can't get to it today I will either add it to the my Access database or I will put it into a OneNote page. Which one I use depends on how large the module is and what I feel like. Once I've done the bug or feature in OneNote I use the StrikeThrough to cross that off. Indeed I've added the StrikeThrough command to the Toolbar in OneNote.

If I notice a larger problem or think of a feature that isn't relevant to my current task then it goes into my Access database.

One thing that I like about my Access database is that it allows for sub tasks and prioritizing those sub tasks. Last time I looked at BugTracker.Net it didn't have that functionality. Sub tasks allow me think about larger tasks and break them out into doable modules. I also prioritize those items with a 1, 2, 3, etc up to 99.

Don't laugh but I ended up with too many 3, 4 and 5 priority items. So I added a form and some code that would automatically add 10, 20 or whatever to all the items between x and y priority so I could move things down the list and insert higher priority items.

As that list controls things in my life and long term ideas the reality is I'll never get them all done. Oh well, at least I have a list. Now where's that list of items for my memorial service? <smile>