How to migrate from Microsoft access to Mysql
Why use mysql instead of access?
Cost. MySQL is free. Access is not. Mysql can also run on a variety of hardware and operating systems, which does not limit you to proprietary software.
Multiple-user access.
MySQL can handle many simultaneous users. It was designed from the ground up to run in a shared environment that is capable of taking on a large numbers of clients.
Management of large databases. MySQL can manage gigabytes of data, and more. This is possible in access, but not recommended.
Security. When Access tables are stored locally, anyone can run Access, and see your tables. It’s possible to assign a database a password, but many people forget to do this. When your tables are stored in MySQL, the MySQL server manages security. Anyonetrying to access your data must know the proper user
name and password.
Centralized backup location. If individual Access users each store their data locally, backups can be more complicated: 200 users means 200 table backups. While some sites address this problem through the use of network backups, others deal with it by making backups the responsibility of individual machine owners–which usually means no backups at all. Mysql allows you to have one centralized location that can be backed up on a regular basis by a system administrator or DBA.
Manually transferring your data
One way to transfer your data is export all the data from each table (using the file->export command) to a comma delimited text file (CSV). It can then be imported back into mysql using the following commands (from the mysql console client):
mysql> LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'my_access_table.txt'
-> INTO TABLE mytable
-> FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' ENCLOSED BY '"'
-> LINES TERMINATED BY '\r\n';
you could also use mysqlimport:
--fields-enclosed-by='"'
--lines-terminated-by='\r\n'
mydatabase my_access_table.txt
Applications
An application that can make the migration process much easier is called dbTools (free trial available here)
July 13, 2009 1 Comment
Free msdn subscriptions for startups
Microsoft recently announced a new program (called BizSpark) for startups that allows them to get a MSDN for free. This is a great deal, because msdn subscriptions normally cost over $1000/year (depending on the type plan that you buy). You can also renew for up to 3 years (unless your comapny goes public or is acquired by a company that does not itself qualify for BizSpark).
How do you qualify?
Your statup is:
- Developing Software
- Privately held
- Less than three years old
- Making less than US $1M annually
What kind of free software do you get?
Visual Studio Team System 2008:
- Visual Studio Team System 2008: Team Suite
- Visual Studio Team System 2008: Development Edition
- Visual Studio Team System 2008: Architecture Edition
- Visual Studio Team System 2008: Test Edition
- Visual Studio Team System 2008: Database Edition
- Visual Studio Team System 2008: Team Foundation Server Standard Edition
- Visual Studio 2008 Professional
- Visual Studio Team System 2005:
- Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite
- Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers
- Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects
- Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Testers
- Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals
- Visual Studio 2005 Professional
- Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Microsoft Office System
- Visual SourceSafe 2005
- Previous versions of Visual Studio
SQL server – all versions
Windows Vista
- Ultimate/Enterprise/Business/Home Premium/Home Basic
Windows XP
- Professional/Home/Media Center Edition/Tablet PC Edition
Windows Server 2008 (all versions)
Windows Server 2003 R2
Windows Compute Cluster
Windows SharePoint Service
Office Ultimate/Enterprise/Professional Plus/Professional 2007
- Office Word, Office Excel, Office PowerPoint, Office Outlook & Business Contact
Manager, Office Access
- Office Publisher, Office InfoPath, Office OneNote, Office Communicator, Office
Groove, Office SharePoint Designer, Office Visio Professional, Office Project
Standard
- Office Accounting, Office Business Scorecard Manager, MapPoint, Office
FrontPage
- Office Project Professional
- Office Project Server, Office Project Portfolio Server
If your startup qualifies, you can signup here
June 16, 2009 No Comments
How to create Microsoft Office Documents with PHP
There are two main ways to build Excel, Word, and PowerPoint documents using PHP. The first is by using the COM library (only if you are using a Windows server) and the other is by using a more standardized approach such as HTML or CSV.
Dynamically creating a word document:
$word = new COM('word.application');
$word->Visible = 0;
$word->Documents->Add();
$word->Selection->PageSetup->LeftMargin = '2';
$word->Selection->PageSetup->RightMargin = '2';
//Setup the font
$word->Selection->Font->Name = 'Verdana';
$word->Selection->Font->Size = 8;
//Write some text
$word->Selection->TypeText('This is a test document');
//Save the document as DOC file
$word->Documents[1]->SaveAs('c:\\docs\\test1.doc');
//quit and release COM resources
$word->quit();
$word->Release();
$word = null;
?>
Dynamically creating an excel document
$excel = new COM('excel.application');
$excel->Visible = 0;
//Create a new workbook
$wkb = $excel->Workbooks->Add();
$sheet = $wkb->Worksheets(1);
//This code adds the text 'myvalue' on row 2, column 4
$sheet->activate;
$cell = $sheet->Cells(2,4);
$cell->Activate;
$cell->value = 'myvalue';
$wkb->SaveAs('C:\docs\test.xls');
//close and free resources
$wkb->Close(false);
$excel->Workbooks->Close();
$excel->Quit();
?>
Dynamically creating a powerpoint presentation
$powerpnt = new COM('powerpoint.application');
//Creating a new presentation
$pres=$powerpnt->Presentations->Add();
//Adds the first slide. '12' means blank slide
$pres->Slides->Add(1,12);
//Adds another slide. '10' means a slide with a clipart and text
$pres->Slides->Add(2,10);
//Adds a textbox
$pres->Slides[1]->Shapes->AddTextbox(1,20,50,300,40);
//Save the document as PPT file
$powerpnt->Presentations[1]->SaveAs('C:\Docs\test1.ppt');
//free resources and quit powerpoint
$powerpnt->quit();
?>
How to find Word, Excel, and Powerpoint functions
The following will show you all of the functions that are possible when accessing Microsoft Office components through php:
- Open Microsoft Word, Excel, or Powerpoint
- Press Alt+F11 to start the Visual Basic Editor
- Press F2
- Find “ThisDocument” on the left. In the right frame you’ll see the available variables and functions that can be used with the COM object.
