MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [April 3rd]” plus 4 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [April 3rd]
- Join MakeUseOf On Twitter!
- Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual Giveaway Winners
- A Quick Tutorial On Queries In Microsoft Access 2007
- Top 5 Coolest Free iPhone Apps To Watch Shows Online
| Cool Websites and Tools [April 3rd] Posted: 03 Apr 2010 08:31 PM PDT
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| Posted: 03 Apr 2010 07:30 PM PDT
You’ll be notified everytime there is a new post on the MakeUseOf Blog, a web app review on the MakeUseOf Directory or something new on Geeky Fun. Plus, we would love it if you would re-tweet the posts and discuss them, so more people get to know about us and join our community. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter Now Thank you! Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Includes cool extras. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Photoshop CS4: The Missing Manual Giveaway Winners Posted: 03 Apr 2010 02:30 PM PDT
Well, let’s see who will actually become one. Watch your email inbox for more information on how to download your free copy. In the meantime, check out the Special Giveaway we’re currently having. MakeUseOf would like to thank Betsy from O’Reilly Media for her generosity while participating in this giveaway. Interesting in sponsoring? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us via email. Got Questions? Ask Them Now FREE on MakeUseOf Answers! Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| A Quick Tutorial On Queries In Microsoft Access 2007 Posted: 03 Apr 2010 12:31 PM PDT
As a follow-up to my introductory summary post on the product, and a more recent post on tables, this Microsoft Access tutorial is the ideal next step in your journey with Access. Get ready to ask questions.
PreparationWe created two tables in the previous post. You'll need to either do that for yourself again, open the one you saved last time, or follow along with a similar example of your own. In any case, you need a table that looks a little like this…
Close the table, and we can start with the queries. A Microsoft Access Tutorial – Query BasicsQueries are the second structure in Access. Tables hold the information, queries contain stored questions. Let's create one. It's much easier that way. Click the Create tab, and then the Query Design button at the right hand end.
Access asks you which tables you want to ask questions about. First off, let's just take a look at the Book table. We can add the Author table later. The real power in Access is the ability to easily deal with multiple tables at once, but one step at a time. Click on Book, and click the Add button. The window stays open, so click the Close button. Access presents you with the query design page.
You can make some adjustments to the way the layout looks by dragging the central divider up or down, and there are shortcuts at the bottom right, in the status bar, that let you change the type of view you are using. More about those later. The upper portion of the screen contains all of the included tables, with a list of the fields. The lower portion is where the questions are asked. First, you need to choose which of the fields in the table you want to either ask questions about, or wish to include in the answer. To choose, double-click the field, or drag it to the grid below. For our example we want to choose Author, Title & Rating.
Once you have the fields in the grid, there are a lot of choices to make. They work line by line. We have already chosen the fields, and the tables are added automatically. The next thing is the sort. To sort the books by rating for instance, click in the sort box for that column, and change the setting to Ascending or Descending. You can sort by multiple columns. The priority is from left to right, so if you wanted to sort by Rating and then Title, you would need to rearrange the columns. You can just select by the grey bar at the top and drag them around.
The Criteria row is a little more complex, but it's very easy to use once you get used to it. Criteria are specifications for which records (rows) from the table to show. And for the technical types reading, these are generally what is known as AND criteria. That is, all of the criteria need to be met. If instead you wish to use OR critera (that means that any of the criteria can bet met) then put the criteria on different rows. You can use as many rows as you wish from the one labelled Criteria downwards. In our case, we want to only see books where the Title starts with 'S', and the rating is better than 2. The 'S' criteria also includes what is known as a wild card. That is, the title needs to start the letter S, but anything at all is permitted after that. Numeric criteria are allowed to be defined as limits, rather than specific values, so in the case we can use the '>' operator. We could spend the whole day talking about criteria and wildcards, but let's move on.
It's important to note that as a general rule, the datasheet view from a query is live. That is, if you make changes to the query results then you make changes to the table data. Finally, you can save the query for later. There is some confusion with this at times. Saving the query saves the question, not the answer. So that means that next time you run the query, if the data in the table has changed, then the answer might also change. There some other options to grab a snapshot of the data later on if necessary. Click the Save button in the quick toolbar at the top left of the Access window. Remember that queries are saved along with the tables inside the one Access file on your hard drive.
You often need to connect tables together in queries. For instance in this case, we could add the Author table so that we can make use of the information in it for sorting or further criteria. As it happens, the lookup that we set up for the Author table means that we already have access to the Author's last name, but let's just pretend we wanted to sort the output by the author's first name instead. After all, these guys (or at least the few who are still alive) are friendly enough. Let's call them Isaac and Robert, right? Oh, hold on. Those two are dead. To make this work, add the Author table to the query.
While in Design View, click the Show Table button and add the Author table to the grid.
Because of the lookup that was set up, Access already knows how the tables are related, so you don't need to worry about that. Drag the First Name field down into the criteria block, then drag it off to the left so you can sort it as a priority.
Click the Datasheet View button to see the difference.
