While programming an application Ajax should be used upto a level where it doesn’t confuse the users by offering too many controls to deal with. Ajax should be used in Interactive solutions for lightboxes, form validation, navigation, search, tooltips and tables are developed using Ajax libraries and nifty Ajax scripts. Following is the list of most popular AJAX & JavaScript programs which are used in many famous web applications. I suggest to read their manual carefully before using in your commercial project.

1. AJAX Instant Messenger
Ajax instant messenger is a browser-based instant messaging client. You can use it for chat application as It uses AJAX to create a near real-time IM environment that can be used in conjunction with community, intranet, and social websites. No refreshing of the page is ever needed for this “web application” to work, as everything is updated in real-time via JavaScript. Its FREE

2. Custom Checkbox with jQuery
This script provides you with the ability to customize the design of checkboxes in your web forms. You can use the default skin and the Safari skin which are provided with the package.

3. Oversized Sliding Tabs
Sliding Tabs is a mootools 1.11 plugin which adds a pretty neat effect. It’s a clone of something seen on Panic Software’s Coda site, which in turn is very heavily inspired by a widget used in the iTunes Music Store. Similar jQuery solution.

4. Mocha UI
Mocha is a web applications user interface library built on the Mootools javascript framework. The Mocha GUI components are made with <canvas> tag graphics.

5. An Accessible Slider
Filamentgroup designed and developed an interface that required a slider control, which allows users to choose one or a range of values on a continuum. Values on a slider can represent anything from hours on a clock to the volume on a music player to a complex, proprietary data set. In its simplest form, the slider is displayed as an axis of values with a handle to drag and select a value, or two handles for selecting a range.

6. Coda Popup Bubbles
“When you move the mouse over the popup, this triggers a mouseout on the image used to trigger the popup being shown. I’ll explain (carefully) how to make sure the effect doesn’t fail in this situation.�

7. FancyUpload
FancyUpload is a file-input replacement which features an unobtrusive, multiple-file selection menu and queued upload with an animated progress bar. It is easy to setup, is server independent, completely styleable via CSS and XHTML and uses MooTools to work in all modern browsers

8. Rich Text Editor
The Rich Text Editor is a UI control that replaces a standard HTML textarea. It allows for the rich formatting of text content, including common structural treatments like lists, formatting treatments like bold and italic text, and drag-and-drop inclusion and sizing of images. The Rich Text Editor’s Toolbar is extensible via a plugin architecture so that advanced implementations can achieve a high degree of customization. The tool is based upon Yahoo UI Library.

9. Facebook Style Input Box
The approach to re-create the autocomplete method of adding multiple recipients to messages used on Facebook. “I’d seen it in Facebook before, which has a really decent implementation of this concept (it work well, but it doesn’t respect any modern programming principles; basically, it’s a big tag soup with lots of inline Javascript)�

10. Ext JS - JavaScript Library
An extensive JavaScript-Framework with numerous modules and components such as tables, trees, windows, layouts, forms, and tabs. All of them look as if they’ve been used in standard desktop-applications. Extremely useful and widely used.

11. iCarousel
iCarousel is an open source (free) javascript tool for creating carousel like widgets. iCarousel is compatible and tested in Internet Explorer, Firefox (and its mozilla friends), Opera and Safari, but it should work in other browsers too.

12. Product Slider
This ‘product slider’ is similar to a straight forward gallery, except that there is a slider to navigate the items, i.e. the bit the user controls to view the items.

13. Moo Wheel
The purpose of this script is to provide a unique and elegant way to visualize data using Javascript and the <canvas>-object. This type of visualization can be used to display connections between many different objects, be them people, places, things, or otherwise. The script is licensed under an MIT-style license. Great if you want to show how friends are connected in your social application.

14. Gettyone Search Options Menu
Learn how to implement a Gettyone-like search options menu which display a layer with some search options below the input search field, when an user click on the input field to searching for something.

15. Taggify Tooltips
This post demonstrates how you can use Taggify widget to enhance your blog with the functionality to show popup tooltips for parts of your images.

16. Relay - Ajax Directory Manager
Relay is an Ajax-powered file management library. It has a multi-user access restriction, allowing the administrator to control user access to uploaded files. Features: drag-n-drop files and folders, dynamic loading file structure, upload progress bar, thumbnail view, including pdf and multiple users & accounts.

17. Moo Canvas
Modern browser support the <canvas> tag to allow 2D command-based drawing. This script provides the third dimension, allowing for browser drawing with pure JavaScript. To use, web developers only need to include a single script tag in their existing web pages.

18. qGallery
qGallery is a Prototype-based gallery script which automatically takes care of the image processing, offers multipple viewing modes and comes with a number of transition effects. qGallery isfree for personal use

19. GlassBox
GlassBox is a compact Javascript User Interface (UI) library, which use Prototype and Script.aculo.us for some effects. With GlassBox you can build transparent border, colorful layouts and “Flash-like� effects. Take a look at the site itself: you can use the keyboard navigation: Keys 1-8 (display page), arrows left/right (previous/next page) and arrows up/down (Scroll content).

