Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with access

enhance...rotate, now uncrop!!

jstarlee — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 11:38:25 -0800

[CSIfilter] Need to find out who has modified certain records in Office Access. [CSIfilter] Need to find out who has modified certain records in Office Access. My google-fu only found me how to add timestamps when users modify records. Is this possible?

Quicken and the internet

I_Love_Bananas — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:05:58 -0800

I bought Quicken- do I still have to pay for Quicken online? I read about Quicken online. I want to have the full range of options, so rather than using Quicken online I went ahead and bought Quicken Deluxe.

I also want to be able to access my information remotely, so I thought that I'd be able to somehow- if Quicken Online is free, I thought I'd be able to get online access to my data after spending the $40 for Quicken Deluxe. But maybe not?

Anyone using QD and has any info on how to get to your data over the web? Or must I be on my home computer and actually in the program?

How to access album sales numbers?

toothless joe — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:33:03 -0800

Is SoundScan data available at a library? If not, can anyone help me with some album sales numbers? Does anyone know if public libraries (in Atlanta if it matters) have access to SoundScan data? I am trying to pull some album sales numbers and don't want to shell out thousands of dollars for a subscription for a one-time access.

I have not been able to find anything online indicating that libraries have access to it, but it seems logical. They have dozens of data subscriptions, why not this one? It also seems like public information; dozens of sites post movie ticket sales.

If it is not available, can anyone pull the total US sales by album for the following artists: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elvis, The Eagles, Michael Jackson, Jay-Z, Tupac, Notorious BIG, Eminem, Dr. Dre, NWA.

Also, any idea what to use for before-SoundScan era releases? Thanks in advance for your help.

How do I set up a simple database for vocabulary terms?

washburn — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:07:02 -0800

How do I make a database of vocabulary terms and definitions to use for teaching? What software, settings, etc. should I use? I teach college level courses in the humanities, and my students are often responsible for learning a range of terms and definitions.

So, I'd like to compile a database of terms and their corresponding definitions. This database could then, theoretically, be used in generating quizzes, exams, and review sheets that I could give to my students. What would be the best software and procedures to accomplish this?

Is Microsoft Access the way to go? If so, as one who hasn't used Access before, where can I find a quick tutorial to help me learn how to best set up this type of simple database up and occasionally import some of its contents to Word?

A few considerations:

*I use Microsoft Word 2003. Items should be easy to import into Word and be saved as part of exams that include other non-vocab related sections.

*A feature of lesser importance (but still nice) would be an ability to tag terms, to indicate what sorts of subject matter they relate to.

*I'm not a programmer, so the simpler the better.

Thanks for any advice.

How to fix this?

amethysts — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:04:24 -0800

I'm doing a project in Access and I need help conceptualizing how to get messy data into shape... So I have some data in an Access table. I am well-versed in Access and am using it in this instance for its report-generating qualities and ease of use for the non-tech proficient. This is the only tool at my disposal.
The data came to me as an .xls with a lot of junk and stuff basically all over the place. I made a bunch of queries to get rid of the junk and re-organize (which was a lot easier to do in Access than Excel).

However this is where I'm stuck. This is what I have now:

Name | Test Date | Test data
Jane | --------------------------
------ | 3/10/09 | -----------
------- | ------------ | 1
------- | ------------ | 2
------- | ------------ | 3
John | ---------------------------
------ | 3/12/09 | -------------
------- | ------------ | 3
------- | ------------ | 1
------- | ------------ | 5
------ | 3/13/09 | -------------
------- | ------------ | 2
------- | ------------ | 5
------- | ------------ | 7

This is what I'd like to have:
Name | Test Date | Test data
Jane | 3/10/09 | 1
Jane | 3/10/09 | 2
Jane | 3/10/09 | 3
John | 3/12/09 | 3
John | 3/12/09 | 1
John | 3/12/09 | 5
John | 3/13/09 | 2
John | 3/13/09 | 5
John | 3/13/09 | 7

Some of the names have more than one test under them. How many or which names are impossible to predict. You need to SEE the data to do the updating.

