Access Data in a Microsoft Access Database
Say what you will about it, Microsoft Access is still widely used (and abused?)
At any rate, if you work with Microsoft Access, you may want to run a query against it to see what data you will get or to perform a sanity check on your SQL statement. To do so is easy, but not necessarily intuitive.
Just follow these steps:
- Open MSAccess by 2-clicking the appropriate .MDB file (the database you want to query)
- Select the "Create" tab
- Select the "Query Design" icon
- Mash the "Close" button on the "Show Table" dialog
- Right-click in the query window and select SQL View
- Enter your query in the window (overwriting the default "
SELECT;
") - Mash the Run button (red exclamation mark) on the Design tab
- Gaze in wonder at the data returned, batting your eyelashes coquettishly if you're a chick or pounding your chest thunderingly if you're a cat.
Note: This works for Access 2007; other versions of Access should work similarly.
I am in the process of morphing from a software developer into a portrayer of Mark Twain. My monologue (or one-man play, entitled "The Adventures of Mark Twain: As Told By Himself" and set in 1896) features Twain giving an overview of his life up till then. The performance includes the relating of interesting experiences and humorous anecdotes from Twain's boyhood and youth, his time as a riverboat pilot, his wild and woolly adventures in the Territory of Nevada and California, and experiences as a writer and world traveler, including recollections of meetings with many of the famous and powerful of the 19th century - royalty, business magnates, fellow authors, as well as intimate glimpses into his home life (his parents, siblings, wife, and children).
Peripatetic and picaresque, I have lived in eight states; specifically, besides my native California (where I was born and where I now again reside) in chronological order: New York, Montana, Alaska, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Idaho, and Missouri.
I am also a writer of both fiction (for which I use a nom de plume, "Blackbird Crow Raven", as a nod to my Native American heritage - I am "½ Cowboy, ½ Indian") and nonfiction, including a two-volume social and cultural history of the U.S. which covers important events from 1620-2006: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/blackbirdcraven