20. GWT-Ext Widget Library
GWT-Ext is a powerful widget library that provides rich widgets like Grid with sort, paging and filtering, Tree’s with Drag & Drop support, highly customizable ComboBoxes, Tab Panels, Menus & Toolbars, Dialogs, Forms and a lot more right out of the box with a powerful and easy to use API. It uses GWT and Ext.

21. Amberjack
Amberjack is a lightweight Open Source library, enabling you to create site tours. The JavaScript library is lightweight (~4K), stable, LGPL licensed, browser compatible, set up in 2 minutes & super-easy to customize.

22. Flexigrid
Lightweight but rich data grid with resizable columns and a scrolling data to match the headers, plus an ability to connect to an xml based data source using Ajax to load the content.

23. Masked Input Plugin
A masked input plugin for the jQuery javascript library. It allows a user to more easily enter fixed width input where you would like them to enter the data in a certain format (dates,phone numbers, etc). It has been tested on Internet Explorer 6/7, Firefox 1.5/2, Safari, and Opera.

24. cforms II
cforms is a plugin for WordPress, offering convenient deployment of multiple contact forms throughout your blog or even on the same page. The form submission utilizes AJAX, falls back, however, to a standard method in case AJAX/Javascript is not supported or disabled.

25. NicEdit
NicEdit is a Javascript/AJAX inline content editor to allow easy editing of web site content on the fly in the browser. It integrates into any site in seconds to make any element/div editable or convert standard textareas to rich text editing.

26. Mootools animated sidebar menu
This tutorial explains how to implement an animated menu using mootools. You can see how it works directly from mootools site.

27. Creating a table with dynamically highlighted columns
There is a number of impressive things happening within this small area.

28. LiveValidation
LiveValidation is a small open source javascript library built for giving users real-time validation information as they fill out forms. Not only that, but it serves as a sophisticated validation library for any validations you need to make elsewhere in your javascript, it is not just limited to form fields.

29. Unobtrusive Table Actions Script
An attempt at writing an unobtrusive (and fast) script that adds commonly required “actions” to data tables. Can Zebra stripe the table. And supports row hover, column hover and cell hover effects

30. Tablecloth
Tablecloth is lightweight, easy to use, unobtrusive way to add style and behaviour to your html table elements. By simply adding 2 lines of code to your html page you will have styled and active tables that your visitors will love Try to mouseover or click on a table below.

31. Starbox
Starbox allows you to easily create all kinds of rating boxes using just one PNG image. The library is build on top of the Prototype javascript framework. For some extra effects you can add Scriptaculous as well. Check the demos below to see what Starbox is all about and read on for more information on how to customize your own Starboxes.

32. FancyForm
FancyForm is a powerful checkbox replacement script used to provide the ultimate flexibility in changing the appearance and function of HTML form elements. It’s easy to use and degrades gracefully on all older, non-supporting browsers.

33. The sliding Date-Picker
Due to the development of Qash.nl, a Dutch personal finance website full of cool javascript features, it’s somewhat quiet around here. But to keep you satisfied, we present the sliding date-picker. This element enables you to pick dates with a simple slider bar. By dragging the bar over the time-line, the dates change instantly.

34. Style Your Website’s Search Field with JS/CSS
Continuing to provide unobtrusive solutions, CSSG is happy to present SearchField. It serves as a way to style your search field and add behavior without any additional JavaScript or modifications in your markup. It features plug & play onfocus and onblur behaviors and auto suggestion like you’ve never seen before.

35. minishowcase
minishowcase is a small and simple php/javascript online photo gallery, powered by AJAX that allows you to easily show your images online, without complex databases or coding, allowing to have an up-and-running gallery in a few minutes.

36. Carousel
Prototype UI. Carousel are great to display a large set of data like images.

37. Displaying source code with Ajax
The script fires off an Ajax request, gets the document the link points to, replaces the special characters and adds line numbers.

38. Timeline
Timeline is a DHTML-based AJAXy widget for visualizing time-based events. It is like Google Maps for time-based information. Below is a live example that you can play with. Pan the timeline by dragging it horizontally.

39. mooSlideBox 3
The mooSlideBox v3 is a small and slim ajax based extension or replacement of the common “lightbox” that can be found on nearly every page. This lightbox clone works in IE 6/7, Opera and Firefox.

40. jsProgressBarHandler (Dynamic Unobtrusive Javascript Progress/Percentage Bar)
jsProgressBarHandler is a Javascript based Percentage Bar / Progress Bar, inspired upon JS-code by WebAppers and CSS-code by Bare Naked App. Next to a structural rewrite of the WebAppers code, this javascript progress bar can easily be extended and tweaked just by setting a few parameters.

41. mooSocialize - ajax based social bookmark widget
Enough of having to submit interesting articles by hand to your favorite social networks and newsgroups? Then this is for you. Based on ajax, this small widget allows to integrate many many bookmarks for every post on your blog, website etc.

