Crystallis
Crystallis
Aaahhh...Microsoft!
I have to admit (and I suspect that Fox and I may disagree to some extent here!) that I do like Microsoft. My first heading into the world of Personal Computing (ie where I could turn the machine off without having to punch "Return" on a menu option) was when I had to figure out how our work-computer functioned. 1990 and we had a green-screen 086 running on DOS 3.3. Strangely I just settled back and got into it - mainly as we wanted to save money not paying the guy from Wang a fortune everytime the computer threw a wobbly.
Within a year I'd hacked my way into the payroll database (just for fun!), rewrote the menu system and, most importantly, hacked the Tetris hi-scores. We had a guy working as a junior in the office - he was so chuffed to see that he'd beaten my high-score...until I changed his entry to show that it was Mickey Mouse that had got to the top!
OK...I hated DOS 5 with a vengeance and a bottle of bug-spray and we griped when we had to pay for the DOS6 upgrade that should have been a bug fix. And I got really annoyed at the MS guys when the Novell Network RPrinter function couldn't work on Windows for Workgroups. Hell...I'd taught myself to administer the Network and they'd crashed my system in one big GUI!!
But, hey...I've been writing VBA for years and years now...created apps that have changed a manual accountancy process into one that was completed in hours. Created an app on Access that could cope with ODBC, data-integrity AND foreign currency when Sage hadn't even mastered the problem.
True, I've seen Windows take over my config.sys and autoexec.bat...but now, when I decided I wanted to work on stand-alone apps and learn VB outside of Excel and Access MS gave me...Visual Basic 2008 Express Edition. What is it? It's VB with instant and transparent connectivity to a SQL database. It's a rich IDE with coding help that I am awestruck over.
Why here and now? Because the apps that I write can now be stand-alone. I don't have to think of budgets or Papers4 encapsulated in an Excel framework. I have the freedom to create free-standing, database-based apps with less overhead and more functionality. The Express Edition comes free with all the help (I'm STILL drooling over Beth Massi's videos!) that MS can offer.
For all the Bad Bits guys, there's been a lot of good ones.
