Sharing knowledge has always been the purpose of this site and now, Comeau Software Solutions has its own collection of online courses through Teachable.com! Early in 2020, I started designing some video-based courses and posting them on YouTube and Udemy.com. Now you can find all current and future courses through my new online school on…
All posts in How-to
Helping Users Work With Subforms in Microsoft Access
Creating an Access application for other people means anticipating how the users are going to interact with your program. Without clear direction from the program or you, users can be easily confused by even simple things like the order in which data is to be entered. One of the basic tools in Access is the…
How To Create a Dynamic Search Filter on a Microsoft Access Form
Best practice when retrieving data in Microsoft Access or any database, for that matter, is to limit the amount of data that you pull at any one time. This means using the proper filters and limiting the number of fields retrieved. Often, you still end up with a lot of information to look through anyway.…
How to Dynamically Set the Report RecordSource in Microsoft Access
One of the steps for creating a report in Microsoft Access is to define where the data is coming from. This is done through the report’s Record Source property which can be a table or standalone query in the database or a SQL statement as shown in the screenshot below. Usually, this is defined when the…
Performing a Basic Install of MySQL or MariaDB in Windows
One of the great things about MySQL and MariaDB are their versatility of installation. They can be setup as a Windows services and trimmed out with some extra utilities or it can be installed on a flash drive as a portable server. The easiest installation is certainly the Windows Installer with a wizard for MySQL…
Windows 7 Update Gets Stuck While Looking for Updates
After doing my year-end rebuild of my Windows 7 system, I went ahead and did a check for updates, preparing to wait for awhile as there were currently over 150 important updates for my system even after installing SP1. So I waited … and waited … and waited some more. After a couple hours, I…
Adding Passswords to Microsoft Access Switchboard Options
The Switchboard Manager in Microsoft Access makes it easy to create a system of menus that will enable your users to navigate through your application. It also relieves you of the need to manage multiple menu forms and macro calls. Sometimes, however, you might want to keep all but a few users out of specific…
A Complete Guide to Installing MySQL and PHP with IIS
Note: This article was written in 2015 and is in the process of being updated. It is still useful as a general guide for issues you might encounter in this type of installation. Please take this into consideration when downloading components. One of my latest projects was setting up WordPress, the popular content management system,…
On the Importance of Backups and Storage Decisions
I admit it’s a little bit of a geek thing but I’m in the habit of wiping and reloading my computer systems at least once a year to keep everything working right. I find that, even as careful as I am about what I install, I still work with some major software and Windows systems…
Fixing the Orange (or Red) Status Icon in WampServer
As part of my latest project, I decided to try out WampServer, the Windows development environment for developing web applications with Apache web server, MySQL database and PHP scripting (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP – WAMP). Packages like WampServer and EasyPHP are simplified ways to create a testing environment on your PC without spending a lot…