I’ve been using the MacBook Pro I introduced in my [previous blog entry][0] for a few weeks now. Between love and frustration I hang… Here is a review of our relationship so far. ##The Great## ###Hardware delight### Whether running OS/X or Windows 2008 I’ve got no major complaint about the performance of the machine. It’s... » read more
My trusty old gigantic [Sony Vaio][vaio] is about 4 years old. It served me well and still works but it’s about to become my main development machine for the next couple of months and I can’t afford to have it die on me during that time. It was time to get something as gigantic and... » read more
Years ago I did a [small utility][cad2svg] to convert [DWG][DWG] or [DXF][DXF] files into a vector-graphic, zoomable, [SVG][SVG] preview. The Linux command-line utility was used in a larger drawing management application that I had built before I left that company for greener pastures. The Linux server-based application would scan the vast (100,000s of [CAD drawings][CAD])... » read more
Access programming is inherently single-threaded. That’s usually OK as most operations are sequential anyway and it keeps things simple at the programming level. There are times though where the lack of ability to run code on another thread is sorely missing: anything that takes a long time to run will just freeze the application, making... » read more
I recently had an issue at a remote location (12000km away) where the old multi-purpose Linux server that had been working for the past 5 years wouldn’t boot again after a nasty power failure. The server was used as a firewall, a local email store, a file server and a backup server, so its failure... » read more
This project provides a custom and enhanced message box replacement for the default `MsgBox`found in Access. A Test database containing all the code for Access 2007/2010/2013 is available at the bottom of this post. (__UPDATED Saturday 21OCT2014 to VERSION 1.10.__) ###What’s wrong with the default MsgBox### The default message box in Access is sometimes useful... » read more
In my previous article about changing the MS Access colour scheme I had the need to allow the user to restart the database after the colour scheme was changed. (__Article and Code Updated 13FEB2009.__) Being able to cleanly restart and compact the application is also useful in other instances: * Changes made to the environment... » read more
Microsoft Office 2007/2010 comes with 3 colour (color) schemes. Users can easily change it but when you deploy an Access application under the [Runtime][runtime] your users have no way to set the colour scheme as the application’s options are not available. (__Article and Code Updated 01DEC2014.__) Luckily for us, the global colour scheme setting in... » read more
Microsoft Access Team made an interesting post and a follow-up on how to add a transparent layer that cover the screen to focus the attention of the user to a login form or other important popup window. The trick is to use some WIN 32 API calls to modify the transparency of a standard MS... » read more
Business Week has a recent article where the author foresee the demise of Windows in favour of Apple’s OS. Reading it, I couldn’t help thinking I was reading one of these overenthusiastic 1925 popular-science article promising us that within just a few years we would all use our own flying car to get to work.... » read more