June 11, 2009 5 Comments
5 open alternatives to Microsoft Exchange
1) Zimbra (commercial and free versions available)
- Desktop client compatibility. Sync mail, contacts, and calendar to Microsoft Outlook and/or to Apple (Mail, Address Book, iCal).
- Professional administration. Real time mailbox backup and restore, high availability clustering, storage cost management.
- Zimbra Mobile. Over-the-air synchronization of mail, contacts, and calendar data with mobile devices.
- Advanced web productivity. Ability to search for content inside attachments and view attachments as HTML instead of downloading.
- Domain management. Ability to re-brand the web client and administer multiple customer domains.
2) Open Xchange (commercial and free versions available)
- Linux Compatibility. Support 30 different linux distributions.
- All Information in One folder. Using one folder, users can store all information needed for a particular project, including all contacts, meetings, and background information.
- Document Management. Automatic versioning, locking of documents during editing, saving from MS Office applications, and access from MS explorer.
3) Scalix (commercial and free versions available)
- Outlook Support. Offers automatic offline mailbox caching and improved PDA syncing.
- Plug-in support. Provides certified plug-ins support for Google Desktop and MSN Search, McAfee VirusScan, Symantec Norton Utilities and Captaris RightFax Outlook Extension.
- Search and Indexing Services. Real-time indexing of private and public folder messages. This results in sub-second mailbox-wide search and retrievals, even in very large mailboxes and folders.
4) Citadel
- Ajax Support. An intuitive, easy-to-use AJAX interface.
- Domain Management. Multiple domain support.
- Easy Installation. installs in minutes without the need to manually integrate all the different components together.
- Contact Management. Saves and organizes thousands of personal and company contacts, telephone, fax, addresses, e-mail contact addresses just to mention a few. Easily configurable with extensive and speedy search capabilities, categorization and remotely accessible.
- Group Calendar. Manage meetings and events for an entire group or individual set of accounts. Attach notes to appointments. Link appointments to contacts and projects. Automatic detection of conflicts.
- Resource Planner. Keep track of your company’s resources such as automobiles, projectors or conference rooms. Searchable timeslots to check for availability of specific resources or resources assigned to a specific group. Automatically check for resource conflicts upon appointment creation.
June 8, 2009 4 Comments
Is this a windows killer?
ReactOS is a free and open-sourced operating system based on the Windows NT architecture, providing support for existing applications and drivers, and an alternative to the current dominant consumer operating system. The interesting part about this open source project is that unlike applications like Wine, it is an operating system completely re-written from the ground up, with windows binary compatibility in mind.
History
ReactOS has been written from scratch since 1996, a rock solid NT re-implementation, and therefore a reliable and robust operating system for tasks ranging from embedded micro computer to personal computer, workstations to server cluster, mainframes and super computers. It incorporates many design decisions from other operating system families like UNIX, VMS, OS/2 and of course NT and is meant as ‘the’ new platform that serves all.
Screenshots
The following are screenshots of reactOS running some popular windows apps.
(Winrar)
(Quake 1)
(Unreal Tournament)
Installation
I decided to give reactOS a shot. I didn’t want to re-partition my harddrive or format, so I downloaded the virtual machine version that you can run within windows (it includes the reactOS image and virtual machine software to run it).
Installation (if you can call it that) was seamless. I just downloaded the zip file, extracted it and ran boot.exe. Within a few seconds, it booted into the OS on the virtual machine.
Looking around, the gui needs some work. There are also a few useful applications pre-installed: remote desktop, solitare, minesweeper (what OS is complete without minesweeper), and reactOS explorer (I was able to get onto the Internet through an automatic download of the Mozilla ActiveX plugin).
I was able to install the latest version of Firefox, which installed without any issues. However, when I tried to launch it, I got some strange font/graphic issues.
ReactOS has a lot of promise. Once it is out of an alpha/pre-beta state and supports more hardware, it could be serious competition for Microsoft.
You can try it yourself by going to the reactOS website: Here
If you are having any speed issues, you can install an accelerator for the virtual machine here (Under the section “Accelerators”)
Another good tool to install is here. It allows you to mount the virtual hard disk in your Windows system.
April 15, 2009 No Comments
