Access Tools of the Trade, 2015 Edition

Note from Kevin Anderson’s talk

CAUG, Feb. 2015

Follow-up from the 2011 version of this talk, inspired by blog posts from ex-Access author Mike Gunderloy and Microsoft guru Scott Hanselman.

Hardware

• Primary development PC: Microsoft Surface Pro 3 laptop/tablet with Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB RAM and 256GB Solid State Drive (SSD).

• Secondary development PC: my old primary, an HP DV7 laptop upgraded with SSD.  Use ALFA AWUS036H for extending wifi range.

• Printer: HP LaserJet 1536dnf multi-function printer.

• Smartphone: Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) with T-Mobile with added wifi hotspot feature.

Backup

• Seagate external drive for incremental backups of monthly image backups of the Surface.

• Cloud backup: OneDrive for Business, SOSBackup.

Software

• OS: Windows8.1 Pro 64-bit on the Surface, Windows7 Pro 64-bit on the HP.
• Antivirus: ESET NOD32 (paid); Microsoft Security Essentials (free).

• Access/Office: Access 2013 as part of MS Office 365 Small Business subscription, and MS Office 2010.  Still have Access 2003 on HP.  Access 97, Access XP installed in virtual machines in case of legacy support.

• SQL Server 2012 Express, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Server 2014 SQL Migration Assistant for Access.
• Microsoft Azure SQL Database - for prototyping cloud-based Access apps

• Virtual Machine: Virtualbox (free from Oracle).  Still fast and reliable, plus is fully cross-platform.

• Text editor: Notepad++.
• Remote Access: LogMeIn (paid); remoteutilities.com (free for business); TeamViewer (free for personal).

• FTP: Filezilla.  Warning - stores passwords as plaintext in the registry.

• Terminal shell: putty. Use to setup SSH for secure Internet at public wifi sites.
• Cygwin - Unix terminal shell emulator that runs within Windows

• Graphics: Photoshop Elements (PSE) – can create icons, stitch images together.  Occasionally use  Microsoft Expression Web 4 for website work.  Office 2013 for PDF creation, Word 2013 and PSE for occasional PDF editing tasks.

• Accounting: Quickbooks Pro 2012.  Use ClickTime for hours tracking - connects directly to QB to import timetracking.

• Project management/issue tracker – Google Drive and One Drive documents.

• Install builder: Inno Setup (free).

• Code signing: comodo – cheapest I’ve seen, works fine.

Access

• Rick Fisher's Find & Replace.
• FMS Inc's Total Access Detective; also still have Total Access Analyzer around.
• FMS's Total Access Emailer - bulk email in Access; ok but limitations.
• GeniusConnect - synchronizes Outlook to Access (or other SQL database)

Web

• Browser: IE/Chrome/Firefox. Inoreader for following websites via RSS feeds.

• Web-based office = Office 365's One Drive, Google Docs and Calendar.  Also Upvise for notes and shopping lists.

• Webmail: only as needed: Office 365's Outlook.com, GMail, Yahoo! Mail.
• Bulk email: MailChimp by choice, Constant Contact when required by clients.

• Large file transfer: dropbox.com, on the lookout for alternative.

• Hosting: affordable Linux-based reseller: site5.com. Have Windows hosting at DiscountASP.net.
• Internet maintenance: DNSstuff for DNS, email, IP issues; pingdom - site monitoring.  OpenSRS - domain registrar.

Miscellaneous

• WinDirStat - treemap view of file system
• ImgBurn - light weight CD/DVD burning
• Hiren's Boot CD - bootable disk of utilities
• Clonezilla - disk cloning tool
• sysinternals - Microsoft TechNet-provided Windows system tools
• Fileshredder
• 7-zip - handles .zip and every other archive format

Future - tools for to look in to

• A keymapper app - to restore VBA Break key functionality, improve Fn key mapping
• Alternate SQL backends - PostgresSQL, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• SyncToy - easy Microsoft file syncing
• Zapier - automation for web services
• SendGrid - bulk mail provider using SMTP and APIs