I know ideally you would have Names and Test dates in their own table, but I'm trying to make this a one-table deal for ease of use by people who are not me who will be ok with importing and running the queries (which is basically one click using macros) but not much else.

I can make and run a bunch of queries and forms to do this, but I can't seem to figure out which ones.

Can any RSS reader read private Blogger blogs?

freddymungo — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:21:07 -0800

How can I view private Blogger blogs in any RSS reader? Is there any way? I think it's silly that I can't in Google Reader, since I use the same account to read those blogs as in Google Reader. Bonus points if there's a good downloadable (not online) service that can finagle it.

MSAccessFilter: How do I create a printable report in MS access, with a click-through interface to choose my data?

Seeba — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:26:47 -0800

MSAccessFilter: How do I create a printable report in MS access, with a click-through interface to choose my data? Good morning,
At the office, we're using an access database that everyone is afraid to touch, but at the same time, it's not quite doing what we want it to do:

I want to take information from two or three tables (the information's all linked together), then print a summary of the day's activity (one of the fields in one of my tables is a value for the date).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can I set up a form so that all my coworkers have to do is click "create report", then it'll give them another form with a calendar to click on, maybe a drop down box of another variable or two, click "create", and a report come out that I can print/save/distribute?

(Apologies if this is basic-- my google-fu has failed me, and I think it's because I'm not phrasing any of this correctly-- this strikes me as something that should be relatively easy to set up, though probably time consuming)

MS Access - Limit to # of shared users

cg1 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:04:10 -0800

Is there a limit to the # of users who can share a Microsoft Access database across a network? I've been working in Filemaker for so long that it's been a while since I designed in Access. I'm now working for a public school that has no money, but all its machines have Access. The school *really* needs a database, so I'm considering building one using expertise from my previous life in the business world.

Several questions:

- Assuming all 100 teachers in our school has Access on the PC in their classroom, could all 100 access the same Access database simultaneously without problems? I know that Filemaker has a user limit of 250, but that requires Filemaker Server (a separate / more expensive software) be installed on at least the server itself. Does Access have similar limitations?

- Does Access support a web-based module, that teachers not in the building / not on the school network could access? If so, is it worth a damn?

- Is Access easier to design in now than it was years ago (when I switched to Filemaker and was thrilled how much simpler it was)?

Thanks in advance for any help,
Wade

MacgyverFilter: link sharing using MS Office

Monday, stony Monday — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:23:17 -0800

Macgyver IT: I want my team to use something like del.icio.us to share links. But since this is ask.metafilter, I can't use the obvious right answer. I need to make something like it myself, using ~~bubblegum and string~~ the MS Office 2000 suite and my knowledge of VB. What would be my best approach? This is clearly insane, but I want to try (please don't ask why I can't use something reasonable -- I just can't). I don't need the full del.icio.us, just links and tags. I'm also okay with having only one person at a time able to add a link to the dB, and everyone sharing a big ball of links.

I've thought about using an Excel file, but I don't know if there's a reasonable way to do that, or what that way would be. Could that work, or should I bite the bullet and go for Access? Is there a feature hidden somewhere (in Outlook?) that I'm overlooking?

Need. Internet. Back.

Beardman — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:57:33 -0800

Why can't I connect to the internet anymore? Is customer service giving me a plausible explanation? Our home internet connection has been down all weekend. We use a new and speedy 24" iMac. When we try to connect to PPPoE, it just says "Connecting...Connecting...Connecting" and finally says that it can't connect to the server. No amount of power cycles and restarts make a difference. This has happened once before, a few months ago, and changing the access password with the ISP solved the problem (until Friday).

Our apartment sucks and there is only one working phone jack, which is in an inconvenient location. Thus, we run a 15 foot phone cord from it to a normal telephone cord splitter, from which a 10 foot (filtered) telephone cord goes to the modem, and a second cord goes to our telephone.

