Microsoft Access is celebrating its 25th year this month. It’s an amazing accomplishment for a software product to be so successful for so many years. We at FMS were there since the beginning.
Read our first hand, historical account of watching Microsoft Access take over the Windows desktop database market, and how we became the world’s leading 3rd party developer of Microsoft Access products.
Discover how we watched MS Access rise from nothing to the leading Windows desktop database application. This directly caused the implosion of Borland International which previously dominated the desktop database industry. Witnessing this in person was an amazing experience of how quickly technology can change established, large software businesses.
The video is from the November 1992 COMDEX conference where a very young Bill Gates personally announced the debut of Microsoft Access. He remains a big fan of Access and was actively involved in its design and development.
FMS Inc. founder and president, Luke Chung, was invited to speak at the Access developer’s convention in Vienna, Austria April 1-2. Luke provided his insight on:
The Access Challenges that developers like himself face
How Access has changed and evolved over the years,
Demonstrations of many of FMS Inc.’s products and their features.
Along with Luke’s presentations, DevCon saw Microsoft Access Team members Michal Bar and Mike Sullivan, who gave overviews of Access 2016 and what is coming in the future. Thomas Pfoch, from picoware, showed new features relating to treeview customization. Peter Bryant, from Corylus Business Systems, provided insight in communicating with JSON Services. Microsoft Access MVP, Juan Soto, spoke about Optimizing Access with SQL Server. Danish Microsoft Access MVP Andres Ebro provided techniques and tricks to help with image handling, classes, and using reports inside a form. Paul Rohorzka of TechTalk presented automated testing of Access applications. Kevin Bell of COMC shared his thoughts on tools to extend Access development.
The conference was a great, informative success! The event, organized by Microsoft Access MVP Karl Donaubauer, was sold out! FMS Inc. was grateful for the opportunity to meet and present for all of those in attendance.
Additionally, due to the enormous success of the event this year, 2018 will host the 2nd Access DevCon Vienna on April 7-8. To stay updated on the event for next year, make sure to check out Karl’s page about the event! Access DevCon 2018
FMS President Luke Chung was a presenter at the Microsoft Access DevCon 2017 in Vienna, Austria in early April.
Before giving two conference presentations, he was sat down and spoke with Philipp Stiefel of codekabinett.com of Germany. Philipp is creating a series of videos discussing VBA development.
How end-users migrate from Excel to Access, then learn how to code
Why people are hesitant to purchase third party products and how FMS overcomes that by showcasing the value we offer
Using tools like Total Access Analyzer to catch errors before shipping and learning best practices
Using the module code in Total Visual SourceBook to address problems we’ve already solved so you can focus on the unique issues in your applications
The value of creating consistent, quality code
How to improve code for developers of all backgrounds
Being in constant “growth” mode to look for ways to become a better developer
FMS Inc. is proud of the quality of products we have produced for the past 30 years. We are honored to continuously be regarded as a leading expert in the Access community. Thank you for supporting us and we hope you enjoy the 20 minute interview!
We are pleased to introduce new versions of Total Access Statistics for Microsoft Access 2007 and 2003; versions 12.9 and 11.9 respectively. They include the many features we introduced with the latest Access 2016 version.
Total Access Statistics is an add-in that is the most powerful data analysis program for Microsoft Access. It extends the power of Access queries to analyze the data in your local or linked tables. It generates results in tables you can view or include in other queries, forms, and reports. It offers a wide range of statistical functions such as:
Field Descriptives
Financial Cash Flow Calculations
Percentiles
Running Totals and Moving Averages
Field Comparison
Frequency Distributions
Regressions
Advanced Cross-Tabulations
Group Analysis (t-Tests and ANOVA)
Record Analysis and Rankings
Non-Parametric Analysis
Probability Calculator
New Features
Additional percentile types can be assigned to a field in your table
Enhanced data formatting
Improved financial calculations for IRR and XIRR
Updated user manual
Support for Windows 8 and 10
New Add-in and Runtime Library Files
Version 12.9 and 11.9 include new files for the Access add-in. It also has new runtime library files.
A digitally signed MDE library for MDB databases that support users of Access 2016, 2013, 2010, 2007 and 2003.
The Access 2007 version includes an ACCDE runtime library for ACCDB databases for Access 2016, 2013, 2010 and 2007 users
The Access 2003 version includes a runtime library for Access 2000 and 2002 users
The day after an amazing personal interview of Julian Assange by Sean Hannity aired on his TV show, FMS President Luke Chung was invited to discuss the related technology on his radio show.
