Introduction
Whoa! What happened to menu bars, toolbars, and all that other stuff I
used to have? Well, in case you haven’t noticed yet, they’re all gone.
Of course, if you never used Access before in your life, you’re starting fresh,
so never mind. Whether you never used any version of Microsoft Access,
and aren’t even sure what a “version” is, you’ve come to the right book.
The basic idea behind Microsoft Access is to allow individuals and small
businesses to manage large amounts of information the way the big corporations
do — with relational databases. The difference is that while the big
boys spend millions on computer hardware, software, and staffs of nerdy
database-administrator types, Access allows you to do it all yourself with a
run-of-the-mill PC and a realistic software budget.
Microsoft Access 2010 is the latest-and-greatest version of a long line of
Access versions, starting (not surprisingly) with version 1. Not that this
is the 2,010th version. Somewhere along the way, Microsoft switched
from using sequential numbers for versions to using years — an idea first
pioneered by the automotive industry, which sells things like “2010 Ford
Mustangs” as opposed to “Mustang Version 9.3s.”
Without going into boring detail about what’s new in Access 2010, you find
the usual kind of stuff you find in new versions these days — more power,
more flexibility, and more things you can do with it. And of course — along
the lines of the Holy Grail of Everything Computerish these days — more
taking advantage of everything the Internet has to offer. But the most noticeable
change for the Access-experienced is the new look and feel (introduced
in the 2007 version) — along with some new ways of doing things.
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