Real World Microsoft Access Database Protection and Security

As you might expect, there is never enough information when it comes to powerful products like Access. To assist you with further investigations in every chapter, I have put together a Web page with links to Web sites and articles on the issues that relate to the material in every chapter. In this chapter, I will simply discuss the resources that I used regularly for this book and Access in general:

• The help files from all the versions of Access used in the book. For Access 2000 or later, don't forget to widen your search by also trying the help within the VBA Environment.

• I must say that I resolved most of the complicated and open -ended issues by using http://www.google.com . Of particular value with google.com was its Groups tab at the top of the page (shown in Figure 1-3). Another important thing with google.com that I am sure applies to other search engines was to include very particular words in the search. Searching usually means looking twice to find the topic of information. In some cases, when I searched for particular errors, I would simply type the error description exactly as it appeared in Access. No doubt, there will be other search engines in the future that will work as well.

  Figure 1-3: The invaluable Google Groups tab.

• For insight into programming workgroup security, I turned to the Access Developers Handbook, Enterprise Edition , written by Litwin, Getz, and Gilbert and one of my favorite authors, Mike Gunderloy, who wrote a couple of chapters in the book. You may notice later on that my book really doesn't include much of the detailed programming of workgroup security demonstrated in the Access Developers Handbook because that seemed not to be as important as keeping the password crackers at bay.

• As ever, my source of inspiration for Access programming is the Smart Access magazine, and I have certainly learned my trade by reading that magazine from cover to cover every time the convict cargo ship arrives in Australia with the mail.

• Many of the discussions in the book were supported by the many hundreds of accurate articles, white papers, and Web pages that Microsoft posts on its Web site about Microsoft Access. Surprisingly, though, as I wrote the book, I generally had better luck finding the articles by using google.com and restricting my search to use only the Microsoft Web site.

• This list would not be complete without providing links to newsgroups, where people might actually answer your Access questions.

Just one final word on the Internet that I noticed while compiling this book. Many people in the newsgroups seem to be under the impression that they can learn a computing skill such as Access security through the results of a search engine or by asking members of user groups to answer a question. This sort of advice is generally most suited for the completion of a major task. It is always important that you get your facts straight before starting on a task like adding security to a database. For that task, you need to turn to thoroughly researched and tested material, such as a book or a developer's computer magazine.

You can find the further reading Web page for this chapter in the Downloads section of the Apress Web site ( http://www.apress.com ) or at the following address: http://www.vb123.com/map/dri.htm .