Hannity traveled to London to interview Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy where he’s seeking asylum. They discussed an overview of Assange’s role as founder of WikiLeaks, and their obtaining and publishing the emails from the Democratic National Committee the weeks before the US Presidential election. Some people attribute Hillary Clinton’s loss to the revelations in those emails especially from John Podesta, the former White House Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Clinton campaign. They are also accusing the Russians for hacking (stealing) and providing the data to Assange so Donald Trump could win the election.
Radio Show
On January 4, 2017, I was on the radio show with Sean Hannity and Brigadier General Eli Ben Meir, former Israeli Military Intelligence chief. The three of us discussed the WikiLeaks disclosures. I commented specifically on:
Cyber attacks and the security breach at OPM disclosed non-classified government employees and by omission who were covert at American Embassies globally.
Noting Julian Assange’s careful word choices to exclude Russia as source without excluding them as the ultimate source of his sources.
The need for WikiLeaks’ to keep their sources confidential and how they amplified the data from Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden.
Different approaches to preventing cyber attacks depending on the cause. “It’s one thing when someone steals your car because they broke into it. It’s another thing when someone steals your car because you left your keys in the ignition.”
Here’s the audio of the show:
My segment starts at the 6:50 mark. Sean and General Meir speak first, then I start around 9:25. Final comments at 14:15 and it wraps up by 14:50.
Additional Issues
Only a limited amount of information can be discussed in such a short interview. Some additional issues to consider are:
Data Security
Securing data over the internet and inside organizations is very challenging. Threats may come from:
External hacks that need to be monitored and defeated
Internal people who unintentionally leave the front door unlocked
Internal people who intentionally leak information
Different solutions are required for each type of threat. Some are at the software vendor, design, and developer level, while others involve end-user training, background checks, and monitoring.
Applications can be built so that simply disclosing a user name and password doesn’t compromise the whole system by require two-factor authentication and registering devices that can use those credentials.
Unfortunately, many systems were built well before today’s cyber threats existed. The cost of making those systems more secure without breaking their existing functionality will be daunting and expensive. In many cases, the original source code, development environment and/or vendor are long gone, so the only option is to replace them which is also very expensive and time consuming.
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are Not Heroes
We need to keep in mind that the WikiLeaks exposed top secret US information by publishing the disclosures from Manning and Snowden. Lives were put at risk and lives may have been lost because of those publications. The Arab Spring was inflamed in part by the disclosure of diplomatic communications and one could argue the human tragedy in Syria is tied to this as well. While Republicans are celebrating and defending Assange and WikiLeaks now for the DNC emails, the tables may turn very quickly.
Data That’s Not Exposed May be More Dangerous
While many are focused on the DNC emails, it’s not unreasonable to assume the people who hacked that also got the RNC emails. Data can be power, and in the wrong hands, data can be used for nefarious purposes such as blackmail.
If the RNC data were compromised, we should be extremely worried if the hackers discovered it was more valuable to keep private than public. Whether they use it directly or sell it to another party or country, the information can make victims puppets by threatening the exposure of their personal data. It’s not uncommon during E-discovery of an email server to discover all sorts of inappropriate language, behavior and activity conducted by individuals in an organization. Disclosures of affairs, homosexual activity, underage sex, bribery, unethical business dealings, breeches of confidentiality, collusion, and actual crimes are often found in email threads and can be used for blackmail.
Total Visual Agent is the world’s most popular maintenance scheduling tool for Microsoft Access/Office and Visual Basic 6 (VB6) is now available for Microsoft Access 2016 (and earlier). This is the ninth major release of Total Visual Agent and introduces many enhancements to automate maintenance chores easier than ever.
To keep your Microsoft Access databases healthy, you need to regularly compact them. For disaster recovery, you should also be making backup copies of your database regularly. You may also have regular tasks such as printing reports that are performed regularly. Total Visual Agent does this and much more on a schedule you specify. Run tasks hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or just one time. Perform database chores, run Access macros or Windows command lines. A complete audit trail is maintained, and you can even be notified by email if something goes wrong. Total Visual Agent can also be run as a Windows service to restart if the machine reboots and for added security since a user doesn’t need to be logged in.
