ViewDB - Access VB/ASP Coding Donkey

And one more useful application - Access VB/ASP Coding Donkey. You select table and fields and it generates repetitive lines, based on template

Database Synchronizer

Database Synchronizer - a small application to compare 2 SQL Server databases, with source code

New Add-in from Jeff Conrad

New Add-in from Access MVP Jeff Conrad CSD Tools – add-in to document Access database. Two versions available – for Access 97 and for Access 2000, 2002, and 2003

QuirksMode

I am currently doing some ASP.NET programming. Must say - I am happy, that ASP.NET offers VB.NET instead of VBScript in ASP, this is the greatest advantage over ASP. But, unfortunately, all web programming also based on JavaScript, which is nightmare in compare to normal programming languages. Besides it limitations - there are lot of things you have to be aware because of browser incompatibility. But we have just live with this. I recently found this site on CSS and JavaScript tips and tricks - QuirksMode, hope others can also benefit from it. BTW – Access Data Access Pages – also based on JavaScript, so we can certainly put this site in Access useful links!

CurrentDb or DBEngine(0)(0)?

Lot of developers still asking this question – which one to use - CurrentDb or DBEngine(0)(0)? Ken Getz (btw – he started a blog!), in his Access Developer's Handbook, explained the difference. Recently MVP Peter Doering has pointed me on a very interesting post by Michael Kaplan, where he discuss all aspects of using these 2 methods.
Personally – I am using the same approach, as he mentioned in point #7.
BTW – one more thing you have to aware using CurrentDB!

Sysinternals’ Autoruns

One more useful utility from Mark Russinovich – Autoruns. And article, how it can be used - The Antispyware Conspiracy.

History of Basic

History of the BASIC family of languages

IIS Diagnostics Toolkit

Microsoft has published IIS Diagnostics Toolkit - a set of tools resolve problems with Internet Information Services (IIS)

Windows Shortcut File Format

Windows Shortcut File Format reverse-engineered by Jesse Hager

Document scan in MODI

I was recently asked to make some code in order to “scan documents into Access database”. First idea was to use Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI). But there is no method to start scan process! There is also no way to instantiate MODI Viewer with CreateObject(), so user can press scan button there. Ok, next I found a Microsoft Windows Image Acquisition Library (WMI), which is looks like what I need, but it is too low level for solution I need to build. Ok, I can build my own MSPSCAN.EXE, but this will takes me more number of hours my client expected.

Ilixis Solutions offers some MODI Sample, but there is no demo, and not clear if it offer scan solution.

I think solution can be the following – we can configure MSPSCAN.EXE to save scanned images in a certain directory, start MSPSCAN.EXE with OpenProcess API, when it finish – look for a new file in specified directory and use it as scan result. But what I don’t like here –this solution requires a lot of user interaction, so we can get a lot of support calls and the end.

If  you have better idea on this – please drop me a note here.

One more approach - is to use DBPix ActiveX control from Ammara.com. Control doing everything we need, besides that it does not support TIFF files.

How to get Jet warnings

Michael S. Kaplan describes some hacks on how to get Jet warnings. In opposite to errors - warnings we never get in Access or any other "Jet clients"

.Net Rocks now on TV!

It is called dnrTV. Great staff! Something like a Microsoft Webcast, but more detailed and somehow interactive, as Carl asks questions. Check it out!

Review of Office 12

Marc Orchant points to detailed review on Office 12

Home Page of Tony Toews

Home Page of Tony Toews - most famous, IMHO, Access MVP. Intersting reading to know how real geeks works and live! And his very popular Microsoft Access Tips and Hints Page

Generate Thumbnail Images from PDF Documents

Quite useful article at Developer Fusion by Jonathan Hodgson

Skype 2.0

Check it out – Skype 2.0 is here, now with video calling. Time to buy a web camera?

Find and Replace for Access

Free Find and Replace Add-In Wizard for Access. Looks interesting, but I prefer Rick Fisher’s Find And Replace

Winsock and Internet applications downloads

There are several interesting internet applications downloads – TAPI, Winsock, MSN Messenger, Web Messaging, FTP

Using MD5 Encryption

An article Using MD5 to Encrypt Passwords in a Database shows an example using MD5 encryption for storing database passwords

Access success story

Joel Spolsky has posted an article How to Ship Anything, where he discovered how useful could be Access.