A Microsoft Access Tutorial on Query types
Most of these other queries are what is known as Action queries. That is because they actually change data in tables. No changes are made until you click the Run button (the Datasheet view only previews the results) and you will be warned that changes are about to be made. UpdateAn update query is used to make changes to the table data in one hit, rather than dealing with the records one by one. For instance, perhaps an author might change his name, or admit to having written a stack of books under a nom-de-plume. An update query would let you select the appropriate records and then change them all at once. Make TableA Make Table query works the same way as an Update, but puts the results in a new table. This might be useful where for some reason you need to maintain both sets of data separately. AppendAn Append query lets you select records from one table and add them to the end of another. The most common use for this is for archiving records from a main table to a secondary one. DeleteA Delete query is extremely useful, but care needs to be taken with using it. This query lets you select some records from a table, and then delete them. OtherThe other types of query (Union, Cross-tab, Pass-through and Data Definition) are for advanced use, and I won't cover these here. That's it for now, until I'm back with a post on Access Forms. Let me know how it goes with queries, and whether there are any difficulties I can help with in the comments. Similar MakeUseOf Articles | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 5 Coolest Free iPhone Apps To Watch Shows Online Posted: 03 Apr 2010 10:31 AM PDT
The fact that there is no flash support opens up the world of videos to black and white films, documentaries, indy films, shorts, and old TV shows that are worth watching in retrospect. The following list of some of the best free apps and sites for iphone shows you how to get started if you want to enter a realm of online viewing you may not have seen before.
Hollywood PocketHollywood Pocket doesn’t have the biggest selection of films to choose from, but the video quality is excellent and it’s 100% legal since all of the films are public domain. Hollywood Pocket is one of the few legal sites that offers full length feature films for iPhone users. Visit the site from your iPhone Safari browser, and you can choose from the list of categories: News, Action, Comedy, Science Fiction/Horror, Drama and Documentaries. The films are in Quicktime format so you can pause, fast-forward and rewind as you watch. So if you’re a Fred Astaire fan, or feel like watching a documentary about Marilyn Monroe, or the 1960s flick Horror Hotel, which has been compared to the cult classic, Psycho, head over to Hollywood Pocket and start watching. Watching a movie on Hollywood Pocket has the added bonus of watching something less mainstream, and gives you the opportunity to see some golden oldies you might never have heard of otherwise.
B-MoviesB-Movies [iTunes link], a free app available in the iTunes App Store, is crammed with a huge variety of free, legal movies and shows to watch. With a list of categories including Animation, Technology, Movies, Religion, Sports and Vlogs, there is something for everyone at B-Movies. Each video is accompanied by a short synopsis, and a rating given by viewers. You can find entire seasons’ worth of some obscure older TV shows that might be of interest to watch just out of morbid curiosity, including an episode of Net Cafe, from the mid nineties about hackers. The app allows you to bookmark your favourite videos, to search the collections for videos to watch, and to choose from Low, Medium and High Quality videos.
JoostThe free iPhone app Joost [iTunes link] is another veritable goldmine for obscure films, documentaries and TV shows, with a huge variety from black and white Betty Boop cartoons to celebrity gossip, from Bridezilla episodes to extreme sports documentaries. You can browse videos by category, browse all the popular videos, or the Joost picks. You can also search the Joost iPhone app for videos you want to watch. The three main categories on Joost are Film, Music and Shows, which are further divided into Action, Animation, Classics, Comedy, Horror and Independent – to name a few. The Film category is however limited to Clips, Trailers and Documentaries, whereas the videos available under Shows seem endless.
Daily MotionThe video sharing website Daily Motion [iTunes link] has an official app available in the iTunes App Store, making it easy to navigate through their videos. Daily Motion is a great source for short films and documentaries. You can browse by category or by searching for the video you want to watch. Daily Motion also has integrated social media sharing, allowing you to share videos with your friends via email, Facebook and Twitter. Signing up for a free account gives you the added ability to rate videos, to subscribe to channels and add videos to your favourites.
DropboxIf none of these options appeal to you, there is one way to stream movies you already have on your computer, using Dropbox. Simply add the movie file to your Dropbox folder, and allow it to sync. Once the film has been uploaded to your Dropbox account, open up your Dropbox iPhone app [iTunes link] and navigate to the film, and you’ll be watching it from anywhere in no time. Videos played through the Dropbox iPhone app must be in .mov, .mp4 or .mv4 format. Failing all else, videos on mobile-optimized TV channel websites like Comedy Central can be played on the iPhone, so while you can’t watch an entire episode of a TV show, you can at least watch your favourite clips from shows like South Park or The Daily Show with John Stewart. What apps or sites do you use to watch movies online on your iPhone? Let us know in the comments. Hey Facebookers, make sure to check out MakeUseOf fan page on Facebook. Over 15,000 fans already!
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Queries are the basis of power in a database. They give you the ability to ask questions, record the questions for later, and to take actions on the answers.
If you ever need help in building a query, you can also use the Query Wizard. But for now, we'll take the direct route.
Now that the we have defined the question we wish to ask, we can pose it to Access, and view the answer. Click the View button in the ribbon or the datasheet view button in the status bar. You can flick back and forth between design and datasheet to make further changes to the query.
The query we just built, the default type in Access, is called a Select query. It's essentially a view of the answer to a question. The other types do a number of specific things that might be useful later. I won't go into too much detail here, but some pointers might help.
iPhone apps and sites for watching movies and TV shows online are few and far between, mainly because of the iPhone’s lack of flash support. That said, if you find yourself with a WiFi connection, an iPhone, and some time to kill, there are a few interesting choices out there that will allow you to watch free legal videos, movies, documentaries and TV shows.
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