Yesterday, my ISP's customer service guy said that the phone cord from the wall to the modem has to be 6 feet or less, or else it'll be unreliable. He correctly surmised that we often have connection issues (i.e. sometimes it says "Authenticating..." for a long time), although never before recently has it totally failed to connect, and for a couple of years we never even had the long authentication issue either.

When I told him that this issue has previously been solved by a password change, he tried that again and it didn't solve the problem. I asked him why, if the cord length is the issue, we were able to have the same setup for years without a problem. He replied that the cord can deteriorate over time.

Various forums online debate whether the length of the phone cord has anything to do with internet speed or connection reliability. Does it? Could the problem be that I'm using that splitter? Does it matter where the splitter is--i.e. should the splitter only be at the wall jack, or can I have it where it is, after the first 15 foot cord? Should I do as my ISP suggests, and either (1) replace the telephone cords that go to the modem with new ones (to solve the supposed "deterioration" problem), or (2) try to rig it up with a 6 foot cord and then a really long ethernet cable (to solve the supposed "long phone cord" problem)?

Thanks for any advice you can give me. FYI, this is in Toronto, and the ISP is Primus. (I would rather switch to Teksavvy, but when I put my number into their website it says they can't provide service to me, even though I live right downtown...?)

How to Delete Myself ...

keasby — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:59:19 -0800

How to transfer administrative control of a SharePoint subsite? I.e. I created the site, assigned new owners, but now need to remove my own access. This seems like it should be pretty straight forward. Unlike homemade chili, it is not.

We have a basic SharePoint team site. Admin asked me to create a private subsite where just the back office staff could store sensitive personnel files. Creating was no problem, and I assigned permission such that only those individuals can view. I even "removed" myself from all of the groups.

Or so I thought. I am not getting access denied when I log into the site.

Help! I don't want to coach a coworker, over the phone, how to do each of the trivial steps it took to make this subsite. Is this something my network admin should be able to do? It may help to know that we are a "virtual firm" so I don't have any tech folks on site to help me, nor can I just "hijack" one of the new owner's accounts.

Thank you!

Point me to the web...

gjc — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:48:24 -0800

Are there any Access-like tools for building data access pages in a web+sql format? Here's the thing. I have a few databases that I've done up in Access. That's great for when I have my computer.

But my needs are becoming such that I would like to have access to the data on any machine.

(I've searched the archives and saw a great many other answers, but none seemed to address what I'm looking for, or at least in a way I understood.)

I'm good on the server and the web space and the backend. What I'm looking for is basically something that works like Access's form builder: I drop the elements in and fill in the logic as need be. Publish it to the server, and disco.

I really don't want to run a "product" (like a CMS, or a knowledgebase, or forum software) where I'd have to wrestle with it to get it to do what I want. I would also prefer something that doesn't require oddball things to be installed on the client or on the server, like .net or frontpage extensions.

Partially because I don't really know what I'm doing (and that's OK, it's just for personal use/learning), and partially because that's just how my thought processes work- I like the idea of dropping pre-built elements in and making the connections work. And because the idea of writing html for a bunch of buttons and text boxes seems daunting.

I've tried all manner of searching, and while I know such a tool *has* to exist, I'm clearly not searching the right way.

Extra points for fancy ajaxy web 2.0 coolness. Thanks!

Email address before download ?

Webbster — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:22:56 -0800

Is there a (Wordpress Plugin) download manager in which you have to enter your email address before you are granted access to the file ? I'm looking for something like what Spinal Tap did.

But without the flash...

And just with an email address...

I found a nice looking download manager, but that requires the user to register before access.
For my clients purposes this is a bit much and not necessary. Just an email addy will do.

Thanks in advance Hive Mind.

Access Denied.

mwhybark — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:20:27 -0800

Access 2003 transfer text method oddity: Why is the character "#" being replaced with "." in my column heading? I am finishing a data-export widget which takes a set of records and writes them out to a date-and-time-stamped filenamed text file. I am using Access 2003. Everything is working swimmingly except one thing.

