Rantings and ravings. Glimpses of my crazy life. Ramblings about my home in Port Lavaca, my work in Houston, my PhD progress at Texas Tech University, and everything around and in between. I also have a business in Houston (Amaya Consulting) and am working on a joint venture in Papua New Guinea (Herries Engineering and Technical Services). It may seem like madness, but it's a good life, and you are invited to poke around in it a bit as often and as randomly as you wish.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
PM Database Weekend
For 12+ hours yesterday, and 5 hours (so far) today, I have been working on salvaging data from an "old" (1998?) Preventive Maintenance database. What a mess!
First of all, the company I'm contracting for is a bit in the "dark ages" of computing, so I'm having to work with old files from, and create everything new in, Access 97. [It's not bad, I'm VERY familiar with Access 97...it's just not the best solution.] Secondly, for the last 2 years, the people operating the database are NOT familiar with Access, so they have been coming up with some very unusual "workarounds" to help them get to, print, and manipulate the data for that entire period of time, making the data itself a bit of a mess. Okay, okay, it's making the data itself a BIG mess. Lastly, I ONLY have access to the mde files and can't get a copy of the original mdb, so while I can pick apart tables and queries, the forms, reports, macros, etc. are ALL unavailable to me. So, I'm trying to rebuild using someone else's construction plan.
Well, after all this complaining, you know what? This is the most fun I've had with a project for a couple of months! I can't wait to get back to it!
[It wouldn't be such a strain on my "system" if it weren't for those 13 hours of college classes I'm currently taking. Oh well...live and learn!]
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Hi Ken, drop in again anytime. Also, be sure and let me know if you've got a blog. I love to read them myself.
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