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Archive for January 28th, 2010

Basic Microsoft Access Data Entry Knowledge

January 28, 2010 By: lilybird Category: Software

If you are a new Access user, you may not be using fields’ validation rules. If you are the only database user, this might create fewer problems for entering data in the short term. But, if there are more people using the database and entering the data into database, then it would be wise to set up these validation rules for inputting data. In the long run, it will save time, because you immediately make sure that the data is entered according to certain format and that no important fields are left blank.

Having inconsistent data in the database can cause more work for database administrator and other problems. A lot of data types can be validated before entry such as dates, titles, telephone numbers, postal codes, serial numbers, etc. If the data that has been entered doesn’t correspond to the specific format, Access will spot the error and ask you to enter the data again, this time using the right format. The easiest form of validation is the field input mask. There is an input mask wizard added to Access, which makes the process much easier.

In order to start the input mask wizard, you should go to the input mask property and select the ellipsis button. If you were doing something prior to this, Access may ask you to save whatever you were doing before. Choose yes. You will see a list of predefined input masks in the wizard. So, for example, you can make the user enter a phone number in a certain format, which will help you prevent errors in data entry. Choose the mask you want to use. If you don’t see a mask that can suit your needs, select the similar one. You will be able to adjust the mask to fit your needs. Click next.

Now, you can adjust your mask according to your likings in the input mask box. Choose the examples for your input data and click next. Then, indicate whether you want different symbols like hyphens stored with your field data or not and click finish.

You can also adjust a mask to restrict or allow the use of certain characters. Some characters can be set up as optional. You can also configure input masks with modifiers that act on the data but do not appear as data. There is a modifier that can turn all entered data into upper case letters and perform other modifications with data. Input mask can also configure literal characters. These characters will be stored with the data and can be a character, symbol or a string, which is added to the data entered. Using the input mask will help you to organize and standardize the data input and avoid errors that could corrupt your database.

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Typical Mistakes To Avoid When Practicing Access Database

January 28, 2010 By: lilybird Category: Software

After taking Microsoft Access courses and obtaining a lot of useful knowledge, you feel more or less confident about creating a database and have less fear about working with Access. But, when you come back to your work place, you realize that it is different from classroom and seems much harder than doing it with the help of instructor.

You should understand that Access database learning doesn’t stop after taking one class. You can take further classes and learn more theory, but nothing can compare to practice and experience. So, here are some typical mistakes to avoid when practicing your Access skills.

One of the common mistakes to avoid is creating field with the wrong type of data. At your Microsoft Access training you have learned that there are different data types, but very often the data type that seems obvious to us is not the correct one. It seems logical to enter a telephone number into a numeric field, because it consists of numbers. But, it would be wrong. Only values that could be used for calculations could be entered into numeric fields. And the telephone number should actually be in the text field.

Another common mistake is using one table for all records. A lot of Access beginners find it hard to understand the concepts of relational database. Trying to fit all the information in one table often creates wasted space and redundant data. During advanced Access training users learn that it is better to create separate tables for each type of information.

One more error, often made by beginners, is entering too much information into a field. If you need to enter information about cars, you shouldn’t put the model, year and make of the vehicle into one field. This will become a problem, when you want to run a query and find all cars made in a certain year. You should always consider wisely whether the data is better to be separated into different fields. Besides, in Access training you will learn how simple it is to link fields together.

And one more common mistake a lot of Access users make is using the default field size. We know that the text field has a length of 50 by default. You have to consider how long you need your fields to be and set them up accordingly, instead of using the default size. If you need only 10 characters for the field, assigning the default 50 characters is a waste of space. It might not seem like a lot, but if you count all of the fields, your database might start working slow because of its size. The same thing concerns the number fields.

These are some of the typical mistakes new Access users make. And now that you know about them, you should try to avoid them and make your Access database building more effective.

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Restore Backup Software – The Most Effective Way You Can Leverage To Protect Your Data

January 28, 2010 By: lilybird Category: Data Recovery/Security

The power of restore backup software has matured by leaps and strides over the past few decades, as file storage has become cheap, network capacity has become faster, and computer software has become more reliable.

In the old days the only option many companies had, to implement restore backup software was to install a backup program on your local hard drive that would launch once in twenty-four hours and take a snapshot of your PC’s local drive. It would subsequently compress this snapshot into a secure data format, which then had to be transferred onto tape drives attached to the PCs themselves.

Years later, we progressed to the use of recordable and rewritable CDs and DVDs for reliable files storage.

Now fast forward to the present day and we now see that many people are able to use USB drives to quickly back up their files.

Today, we have the capacity to back up your computer’s hard drive in real-time automatically without the use of any special hardware. All you would require is a software agent and high-speed Internet access.

For a fraction of what it would have cost you generations ago, you can now back up your files online. As you edit your files, they are encrypted and transferred securely across the Internet to a remote backup facility. There is no need to schedule the backups to happen, because the client scans for changes in real-time.

Restoring your own files is also very simple. Your backup folder is mapped to your Windows Explorer as a shared drive. So you can get your files by copying and pasting them from the network share to your hard disk.

Restore backup software has surely advanced since the days of old tape drive backups.

Are you prepared in case disaster were to take place and you were to lose all of your information using restore backup software? The good news is that, there is an easy solution: You can backup your data across the Internet in real time on autopilot with restore backup software solutions.

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