I am using the TransferText method within a VBA routine to export the output of a query.

The third-party-provided export schema specifies that the first column name is to be "Foo #", where 'Foo' is not the actual word in the column name.

On export, the file writes as I wish it to with one exception. The "Foo #" header has automagically transformed into "Foo ."

Searching MSDN for instances of "#" or "." is a hopeless endeavor as I am sure you will appreciate. Any insights?

I have tried escaping the "#" in various ways. I have not yet tried entering it via code. I am off to research using character codes and escaping data in and out of Access and will check back here near the end of my workday, about three hours from now.

Find me better database software.

ricochet biscuit — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:01:03 -0800

I have to compile a database for work to track about 300 separate data trends, but Access isn't cutting it. Suggestions for the next step up? Bear in mind, I am not really a computer guy. I subcontracted this out to a programmer type who undertook to build the database but soon discovered that Access cannot handle more than 256 items in a table. All his solutions are pretty kludgy and he suggests looking for a more robust database program, but I have no idea where to begin. Cost is a factor in puchasing new software: I work for a not-for-profit and have pretty much used up most my 2009 budget for this project. Any suggestions? How many dollars am I looking at for SQL server?

How to export csv with variable number of columns?

JeremiahBritt — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:57:46 -0800

Using a relational table in a one-to-many relationship in Access, what is the best way to export a csv file with one row per record (from the one half) with a variable number of columns (from the many half)? Basically, I have a Senator with one or more staffers. I want to export (CSV) so that it looks like:

Senator 1 info | Staffer 1 info
Senator 2 info | Staffer 1 info | Staffer 2 info | Staffer 3 info
Senator 3 info | Staffer 1 info | Staffer 2 info

One row per senator, but an unknown or changing number of columns.

I'm sure there's a way to do this via query. I have to make this as easy as possible (via a button on a form) for a coworker.

Having a hard time finding an answer via Google.

How can I get to about.com on my computer?

rtha — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:41:50 -0800

I can't get to about.com or ehow.com on my macbook pro. Please help me figure out why. They're not sites that I go to often, but over the last few weeks I've noticed that neither site will load for me.

I have a 13" MBP running 10.5.8. When trying to load either site, I get "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at [about.com] [ehow.com]"

This happens in Firefox, even with Adblock Plus disabled. It also happens in Safari. It happens on my wireless network at home as well as my wireless network at work (different providers).

I can get to both sites in both places on my ipod touch. I can get to both sites on the macbook if I access IE by connecting via RDC to my (Windows) work computer.

Pinging both shows "no route to host"; running traceroot shows the same.

So what's going on? I'm not desperate to get to either site - I have askme, after all! - but I'm wondering if it's symptomatic of something else, and it's weirding me out.

Serious help needed with Excel

TheBones — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:41:00 -0800

Crazy excel help needed... again. Every month I have a monotonous series of tasks to perform in excel and I have exhausted all of the possibilities I know of to make things easier- more details inside. I have 2 reports (report A and report B for my example) I pull every month, sometimes 2 or 3 times a month that I have to reconcile which takes a couple of hours a day for 1 excel file- I have about 10 to 20 a month and it keeps me from doing my real job.

We are talking around 68 columns with anywhere from 2000 rows+ of data.

Currently, my workflow is such:

Pull reports A and B and add them to the same workbook as different worksheets.

Create a new worksheet, which I use to create a working copy of the combined data.

Delete full rows of data in the working copy based on the values of one column of cells:
This is based on dates, so anything after say 01/01/2006 gets moved into a separate worksheet named "deleted data."

Use vlookup to pull a column of data from worksheet B into the working copy worksheet and then with the data pulled in, concatanate it with another column of data that is already existing in the working copy.

Use vlookup to pull in another column of data from worksheet B to the working worksheet.

There is alot of repetitive work done with find and replace and vlookup with different values.

