Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Great beginning book, but one significant shortcoming...
Comment: My spouse volunteered to take on a data collection and manipulation project for a non-profit using Access. Here is her report:
I was familiar with the basics of relational database design, and had used Access to a limited extent about 8 years ago. I had a good understanding of the data and how it would be used, so designing a robust database was pretty straightforward. My limitation was the nuts and bolts mechanics of using Access, especially the new 2007 version. I collected about 5 books on Access 2007 from the library, and this is the one really dove into, and ultimately ended up buying. I would say that if you are using Access 2007 you should be sure to buy a book specific to 2007, not earlier versions.
I really like the format of the book--it is organized into logical sections that are easy to follow. I especially like the way the infomation is presented-- there are plenty of examples with adequate illustrations, but the basic ideas are well explained before the examples, so that I found it easy just to sit down and read it to absorb most of the basic ideas. Then after I had acquired a good overview of, say, forms and their applications, I went back to the examples to try them out on my own data. Many of the other books I used explained the concepts only through the examples, so unless you were actually sitting at the computer following each and every step it was difficult to gather the fundamental concepts.
I think the sections on basic database design concepts would be adequate for those not so familiar with relational databases.
I did find one major omission that is critical enough that I ended up buying another book to supplement this one. I did not find any reference to action queries such as update, append, and delete. These have been really crucial to me as I consolidate date from many different sources, and the lack of info on action queries is glaring! (I'll admit that I didn't read EVERY word of this book, so I guess it is possible that I somehow overlooked it, but I was read the first 250 out of 350 pages pretty carefully.) I ended up buying "The Unofficial Guide to Access 2007" by Jim Keogh to supplement, but I'll warn you even that one has misinformation on the format of update queries...
All in all, though, I found this book to be a great basic introduction--concisely written, in an easily digested style. Very useful.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Access 2007
Comment: Great step-by-step guide for someone who is forced to delve right into the tool with little prior database knowledge.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction to Access and the new Ribbon
Comment: Access is the most popular database program in the world. The reason is two fold:
1. It's very easy to use. Microsoft has gone to a great deal of effort to make the program fit in with the rest of the Office system so that knowing Word or Excel gives you a good bit of the background you need to use Access.
2. Access is part of the Microsoft Office package, so you probably get it when you get Word and Excell.
There's always a question about just how good Access really is. And the answer is that it's pretty good for databases up to perhaps 50 megabytes with no more than a few thousand accesses a day. Above that go to something bigger like SQL Server.
This book starts with a discussion about databases in general and what you might use one to do. Then,like all of the books on the other Office 2007 packages, it begins talking about Microsoft's new Ribbon interface that replaces the look that Access has had for years.
The Access front end is very powerful. It has been worked on for years to keep you from having to learn how to program in the direct language the database engine understands -- SQL.
That's my main complaint about people who use Access, and the books written for them. Just a few pages introducing SQL and giving the reserved words for the Access (Jet) database would be a big help.
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