SP3 ate my hamster

I don't want blessings, I want to be able to watch DVDs without having to follow two pages of command line instructions on installing codecs. I'll give up soon and buy a DVD player for £20.

Owain

With Access it's all about relationships. I've seen fancy, code-laden corporate databases where obviously no one had a clue about the basics.

With access its all about doing coding for data checks and stuff like that. A proper database does it rather than the forms. Then you design a database and can let someone else write any form they like knowing they can't break the database.

Access really should be binned now you can get SQL server free. Don't use it for anything new.

Then you need a Mac.

The performance and short and long term stability of Unix and a properly done GUI as well

Hmm. Took me long enough to learn the bit I know about Access. Don't know if I'm ready for another learning curve

You may as well look.. go to microsoft.com, go to download center, search for SQLEXPR_ADV.EXE They have just release SQL server 2008 but there aren't any free editions yet.

Andy Hall coughed up some electrons that declared:

Although I am a Linux die-hard and long term hater of Micro$aft, there is a minor inconvenience here: that being that I have never found a credible replacement for the forms/queries functionality of MS Access. Sure, Postgresql and MySQL throw Access onto the ground, kick out its teeth and dance on its grave with repsect to being credible RDBMS's, but that's not a lot of help if you can't whip up a nice GUI without major programming.

Rekall showed some promise, but it's dead. GNUe Forms isn't there yet and there are one or two others in the making.

Sadly it's the one killer app that's still missing from the *nix opensource arena.

If anyone can correct me, I'd welcome being proven wrong.

I agree with geoff - it works and changing it will waste time. I can understand running small business procedures on the back of Access (it's a good deal better than all the people I've seen trying to do likewise with Excel) and alas there is no easy migration path away from MS, yet.

However, I agree with the Linux sentiments in isolation - MS Windows is a bloody liability as an OS and compared to OpenOffice Writer, MS Word sucks rocks through a gnat's willy (I use both on a daily basis).

Cheers

Tim

Thanks. Have downloaded it and will take a look. Hours of fun no doubt.

Which is the whole point in going for open system environments rather than the crap that Microsoft passes.

It's a house of cards. Like all houses of cards it will one day collapse and the devastation will be ruinous.

MS Windows isn't an OS, it's a monitor with an attempt at a GUI.

Could you use access or something else as a front end to a proper RDBMS over ODBC?

Owain

Owain coughed up some electrons that declared:

Yes, that would work. Postgresql I do know has a viable ODBC driver for Windows.

Cheers

Tim

Checked your Debian generated keys lately? ;-) Actually have you checked that any of the sites you trusted in the last two years used Debian generated keys. Unlike Linux users, windows users don't trust any sites and run AV against them all so a few misgenerated keys are no more of a risk than any other malware. Let me know if you find an easy way to check all your systems for any malware that may have slipped in in the two years the holes have been there as I haven't found one yet and decided a reinstall was the easiest way to be safe. Now can we get back to DIY and not start a windows vs. linux war here as it could get bloody.

Some are better than others, just like linux distros.

Yes, although I'm not sure that the front end checking and other stuff that Access does is all stored in external SQL databases.

I don't use Debian.

There isn't a war to be had.

I would have used the word 'crock' myself, and a different word to 'OS'

Err... yes...

Not what he said. If you use (or have used) any keys generated by Debian sites in the last two years, that's just as bad.

I haven't...and I use FreeBSD anyway..!

Persoanally I'd use SDS or TCT with an RAS or SCMS.

And if you were designing a database you'd be better employing a housewife or a truck driver than a geek.

Andy Hall coughed up some electrons that declared:

You *may* be able to do forms level checking in Access - not sure, haven't used Access for a while.

The usual way would be to put your business rules, constraints etc into the backend. Postgresql in particular excels at this with domain range checks, index checks and foreign keys (for relational integrity). If they aren't enough, one can code up check triggers in a variety of backend languages including pgSQL and perl.

But it's still not exactly an easy migration.

On the plus side, Postgresql installs natively and cleanly under Windows since v8.x, which does allow for some experimentation.

And it's free and extremely robust at not eating your data.

Cheers

Tim