My questions are as follows:

Can I create macros for these repetitive tasks so that I can say all text A in column c gets changed to new text, and all text b in column c gets changed to new text without doing a find and replace for all variables. There are about 12 columns with 4 different types of data that need to be changed in each column to something new.

Can macros even handle what I am asking of excel, or are they too rigid to effectively manipulate all the data I need changed.

Am I using the right program, or should I be looking at a local copy of a mysql database with a GUI (as I'm not that good of a programmer).

Should I use some other database, such as bento, filemaker pro or even access?

Or, am I just destined to use excel in the same workflows over and over again, pushing that boulder up the hill to have it roll back down again.

Please point me in the right direction (websites with tutorials that monkeys could follow) as I'm not very good with VBA and don't know very much about databases besides the fact that they can hold data and import cvs files- my knowledge base is sad, I know.

Please help me set up some Access forms.

philomathoholic — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:41:34 -0800

I have two questions about setting up MS Access forms: 1) Currently, I have a form to enter the volunteer id, shift start time and shift stop time, but the client doesn't want to have to look up the id in a report. Is there a way to create a selection list from the volunteer's names? What other options are there? 2) On the "add/edit a volunteer" form, I'd like to be able to choose tasks from a selection list. The tasks table has id and name. The "tasks of volunteers" join table has volunteer id and task id. How do I set this up? I can't seem to get the right combination of configurations. Additional information:
1) The shifts table only has those three fields, and I don't want to make the volunteer's name a primary key.
2) I don't want to resort to adding the booleans TaskSort, TaskPrep, ..., to the volunteers table, since that's not how databases are supposed to be set up. When I try to use a select query, I get "SELECT ..." as one of my options.

* It's Access version 2003.
* I'm just using standard forms (ie. not "Pages").
* I'm pretty sure I've created the tables in a "best practices" way, but since I'm creating this database from scratch, I can create anything however I want.
* I think I know about database theory pretty well, and that's not what this question is about.
* But, I'm new to Access, so it's likely I'm missing something easy.

Thanks.

WiFi Filter

bad grammar — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:33:40 -0800

Is there a scammy catch or otherwise bad deal to Starbucks' free WiFi through the Starbucks card and AT&T? Don't whale away at Starbucks and their corporate fascism and terrible coffee, please; I am taking an online class at my regular university and have to get online through the day. I registered by Starbucks card for 2 hours of free WiFi access at Washington, D.C. area Starbucks locations. As for why not the public library, the National Mall, etc. it is 90+ hot and I am carrying a laptop, which I used to access (not a smartphone) and books.

I realize that I've let myself in for a deluge of promotional e-mail from both companies, but have I let myself in for anything worse? Will AT&T send me bills?

I logged on at the Starbucks at 1502 Dupont Circle and then the AT&T link dropped out and I was unable to log out. I logged back on but the AT&T sign-in screen did not come back up. Will I be penalized for not logging out? I was able to log on and log out properly at another location. There were very many competing wireless links at the Dupont Circle location.

Can I do this in Excel and/or Access? Explained inside

nooneyouknow — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:13:01 -0800

Can I do this in Excel and/or Access? 'This' is a bit complicated so it's explained inside. I have a spreadsheet with about 55,000 client records. What I want is to list the records for all of clients that have an office in state X and all of the other records for those clients, regardless of what's in the office location column.

For example, from the example data below, I want the records for all clients located in Rhode Island plus any other records those clients have. So, I need to do something that will give me the records 1-5 & 8-12 - all the records for Acme, Blue Sun, and Weyland-Yutani since those are clients with at least one office in Rhode Island. And I need it to be modifiable because I have to do this for each state and a few countries.

What I've been doing so far is to sort the spreadsheet by Client # (each client has a unique client #) filter the Location Column to only show records with 'Rhod', highlight those entries, remove the filter, and then manually check to see if there are other records besides the ones in RI. But that's tedious. So, I have been messing around with pivot tables, If, nested Ifs, And, and Countif in Excel and queries in Access, but no luck. Access and Excel are both 2003. I don't know SQL and everything I know about excel and access, I learned from google. Thanks.

