Last night I had the privilege of being a guest speaker at a local university. I spoke about blogging and using Word 2007 to publish your posts. Not my preference as a blog tool, but if you’re just getting started, have Word already, it’s available to you.
Since I couldn’t make it to the early class where they were covering Word 2007, I spoke on the night they covered Access 2007. I ended up hanging around through the entire class to get a little introduction and overview of the power of Microsoft Access 2007.
I’ve been working with SQL databases and a few Access databases for the past 4 years now. I was thrown into figuring out SQL and troubleshooting items, but I never really had the opportunity to take things from the start and move from there. Much of what was discussed in class was information I already grasped easily. There was a true benefit of seeing how to start from scratch. From my experience, it’s like I was taught how to fly a plane but I only took control after someone else had already gone through take-off. Last night helped me learn how to take-off in Access.
As I was in class I was intrigued by the potential for Access to be used more by individuals for things they do everyday. Many people use Excel as their “database”, basically a simple flat file version. That’s not the true strength of Excel though.
Do you use Access? Let us know in our poll below. If you are a user, let us know how you use the tool in the comments. If you’re not a user, why not? Cost? Availability? Fear of the tool? I’ll be jumping into a few test projects soon, I’m looking forward to it.
[micropoll id=”191684″]
A quick thank you to Bob Burchfield that invited me to speak to the class. He and I have met through our work blogging and supporting websites in Indianapolis. He runs AroundIndy.com which is a HUGE wealth of information about everything going on around Indianapolis.
