In this article Tom Wickerath, an Access MVP from Seattle, explains how to setup and use crosstab queries in Access.

This is the last of four articles by Tom this year and rather than ask for payment for his work, we donated a small amount to the Fred Hollows Foundation, an organisation that helps poor people to regain their eyesight. https://www.hollows.org.au

Read the last newsletter online. All the posts from January to April 2008

vb123.com offers an online repair system for Access databases. The system is setup so that your data is encrypted before it is transmitted and in most cases, you should be able to recover a corrupt database in less than 30 minutes elapsed time. Garry

Here is an interesting article on hooking Access up to DB2.

In this article Tom Wickerath, Access MVP, explains how to setup conditional formatting in an Access database. This visual cue can be a very useful if used wisely. For example I use conditional formatting to highlight invoices that are outstanding for a month.

Here is a tutorial on managing "databases" in Excel. Interesting that one of the important efforts in Access 2007 was to mimic the data filtering in Excel.

If you are still using Access 2000, 2002, 2003 or even Access 97, have you considered my book on Access security. Read the 15 5 star reviews at Amazon.

Recently I was called out to help on a database that was running really slow. One of the things I came across early in the investigation was that the database at one stage used Access replication technology. So I set about removing the replication fields. I have described this in an updated article on index fields.

Note: In case you didn't know it, replication technology was dropped in the version of Jet used for the Access 2007 ACCDB databases. In my view, replication was always way too ambitious for a database that thrives on local networks.

We tie a lot of our Access consultancy business together using a collaboration tool called Basecamp from 37Signals. Read more about BaseCamp here or join up to our new ThickToast newsletter http://www.thicktoast.com where you can read about Garry's thoughts on BaseCamp and other online providers that help our business.

Greetings to you all from Sydney Australia.

Have a great New Year and enjoy the newsletter.

Garry Robinson
Access MVP and Editor of vb123.com and vb123.blogspot.com

My blog rolls on with posts in December on


Access (Read Jet/MDB ) Vulnerability
Small Business For Dummies
Converting to Access 2003
CurrentDb.Properties("AppTitle")
Office 2007 Service Pack 1
Jeff Conrad talks Access 2007
Renaming a query
Save Change SQL Server Table Scripts
Unnecessary Indexes

Here you can get the standard MS Access content plus content from Garry's Blog all in the same newsletter.

If you want to see a lot of Access content from a number of different blogs including our Extra Content, then sign up here.

Watch this Amazon tool (and others as they come online) as online databases that are easy to use are definitely important technology for (Access) database developers. All we really need are linked tables to one of these and Access developers will be off and racing with the most versatile front-end on the planet.

Here is a sample that works with Excel 2007 and VB.Net 2008
http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=1125&categoryID=148

Here are details on Service Pack 1 for Office 2007

Tony Toews has a post on the making of compiled databases with Access 2007 service pack 1. The fact that they will NOT open in Access 2007 (no service pack) is going to be a concern.