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• How good is Microsoft Access and the Internet?
• Do you know the feature of decompile switch?
• What is client/server?
• Do you know which is appropriate for you, Access or SQL Server?
• Microsoft Access Server Headaches
• The Year 2000 is all over....
• How do I find out if SSW Consulting Services will fit my needs?
• What is the typical size of SSW Consulting Services?
• What to do after a crash in Windows 95
• How to Improve Access Performance
• How to Do a Mail Merge in Microsoft Word
• What server hardware do I need for SQL Server?
• How to link your SSW Access database to an Access or SQL backend
• Propagating Changes to Live Databases with SSW Data Renovator
• What the Access Status Bar Messages Mean
• Microsoft Access Query Tips and Techniques
• DLL HELL The Inside Story.htm
• How to Report an Error Using Screen Shots
• What is the best way of adding a record in SQL Server?
• Can SQL Server send an email if a job fails?
• Need to know more about Dynamic Websites?

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How good is Microsoft Access and the Internet?

Debbie wrote:

Hello Adam,

I was looking for info on ACCESS and HTML, I had no luck on www.microsoft.com, and saw a message you had posted to comp.databases.ms-access about .idc files. I've also tried calling Microsoft (nobody was there!!), so I'm not getting very far.

Basically, our company wants to configure some home pages where the data is stored in a database (most probably Access) and people will visit the pages and get data pulled out of the database and displayed using HTML files. This sounds reasonable to me, the question is, can Access handle it?

How do you like Access? We're thinking about getting it.... if we can get any info on it, such as can well on portables, can it run on Unix, can it handle HTML, can it connect to other databases?

Well, thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

Debbie.

---

Adam Answered:

Yes, there is very little information about Access and HTML. It is very new technology and very little has been written about it. I spent many hours gleaning the information I needed to finally get a web site/access system running for Magna Data an Internet Service Provider in Sydney.

Access works very well with Microsoft NT Server, Internet Information Server and .asp (Active Server Pages with SQL in them). I am very impressed at the speed and ease of use, once it is setup. The nice thing about Access is it is user friendly and fairly easy for non-programmers to maintain.

For that job Internet users can visit their site, ask to see information on specific products. Then they can even register online using the registration form.

This is just a little application I wrote to demonstrate a sample use of Access, hinting at much bigger uses. Access works great at taking Internet user input, processing it and returning information in an html document.

Selecting Access versus SQL Server depends on how much traffic you expect to get at your site. Access is not as robust as SQL Server, but easier to use and maintain (cheaper). SQL Server is the database that Microsoft uses for its giant web site (BIG BUCKS).

The nice thing is that with Access you can start small, with a Pentium 266 64 MB RAM and 4 gig hard drive, maybe a $5,000 investment in hardware and software. Then, as your site develops over the next few months, you can simply add another 64 MB of RAM and then maybe a file server via ethernet with as many hard drives as you want, etc. Then if your site gets really hot, you can move to a DEC Alpha with SQL Server, etc. I guess the point I am trying to make is that Microsoft has provided upgrade paths for you, so if you select Access you can later move up as it makes sense, to bigger equipment and SQL Server.

Access is a Windows product which means it will not run on Unix. I have used both Unix and Windows. Unless you have a Unix engineer in your office now, don't use Unix. It will soon be a dead language, because Windows NT is SOOOOOOO easy to use. It is Windows, you know. Bill Gates announced Wednesday that all of their software is going to be Internet aware. However, if you like a DOS-like prompt and know what this command means i1 ,then Unix might just be your language of choice.

Access can connect to many other databases. If a database has an ODBC driver, Access can connect to it. By the way, I am using Access 2000 for the Internet work. However, Access may not be able to connect to a proprietary database of custom design.

Access will run on any Windows capable computer with at least 16MB of RAM, including laptops. WARNING! You will be very unhappy running Access 2000 on any computer less than a Pentium 200 with 64MB. This is true with all Win 95 products.

Well, that should give you some idea, I hope I got you excited about using Access for your project. If you need some help, please call on us. Our expertise includes:

1. Active Server Pages (ASP) development

2. Internet Information Server (IIS) setup and maintenance and

3. SQL Server 7 database development

4. SQL Server 7 setup and maintenance

Adam Cogan
Sydney, Australia
SSW
adamcogan@s*w.com.au

What is client/server?