Client Client# Client's Office Location 01 Acme 57832 Providence, Rhode Island 02 Acme 57832 Other City, Rhod Island 03 Acme 57832 04 Blue Sun 64073 Third City, Rhode Island 05 Blue Sun 64073 Gotham City, New York 06 Cyberdyne 83232 Los Angeles, California 07 Cyberdyne 83232 Central City, Ohio 08 Weyland-Yutani 42367 Other City, Rhode Island 09 Weyland-Yutani 42367 10 Weyland-Yutani 42367 11 Weyland-Yutani 42367 12 Weyland-Yutani 42367 13 Daily Planet 84619 Metropolis, New York 14 Daily Planet 84619 East Metropolis, New Jersey 15 Daily Planet 84619

Which computer class is right for me?

atm — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:19:12 -0800

I need the hive's help. Which computer class should I choose: Database Management Systems or Database Management with MS Access? First I should say I have an idea for a program I might want to develop. A few years ago, with the help of online resources, I wrote an Access db for my checkbook (it uses a good amount of simple VBA) and it does some things I really enjoy. I think other people might enjoy it too, so I'm evaluating the best way to turn it into a non-Access program that's fit for selling. I know it'll have a SQL back-end.

So, this semester I have a choice between two classes. One is Database Management with MS Access which concentrates on Access only, and the other class is Database Management Systems. The DMS class instructor mentioned that they'll be looking at SQL and Oracle, but I don't know if those are all.
I'd like to take the Access class since Access is ubiquitous in small and medium size businesses, and could come in very handy down the road, but, would I learn very much in there that would help me in developing my program, with its SQL back-end?

Also, in case these factors are relevant:
1)I'm going for my mechanical engineering degree. Have already taken an OO Programming Logic and a C++ class, and will have to take at least one Matlab class.
2) I don't anticipate being ever working in the computer field.
3) Even though I wrote the Access db, I still don't think I have a very good all-around understanding of Access. What I learned to do was very task specific so I couldn't quickly "bang out" anything but a very simple db.

Which one should I choose?
Thanks all.

MS Access...Access Problem

bibbit — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:15:37 -0800

Microsoft Access question: I have an Access 2007 database hosted on a server. I have 10 staff members who use the database. I can get in the database even if someone else is in it. One of my coworkers cannot. Is this typical? I apologize that I have very basic language for this, but this is a pretty basic database. In Access 2007, should multiple users be able to get in the database at one time? We generally would only have 2 or 3 people in it at once, but this one coworker can't get in the database if just one other person has it open.

I've tried working with our IT department on this, but no one there seems to know what to do (or if anything can even be done). How do I troubleshoot this issue? Is it just something we have to deal with in Access?

m.exchangemail.com

benzenedream — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:35:08 -0800

Seeking a lightweight web interface to Exchange 2003 server. Need something more usable than OMA, but more smartphone-friendly than Outlook Web Access. We don't allow work email to be cached on non-work devices for legal reasons. I'd like to be able to log in to webmail but find OWA rather clunky on a smartphone browser; OMA provides a bare-bones interface that's intended for ActiveSync rather than actual humans. Has anyone cobbled together a reasonable solution? I guess I'm looking for something like the mobile gmail page for Outlook. We won't be upgrading to Exchange 2007 for a while so its features are not an option.

Devices can't access Internet

clockworkjoe — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:00:29 -0800

My Tivo and 360 can no longer access the internet because my provider has set up a Terms of Service page that you have to click on through a web browser before it will let you access the internet. What can I do to get internet for my browser less devices? My apartment complex offers free internet access. However, when you connect to it, it redirects you to a page saying "You must agree to our terms of service. Click here to agree." Once you do that it sends you to 1.1.1.1/agree.cgi and then redirects you to Yahoo. Obviously this is no problem for my computer but my Tivo has stopped working since they began this change. I have a series 2 tivo I think (got it last year).