Total Visual Agent 2016 leverages our vast expertise, and offers the best database management solution with many new features:
Supports Microsoft Access 2016
Supports Windows 8 and 10
Does Not Require Access to be Installed on your PC
Database Lock Error Identifies Offending Machines
Activity Log is Separated from Settings Database
Activity Log Shows Duration of Each Activity
Email Notifications Support TLS and Office365 SMTP
Tasks are Not Run at the End of an Event Interval
Enabled/Disabled Status Shown on the Event Form
More Robust Windows Service Feature
Improved Monitor Settings Tab
Default Location of Archive and Extract Folders Moved
With the recent release of Total Access Emailer for Microsoft Access 2016, we are pleased to release updates of earlier versions to include the many new features:
Total Access Emailer 2013, Version 15.7
Total Access Emailer 2010, Version 14.7
Total Access Emailer 2007, Version 12.7
Total Access Emailer is the most popular email blaster for Microsoft Access. Easily send personalized emails directly from your Access database. Quickly communicate with every email address in your table or query. Use fields from your data source to customize each subject and message. Attach files from disk and also attach reports as PDF files filtered for each recipient.
The new X.7 version includes many new features since their previous version:
Email Validation to check the syntax of the values in your email field so you can flag invalid emails in your table before you send your blast
Save Attached Files to Disk. This lets you document the attached files sent to all your contacts without using blind cc (Bcc).
This can also be used independent of sending emails as a way to distribute files and PDF reports to disk. You can even create folder names based on field values.
Preview Saving Files to Disk
New VBA Function to Preview Email Blasts with Save Files
Code Generator Supports Preview Email with Save Folder
Support for Office365 and other SMTP Services using TLS
Enhanced setup for Windows 10 and 64-bit installations
A few years ago, we migrated our email service to Microsoft’s Office365 cloud service. Overall, it’s been very reliable and eliminated the challenges we had hosting Exchange ourselves. It let us get to our emails using Outlook installed on Windows, any internet browser, and smartphones. Office365 also offered other Office product online (Access Web Apps, Excel, Word, etc.), SharePoint and OneDrive Business.
Unfortunately, on the morning of June 30th, we discovered:
Delays sending and receiving emails
Some emails were bouncing back from recipients who couldn’t validate our Office365 Exchange Server’s SMTP (protection.outlook.com) with our domain name. That meant the Exchange SMTP server was no longer considered a trusted sender of emails from the @fmsinc.com domain.
Our use of the Office365 SMTP server to send emails with our Total Access Emailer product was also failing to authenticate against the server
The problems began the evening before. Needless to say, we aren’t happy about this experience which impacted us and our clients using Office365. Reports are that it affects Office365 customers across North America.
Contacting Microsoft, they confirmed problems with the health of their Office365 Exchange Server. Throughout the day, problems lessened but persisted. We hope the problems are resolved soon and that we’ll understand what went wrong once we overcome the immediate crises.
These are the reports we’ve received from Microsoft. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more:
Exchange Online Service Degraded
This is what the Office365 Admin portal shows for Service Health:
EX71628 – E-Mail and calendar access – Restoring Service
Jun 29, 2016 12:11 PM
CURRENT STATUS
Our investigation determined that an existing transport feature which is designed to expedite the delivery of email messages became degraded, which caused impact to email delivery for a subset of users. We’re bypassing the affected feature to restore service
User Impact
Users may be unable to send email messages through the Exchange Online service. Email messages may appear to be stuck in the Drafts or Outbox folders.
Scope of Impact
A few customers have reported this issue, and our analysis indicates that for most customers, it’s unlikely that many users would report impact related to this event.
Start Time: Thursday, June 23, 2016, at 3:00 PM UTC
Preliminary Root Cause
An existing transport feature that is designed to expedite the delivery of email messages became degraded, which caused impact to email delivery for a subset of users
EX71628 – E-Mail and calendar access – Extended recovery
Jun 30, 2016 2:18 PM
Current Status
We’ve developed an additional fix to address the underlying cause of the issue. We’re preparing to deploy the fix to the affected environment to ensure that the issue does not reoccur.
User Impact
Users may be unable to send email messages through the Exchange Online service. Email messages may appear to be stuck in the Drafts or Outbox folders.
Scope of Impact
A few customers have reported this issue, and our analysis indicates that for most customers, it’s unlikely that many users would report impact related to this event.
Start Time: Thursday, June 23, 2016, at 3:00 PM UTC
Preliminary Root Cause
An existing transport feature that is designed to expedite the delivery of email messages became degraded, which caused impact to email delivery for a subset of users.