Client/Server database systems are different from traditional database systems in that the database exists on a dedicated server machine. Instead of network machines "fighting" each other for the information needed, a dedicated server processes requests from network "clients". This greatly increases reliability, since access to data is controlled entirely by the host machine. Security is much more easily enforced since authentication is done by the server machine.

If a client/server system has been properly designed, the overall system speed will be increased and network traffic decreased, since workstations only receive the data they asked for.

Microsoft Access Server Headaches

As a consultant, I am often called into projects that are running behind schedule and require additional resources. This year, a stock broking corporation called me in to convert a mainframe application to PC environment. The majority of the company's income was generated from the application I was converting. Not only was I converting their money maker, the system was required to be up and running within six weeks. The project manager decided that I should build the system using the Microsoft Access database product.

The application design specified a maximum of three concurrent users. Based on the type of queries that were to be performed, I felt comfortable in stating that the performance would be acceptable for the users. After rushing to meet my deadline, the system was implemented. Everything went smoothly until this company's business skyrocketed and more loans than anticipated had to be processed. Before I knew it, the number of users had increased to fifteen.

With fifteen users on the system, the network came to a standstill. The reason the application brought the network to standstill is simple: in a Microsoft Access server architecture, all database processing occurs on the local PC. Therefore, when the users issued complicated queries to the server, the network jammed with data being sent back to the local workstations. Often, the queries being issued from the applications required thousands of rows to be returned to the local PCs.

In the Microsoft Access server environment, this is the equivalent of calling a car dealership and asking how many blue pickup trucks they have in stock. To get the answer, the dealer drives every car to your house and you count the number of blue pickup trucks. Obviously, this is not very efficient. In the Client/Server database computing environment (ie. Microsoft SQL Server), a different approach is taken. Someone at the dealership counts the number of blue pickup trucks and passes the information back to the caller.

Eventually, the mortgage banking system was rewritten using a Microsoft SQL Server as the backend. Performance was improved, network bottlenecks were decreased, and users were happy.

The Year 2000 is all over....

It's all over now and all SSW escaped unscathed but invalid dates in databases still cause problems from time to time. All versions of Access and SQL Server internally store dates using four digit years. (Actually it is stored as a number). Hence the reason why valid dates stored in time/date fields were not be affected when the century ticked over. The main problem lies in the initial entry of dates, either manually or from imported data. Access 2.0 will interpret any two digit year as starting with an implicit 19. Access 95 varies depending upon which .dll's are on your system. Access 97 assumes all two digit years below 30 are in the 21st Century and all other two digit years are in the 20th Century. Access 2000 does the same but gives you options in Tools - Options to configure this.

At SSW we feel that it is best to subject all incoming dates to a custom date validation routine. (For example we prevent data entry errors such as 1/1/199). This has the added advantage that you can modify a single function to change the rules for date validation easily as time progresses or your internal business rules alter.

At a PC level we also have had problems. Some of the built-in date functions, such as Now(), read the date from the Windows system clock. If this is correct, then the Now() function should work okay. However some users accidently change the date, resulting in invalid dates being passed to the Now() function. This is a system wide problem and, as such, we feel that it should not be corrected inside Access (since all sorts of other dates on your system will be wrong). Instead at SSW we include a test in the start-up routine of all of our databases applications that tests the Now() function and makes sure that it is later than 1 April 2000 (or whatever the date is when you program the routine). If it is less than this date, then the BIOS is reporting an incorrect date, a warning message to that effect is shown so you can get the problem resolved. This also solves problems caused by CMOS battery failure, so it's a good routine to use anyway.

PS Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows '98 will apparently trap and correct these BIOS date problems.

A related matter is the display of date information. As a rule we advise that all date information is displayed using a custom format such as d mmm yyyy (move the fields around to suit your own country format) rather than using the Short or Medium Date formats which only show two digit years. Using a four digit year display format gives added re-assurance to the user that the date information in the database is correct.

How do I find out if SSW Consulting Services will fit my needs?

Contact us, and we will discuss your project with you. After understanding your situation and identifying your needs, we will make a proposal for you. At this point, it's entirely up to you whether you want to go ahead with the project, seek alternative solution or adjust the proposal to your needs. Call SSW to organize time to discuss your situation.

What is the typical size of SSW Consulting Services?

SSW projects can range from a few hours to several months, depending on your needs. If you are interested in discussing a particular problem or your application's architecture for a very short time with a SSW consultant, check our web page SSW Consulting Services for the rates. Whether you require a Database, a Web Site, or both, we can provide your business with a customised solution.