Mike Wolfe - No Longer Set (Page 44)

Happy Easter

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!"

twinBASIC Update: April 16, 2022

Highlights include multiple debug console performance improvements and a workaround for antivirus software flagging twinBASIC as potential malware.

SQL

T-SQL ISNULL() vs. VBA IsNull() vs. Jet IS NULL vs. Access VBA Nz()

How do I check thee for NULL? Let me count the ways.

Code Library

Displaying Very Long Human Readable Time Spans

With 29-million-year time spans, you can handle almost any task (besides evolution, continental drift, and adding the LAA flag to MS Access).

Code Library

Displaying Human Readable Time Spans

The HumanizedSeconds() and ConvertToSeconds() functions work hand-in-hand to provide a general solution for storage and display of time spans.

UX

4 Approaches to Storing and Displaying Time Spans in Microsoft Access

As an Access developer, how do you store and display time spans like "3 days" or "2 weeks"? Let's cover the pros and cons of four different approaches.

Hidden Features

How to Show Hidden Items in the VBA Object Browser

One possible fix for the "Cannot jump to '|' because it is hidden" error is to show hidden members in the VBA object browser.

twinBASIC Weekly Update

twinBASIC Update: April 10, 2022

Highlights include 7 (!) new releases of the twinBASIC IDE and twinBASIC solving a difficult problem for a popular MS Access open-source addin.

Advanced

References, Protocols, and Language Specifications

They're not always easy to read, but when you are looking for official answers, it's hard to beat these low-level protocol and language specifications.

Basic

Learn VBA From a Master

Philipp Stiefel is on a very short list of people who I would pay to teach my employees how to write VBA.

Debugging

Troubleshooting the "Unable to create target directory" Error in PDQ Deploy with ProcMon

Let's use my jack-of-all-trades troubleshooting tool--Process Monitor--to find the root cause of a recurring PDQ Deploy error.

SQL Server

Save $3,500 by Creating Scheduled Backups Using SQL Server Express

You don't need to spend big bucks to get automated database backups with SQL Server. This simple step-by-step process is nearly foolproof.

Class Modules

Great Intro to Class Programming in VBA

Former Access MVP Ben Clothier's primer on class programming in VBA should be required reading for all Access developers.

Announcement

twinBASIC DevCon Vienna: Volume 2

It's back! This year's Access DevCon Vienna will feature twinBASIC for the second year in a row. This time around the focus is on practical uses for Access developers.

twinBASIC Weekly Update

twinBASIC Update: April 3, 2022

Highlights include the release of the new IDE and an announcement about twinBASIC's role at the upcoming Access DevCon Vienna conference.

Announcement

IE11 Retirement FAQ for Access Apps

Internet Explorer 11 will reach end-of-life before we have an Edge-based browser control. Read on to learn how this will affect Access developers.

Code Library

The Pluralize Function

You don't have to settle for messages like, "1 record(s) inserted." This simple function is an easy way to format strings for pluralization in VBA.

COM

Reference Counting's Fatal Flaw: Circular References

We look at several types of circular references along with a handy tool that you can use to help identify circular references in your own code.

COM

Managing Memory in COM

We continue on with our restaurant analogy to explain the concept of reference counting and COM object cleanup.

Memory Management

Memory Management in VBA: 3 Keys to Avoiding Memory Leaks

Managing memory in VBA is a piece of cake, especially if you follow three simple guidelines.

COM

Early vs. Late Binding at the Chinese Restaurant

In this continuation of our Chinese restaurant-COM metaphor, we expand the example to illustrate the differences between early and late binding.

twinBASIC Weekly Update

twinBASIC Update: March 27, 2022

Highlights include a release date for the twinBASIC IDE and plans to open-source the IDE's source code.

COM

Overcoming Programming Language Barriers with COM

COM is sort of like a Chinese restaurant.

COM

The IDispatch Interface

For a COM object to support late binding in VBA, it must implement the IDispatch interface. Let's explore IDispatch and its four methods.

VBA

Philipp Stiefel on VBA Compilation

Is VBA an interpreted language? Or a compiled language? Or something in between. Philipp Stiefel shines light on the topic for us.