[Hidden-tech] MS Access Questions

[Jeff Brand]

Initial setup of MySQL DB services may be quick in ideal circumstances 
but there's plenty more involved: purchase of dedicated hardware, setup 
of base operating system and dependencies, ongoing support/maintenance 
costs, and even additional energy costs.

Next up is the installation of the MySQL ODBC Connector software and 
(recommended) configuration of a new ODBC connection on each computer 
that needs to access this new data source. If you're not aware, finding 
the correct ODBC Data Sources control panel (32-bit vs 64-bit) is a 
matter of research, unless you've run across it in the past.

Moving the data isn't trivial. Data type conversion between platforms 
potentially involves translating to or from Windows encodings, UTF-8, 
etc, converting numeric and date/time field formats which have different 
bounds, formats, and other limitations.

MySQL uses backquotes to escape fields while MS Access and SQL Server 
use square brackets (I believe).. There are other subtle differences 
between SQL statements and reserved keywords, enough to require a 
complete testing of the UI code before returning to operation.-

MS Access expects certain certain cursor behaviors when dynamically 
creating a new record. MySQL needs a little extra code to emulate this 
behavior fully.

Working with MS SQL Server has fewer issues due to the similar Microsoft 
heritage. Migration tools (and docs) exist to ease this sort of 
transition. That said, there are gotchas that must be tested for and 
resolved.

All of this effort would take much longer than an hour, require a wide 
variety of experience (or research time), and doesn't seem worthwhile 
for a small office use-case that's already working as-is.

  - Jeff

On 11/23/2015 7:08 PM, Aaron Smith wrote:
>
>
>
>
> For what it's worth, there's not really a lower scale limit at which 
> MySQL makes less sense - the installation and setup of the software 
> and database (not counting the migration of data itself, or 
> complicated permissions setups) can be done in under an hour, from a 
> cold start, on a bad day. I would think nothing of setting up an 
> instance for a project that has any relational data at all, be it 10 
> records or millions. I'm not familiar with SQL Server, though.
>
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 1:10 PM, Adrienne LaPierre 
> <lapierre.adrienne at gmail.com <mailto:lapierre.adrienne at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>     Thanks to Allen, Doug, and Jeff for pointing me toward SQL/MySQL. 
>     I understand the big picture better now.  It seems that this would
>     be the logical path for a host of reasons with security at the top
>     of the list. However, the database I'm referencing is very small
>     (< 600 records, not sure how many tables are involved, majority of
>     the records are archived) and from what I can tell SQL makes a lot
>     less sense at this scale.
>
>     Allen--not being able to find Office 2010 from a reputable third
>     party seller is precisely my problem. We're getting three new
>     computers, but only one of the old computers is being taken out of
>     service.  The others are just being transferred to new employees
>     who also need Office 2010.  I see lots of totally untrustworthy
>     sites offering 2010 but nowhere I would actually purchase from.
>
>     So can anyone recommend a reputable seller of Office 2010
>     Professional?
>
>
>
>     On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 1:44 PM, Allen Belkin
>     <albelkin at comcast.net <mailto:albelkin at comcast.net>> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>         Hi Adrienne,
>
>         My general recommendation is to not be in a rush to upgrade
>         anything unless there is good reason. This is especially true
>         of recently-released versions. I’m also going to try to stick
>         with Windows 7 as long as I can – I don’t think any of my
>         business clients have upgraded to Windows 8 or 10.
>
>         I’d also be careful about moving to the cloud. The main
>         drawbacks are that you are totally dependent on a good
>         internet connection, and that you are putting you data in the
>         hands of a large, far-away corporation. Advantages are
>         off-site access to your data (if you need it, though there are
>         other ways of accomplishing that) and possible lower cost of
>         hardware, infrastructure and maintenance (though you’d want to
>         look carefully at the big picture regarding costs). I’ve been
>         finding Office 365 in particular to be real flaky – often it
>         won’t accept my login and then an hour later, it does.
>
>         I believe Microsoft Office 2010 is no longer sold separately
>         by Microsoft but is available through third-parties or on some
>         of the Microsoft subscriptions. If you are taking the old
>         computers out of service, or don’t need Office 2010 on them,
>         you should be able to transfer the licenses.
>
>         I agree with Doug and Jeff – Microsoft Acccess databases are
>         not considered secure and an upgrade to SQL Server (or an open
>         source client-server database such as MySQL or PostGreSQL) is
>         what you need to be HIPAA-compliant. You’ll be able to use the
>         same front-end, but it will require some tweaks.
>
>         Best regards,
>
>         Allen
>
>         Allen Belkin
>
>         //Custom Software Solutions//
>
>         PO Box 60144, Florence, MA 01062
>
>         E-mail: albelkin at comcast.net <mailto:albelkin at comcast.net>
>
>         Phone: (413) 552-9080 <tel:%28413%29%20552-9080>
>
>
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