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Connecticut Access User Group (CTAUG) |
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Date:
Wednesday, June
10 - 5:30PM to 8:30 PM |
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PRESENTATIONS: As always, let James know if you have a suggestion for a presentation, and better yet, if you'd like to present something. If the latter, your presentation can be long or short, need not be polished, can solicit solutions to problems from the audience, etc. Our motto: Everybody Learns! ANNOUNCEMENTS, INTROS, Q&A, PUZZLERS, QUERY DEMOS, ETC.: Someone asked about apparent problems in running Access 2007 and Access 2003 on the same machine. Pat Hartman advised that this can indeed cause problems, because the two installations are not well differentiated in the Windows registry. Whichever version was installed last usually takes precedence. This problem is even worse in Vista than in XP. We also discussed current recommendations to
someone in the market for a "desktop replacement" laptop computer. Pros and
con's of various configurations were discussed. Pat Hartman noted that Vista
has a built-in feature which tests various aspects of the computer on which it
is installed, and highlights any bottlenecks. From Control Panel select "System
Maintenance" then "System" then "Check your computer's Windows experience".
Windows Vista will perform tests and present performance scores for components
such as the processor, RAM, Graphics adapter, and hard drives.
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Each month we strive to present material of interest to Microsoft Access users and developers of varying experience: beginner to advanced, hobbyist to professional. Meetings consist of one or more formal presentations. Also, attendees are invited to bring a problem or question about Access, relational database design, queries, VBA programming, etc., to challenge the expertise of our members.
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MONTHLY MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT: Microsoft's
Farmington Connecticut office Meetings are free, and open to anyone interested in Microsoft Access and related topics. (Please forward or publicize this information to others who may be interested.) APPROXIMATE SCHEDULE:
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Recap of
our Wednesday February 11, 2009 Meeting. As recorded by James King We met on our usual 2nd Wednesday of the month. ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS: There were 7 attendees at the meeting. Snacks: Thanks to all those who bring refreshments to our meetings! If you can help out, please contact James King or Eddie O'Reilly. - Leland Prior brought snacks - James King next time. MAIN PRESENTATION(S): Clarence Mayott presented an interesting overview of patents. A few highlights: Patents are quite complex, being side-by-side legal and technical documents, made even more complex by incorporating chains of references to other patents and to journal articles. Their importance in preserving the intellectual property rights (and thus the incentives to invest and take risks) of inventors and entrepreneurs is recognized in Article 1, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution. Patents are sometimes written to be intentionally opaque as a further way of preserving trade secrets beyond the (limited) power of the patent to do so. Patents' inherent complexity as well as their intentional opaqueness complicates the work of researching patents, which is done in an attempt to avoid patent infringements, and also to learn trade secrets and to keep abreast of the activities of one's competitors. Clarence demo'd "Patent Analytics", an Access application that assists in researching patents. Among other things it produces many nice-looking pie and bar charts that, for example, can show the changes over time in the patent portfolios of all the major players in an industry. Dick Gingras demo'd 6 utilities: Total Access Analyzer, 7-Zip, MouseHook, MS Virtual PC 2007, Find and Replace 9.0, and PDF ReDirect. (Dick's handout describes each utility, provides links for downloading some of them, and is available at our Yahoo group site.) Dick had a frustrating time getting his new laptop to work right because he was attempting to run the utilities within a 32-bit Windows XP virtual PC, running on 64-bit Vista. The verdict? That Configuration Is Not Recommended! LINKS RELEVANT TO TOPICS DISCUSSED: Our 'ctaug' Yahoo tech group (sample apps, PowerPoint presentations, etc.): http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ctaug/ Dick Gingras' handout on utilities is available at the tech group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ctaug/files/ THE WRAP-UP: No raffle this time. A number of attendees continued exchanging information about Access problems, "how to's", etc., before exiting. |
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LINKS RELEVANT TO TOPICS
DISCUSSED: If you have not already done so, please join our 'ctaug' Yahoo! group: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ctaug/ One way of joining is to send an EMail to this address: ctaug-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Once you become a member, you will be notified of (and can yourself post), information that is of particular interest to the CTAUG membership. Examples would include job opportunity postings, answers to questions that came up at a recent meeting, handouts and sample databases from presentations at past meetings, etc. Eventually, most of our communications will be sent out via the Yahoo group's email list.. NOTE ON GETTING TECHNICAL SUPPORT FROM THE GROUP: If you have a question or problem in one of our areas of interest (Access, VBA, SQL, database design, etc.) that's been bedeviling you, perhaps a fellow attendee can help. You are invited to bring your problem code or database on removable media, or pre-upload it onto our Yahoo! "ctaug" group site, so we can have access to it during the meeting. If it's something that might take more than, say, 20 minutes to work through, try to let me know ahead of time and perhaps we can schedule one of our more knowledgeable members to do a somewhat formal presentation on the topic. WIRELESS INTERNET ACCESS DURING THE MEETING: If you will be attending the upcoming meeting and wish to have wireless Internet access, please communicate that to Hillary Williams, the receptionist at the Farmington office (v-hillw@microsoft.com). (Do this at least a few days before the meeting.) The procedure varies slightly, depending on your situation: A) If your info has already been entered into the system, just send Hillary a quick EMail identifying yourself as a CTAUG member and requesting that your access be renewed for the upcoming meeting. B) If your info is NOT already in the system, send Hillary your request for wireless access at the CTAUG meeting and provide the following information: Your EMail address, Your first name, Your last name, CTAUG's Microsoft sponsor's "alias", which is "CBOWEN", The date wireless access is to start (date of the meeting), The date wireless access is to end (access is assumed to be for one day unless otherwise requested) Don't hesitate to contact me with suggestions, errors, omissions, changes, etc. See you at the meeting! Best Regards, -- James James King, CTAUG President (860) 677 - 2269
======================================================================= Got a Problem? Bring your ACCESS and VB questions to the meeting and let our experts have a shot at them. You can use our Meeting PC or bring your application along in a Laptop PC.
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