Clint Covington: Software design, Microsoft Office Access

News, trends, and commentary about everything from software design (i.e. innovation, nailing scenarios, elegance), and my personal technology passion -- Microsoft Office Access.

Office 14 PDC announcements

Just in case you missed it... Office announced at PDC that Office 14 will enable people to to...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 11/08/2008

Dad, this is so important

My 5-year-old daughter told my wife this morning that she wanted to bring pennies to school for...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 11/07/2008

Article about the New Microsoft ad campaign

There is a good article in the New York Times about the new marketing campaign. Echoing the Campaign...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 09/18/2008

Article recommendation: 10 skills you need to succeed at almost anything

I enjoyed reading this article. The recommendations rang true to me…

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 07/31/2008

Microsoft employees donate $72M in 2007

I just noticed this article. Pretty cool. https://biz.yahoo.com/bizj/071102/1545799.html?.v=1 I did...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 11/04/2007

UK Access User Group National Seminar

Sorry--it has been a while since I have posted anything. Zac and team have been getting lots of...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 10/06/2007

Fall Advisor Summit on Access and SharePoint in Miami

Interested in spending a week in Miami learning more about Access, SharePoint and the latest .NET...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 07/21/2007

The runtime is available for download

Thanks for your continued patience. The runtime download is available again. Microsoft Office Access...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 07/20/2007

Showing summary data with crosstab queries

A new query help topic just went live on Office Online: Make summary data easier to read by using a...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 07/19/2007

Five Visual How To demos

Our user assistance team is starting to put together some cool "how to" articles with web cast...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 07/19/2007

Excel as a database

I thought this post was pretty funny. Some of you might not find it funny as it is a little to close...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 07/06/2007

Access Runtime is on Hold

There is more information coming shortly.Unfortunately, I'm on jury duty for the next three weeks...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 06/26/2007

SharePoint Web 2.0 Toolkit

Here are a bunch of great shared source extensions to SharePoint....

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 06/26/2007

The runtime download is available for FREE!

I'm happy to announce the runtime is finally done and for the first time ever--available as a free...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 06/25/2007

Runtime update

I'm truly sorry that this is dragging on longer than I ever expected. Am I frustrated? Yes. Just...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 06/13/2007

Access Best Practices Guidelines

Recently a MCS consultant asked the following question on an internal Access Discussion alais: My...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 06/11/2007

Do you like the new navigation pane?

The team is considering some refinements to the navigation pane. What do you like about the changes?...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 06/07/2007

10 ways to get better gas mileage

The last couple days I have started driving differently after reading an article on msn about Get 50...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 06/02/2007

Skinning SharePoint resources

One of my favorite design bloggers Cameron Moll just posted helpful links to resources for those of...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 06/02/2007

Good writing tips for developers forced to write marketing content

There is a good article on A List Apart about how to generate interest and describe the business...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 06/01/2007

The spiral of complexity and feature creep - New Yorker article

James Surowiecki has written a nice article Feature Presentation about why companies build...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 05/29/2007

Silverlight resources post by ScottGu

Scott Guthrie has a truly great post on Silverlight. You should be able to find anything you need to...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 05/22/2007

Design inspiration resources

The folks at web design from scratch have recently posted a list of their 10 favorite web site...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 05/22/2007

Hot fixes for three Access 2007 issues

I noticed the Access Junkie just posted a few links to KB articles that describe hot fixes for some...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 05/21/2007

Hold the runtime download page

Quick update on the runtime ship date--the test team found a recall class bug in setup that will...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 05/15/2007

Resume best practices revealed

Over the past 6 months, I reviewed an overwhelming number of resumes from jobseekers interested in...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 05/13/2007

Security Considerations and Guidance for Access 2007 - MSDN article

There is a new article by Access MVP Garry Robinson. "Find out how you can use Access 2007 to...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 05/12/2007

The runtime will ship May 15th

I just heard from Erik that the runtime will ship as a free download on May 15th! I will post a URL...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 05/09/2007

Microsoft shows new database technology at MIX - Information Week article

Interesting article that speculates about a potential "SQL Server Live" offering from Microsoft. "In...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 05/02/2007

Tell me about your ribbon app - get a FREE copy of Access 2007 Inside Out

I’m interested in learning more about how developers are using the ribbon to build data...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/28/2007

Office 2003 SP3 article on CNET

My friend Josh Edwards is quoted by CNET talking about SP3. Service Pack 3 for Office 2003 will be...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/27/2007

Tip on renamed field names and debugging reports

Today's Guest Writer: Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP I have a complex report with 5 grouping...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/27/2007

Help topic for beginning users to understand the basics of an Access database

I expect many readers of this blog frequently work with IWs that want to learn more about Access....

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/25/2007

SharePoint Takes Lead in Collaboration Market - WSJ article

Here is a great article by the Wall Street Journal about SharePoint adoption and scenarios where...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/24/2007

When customer support goes wrong

Customer experience impacts a product or service’s overall success in the marketplace —just one...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/24/2007

Domain functions usage

Can you tell me about your usage of domain functions? Do you use them and what are the scenarios...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/21/2007

Reader question about macros and VBA

A reader recently asked: Is there any way on Access 2007 to keep wizards and Switchboard Manager...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/21/2007

Tell me about your Inventory application

Sorry I haven't posted for a few weeks. I recently took an enjoyable NCL cruise with ports in Costa...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/19/2007

Revenue opportunities on Microsoft Office Live with Access 2007

John from the Office Live developer marketing team is launching the Office Live 3rd-party...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 04/03/2007

Millions of Access template downloads, 5 new free databases

Can you believe, 3.5 million Access templates were downloaded from Office Online over the last 12...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 03/30/2007

Access 2007 conference and Disneyland - what a combination!

The Advisor team is putting on a Access 2007 content packed conference in Anaheim, California on May...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 03/28/2007

Two Access 2007 chapters from MS Learning books

There are a couple new chapters published on Office Online. 6 Key Considerations When Creating...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 03/23/2007

Show your best work as a best practice in a Microsoft Case study

The marketing team is always looking for examples of people realizing their potential through best...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 03/23/2007

How to improve the visuals of Access applications

I'm interested in what limitations you have experienced in trying to make your Access application...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 03/22/2007

Janet (the Access team support contact) just forward me a great page that has links to the top...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 03/15/2007

How to pull in Amazon web service data into Access 2007

Today’s guest writer is Ric Lewis. Several weeks ago he started a general discussion about web...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 03/13/2007

Where is it? Navigating Office ribbon commands

The marketing team has produced three great tools for helping you find commands in the ribbon for...

Author: Clint Covington MS Date: 03/13/2007

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