Next Update by: Saturday, July 2, 2016, at 7:00 PM UTC
EX71674 – E-Mail timely delivery – Service restored
Jun 30, 2016 7:35 PM
Final Status
We’ve confirmed that the remaining message queues have now drained after implementing a configuration change to optimize message filtering.
User Impact
Users were experiencing delays when sending and receiving email messages. Affected users may have received Non-Delivery Reports (NDR) when sending email messages.
Scope of Impact
Customer reports indicated that many users likely experienced impact related to this event. Our analysis indicates that this issue may potentially have affected any of your users attempting to send or receive mail.
Start Time: Thursday, June 30, 2016, at 2:30 PM UTC
End Time: Thursday, June 30, 2016, at 11:30 PM UTC
Preliminary Root Cause
The infrastructure responsible for processing Exchange Online Protection (EOP) message filtering became degraded.
Next Steps
We’re analyzing performance data and trends on the affected systems to help prevent this problem from happening again.
We’re reviewing our code for optimizations and automated recovery options.
We’ll publish a post-incident report within five business days.
EX71674 – E-Mail timely delivery – Service restored
Jul 1, 2016 12:08 AM
Final Status
We’ve rolled out the fix and confirmed that service is restored. Any meeting requests created during the outage will need to have the conference room calendar removed and readded to book the room.
User Impact
Users that attempted to create a meeting request with a conference room calendar were unable to successfully book a conference room. This lead to conference rooms being booked by multiple resources.
Scope of Impact
A few customers reported this issue, and our analysis indicated that this may have affected any users attempting to use this feature.
Start Time: Monday, June 27, 2016, at 6:00 PM UTC
End Time: Friday, July 1, 2016, at 2:54 AM UTC
Preliminary Root Cause
A recent update affected the ability for calendar invite requests to successfully book conference rooms.
Next Steps
We’re reviewing our deployment and provisioning procedures to help prevent this kind of problem in the future.
We’ll publish a post-incident report within five business days.
Total Access Emailer is the most popular email blaster for Microsoft Access. Easily send personalized emails directly from your Access database. Quickly communicate with every email address in your table or query. Use fields from your data source to customize each subject and message. Attach files from disk and also attach reports as PDF files filtered for each recipient.
Total Access Emailer is now available for Microsoft Access 2016. Total Access Emailer 2016 includes many enhancements since the prior release for Access 2013:
Supports Access 2016
32 and 64-bit versions
Add-in and VBA Runtime libraries in the Professional Version
Email Validation to check the syntax of the values in your email field so you can flag invalid emails in your table before you send your blast
Save Attached Files to Disk. This lets you document the attached files sent to all your contacts without using blind cc (Bcc).
This can also be used independent of sending emails as a way to distribute files and PDF reports to disk. You can even create folder names based on field values.
Preview Saving Files to Disk
New VBA Function to Preview Email Blasts with Save Files
Code Generator Supports Preview Email with Save Folder
Enhanced setup for Windows 10 and 64-bit installations
Total Access Statistics is now available for Microsoft Access 2016 (32 and 64-bit versions). Running as an Access add-in Wizard, Total Access Statistics generates a wide range of numerical analysis beyond the power of queries. All results are in Access tables that you can add to your queries, forms and reports.
Total Access Statistics includes a VBA programmatic interface with a royalty-free runtime distribution library so you can add the advanced analysis into your Access applications for distribution to others.
Download the Free Trial to experience it yourself.
Owners of Total Access Statistics for earlier versions of Microsoft Access can upgrade at a discounted price.
Microsoft Access is celebrating its 25th year this month. It’s an amazing accomplishment for a software product to be so successful for so many years. We at FMS were there since the beginning.
Background
Email Validation to check the syntax of the values in your email field so you can flag invalid emails in your table before you send your blast
A few years ago, we migrated our email service to Microsoft’s Office365 cloud service. Overall, it’s been very reliable and eliminated the challenges we had hosting Exchange ourselves. It let us get to our emails using Outlook installed on Windows, any internet browser, and smartphones. Office365 also offered other Office product online (Access Web Apps, Excel, Word, etc.), SharePoint and OneDrive Business.
Contacting Microsoft, they confirmed problems with the health of their Office365 Exchange Server. Throughout the day, problems lessened but persisted. We hope the problems are resolved soon and that we’ll understand what went wrong once we overcome the immediate crises.