42. CNN Style Scrolling Ticker with the Marquee Toolkit Control
Besides scrolling the items from right to left, the liScroll plugin supports two additional features

43. Cornerz
Bullet Proof Corners plugin for jQuery using Canvas/VML

44. CheckBoxList hover extender
“We created an AJAX Control Toolkit Extender that asynchronously calls a web service method (or a page method) to obtain the information displayed in the popup control, when the user hovers over an item.�

45. lightWindow
Another script you can use to integrate lightboxes and online-galleries in your web-pages. This lightweight script supports 5 different types of Media: Pages, Inline Content, Media (movies, SWF, etc), images (galleries, single), External Websites (via IFrame). Photo: Patrick Cheatham.

46. Lightview
Lightview was built to change the way you overlay content on a website. Works on all modern browsers

47. ModalBox
ModalBox is a JavaScript technique for creating modern modal dialogs or even wizards (sequences of dialogs) without using conventional pop-ups and page reloads.

48. DatePicker using Prototype and Scriptaculous
An unobtrusive and flexible date picker widget which uses Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries. 52 More Calendars and Date Picker Designs.

49. New unobtrusive dynamic flickr badge
A compact Flickr-Badge for presentation of Flickr-images with a navigation option.

50. 13 Awesome Javascript CSS Menus
13 “fresh� JavaScript+CSS-based navigation menus in a brief overview. Among other things Slashdot Menu and Sexy Sliding Menu displayed below.

You can see all the above used in one or other websites. They can help save your development time & cost. If you like this post kindly subscribe to our RSS. Please share how these scripts programs have helped you in your web application development. You may also be interested in our older post 20 MooTools Tutorials and Examples

Aug 28, 2008 Author: Ashish | Filed under: AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), JavaScript

I have known that there are basic differences between Linux and Windows that will always set them apart. This is not, in the least, to say one is better than the other. It’s just to say that they are fundamentally different. Many people, looking from the view of one operating system or the other, don’t quite get the differences between these two powerhouses.

1: Full access vs. no access

Linux belongs to the GNU Public License ensures that users (of all sorts) can access (and alter) the code to the very kernel that serves as the foundation of the Linux operating system. You want to peer at the Windows code? Good luck. Unless you are a member of a very select (and elite, to many) group, you will never lay eyes on code making up the Windows operating system.

You can look at this from both sides of the fence. Some say giving the public access to the code opens the operating system (and the software that runs on top of it) to malicious developers who will take advantage of any weakness they find. Others say that having full access to the code helps bring about faster improvements and bug fixes to keep those malicious developers from being able to bring the system down. I have, on occasion, dipped into the code of one Linux application or another, and when all was said and done, was happy with the results. Could I have done that with a closed-source Windows application? No.

2: Licensing freedom vs. licensing restrictions

With a Linux GPL-licensed operating system, you are free to modify that software and use and even republish or sell it (so long as you make the code available). Also, with the GPL, you can download a single copy of a Linux distribution (or application) and install it on as many machines as you like. With the Microsoft license, you can do none of the above. You are bound to the number of licenses you purchase, so if you purchase 10 licenses, you can legally install that operating system (or application) on only 10 machines.

3: Online peer support vs. paid help-desk support

This is one issue where most companies turn their backs on Linux. But it’s really not necessary. With Linux, you have the support of a huge community via forums, online search, and plenty of dedicated Web sites. And of course, if you feel the need, you can purchase support contracts from some of the bigger Linux companies (Red Hat and Novell for instance). Still, generally speaking, most problems with Linux have been encountered and documented. So chances are good you’ll find your solution fairly quickly.

Yes, you can go the same route with Microsoft and depend upon your peers for solutions. There are just as many help sites/lists/forums for Windows as there are for Linux. And you can purchase support from Microsoft itself. Most corporate higher-ups easily fall victim to the safety net that having a support contract brings. But most higher-ups haven’t had to depend up on said support contract. Of the various people I know who have used either a Linux paid support contract or a Microsoft paid support contract, I can’t say one was more pleased than the other. This of course begs the question “Why do so many say that Microsoft support is superior to Linux paid support?�

4: Full vs. partial hardware support

Years ago, if you wanted to install Linux on a machine you had to make sure you hand-picked each piece of hardware or your installation would not work 100 percent. This is not so much the case now. You can grab a PC (or laptop) and most likely get one or more Linux distributions to install and work nearly 100 percent. But there are still some exceptions. For instance, hibernate/suspend remains a problem with many laptops, although it has come a long way.

With Windows, you know that most every piece of hardware will work with the operating system. Of course, there are times (and I have experienced this over and over) when you will wind up spending much of the day searching for the correct drivers for that piece of hardware you no longer have the install disk for. But you can go out and buy that 10-cent Ethernet card and know it’ll work on your machine (so long as you have, or can find, the drivers). You also can rest assured that when you purchase that insanely powerful graphics card, you will probably be able to take full advantage of its power.

5: Command line vs. no command line

No matter how far the Linux operating system has come and how amazing the desktop environment becomes, the command line will always be an invaluable tool for administration purposes. Nothing will ever replace my favorite text-based editor, ssh, and any given command-line tool. I can’t imagine administering a Linux machine without the command line. But for the end user — not so much. You could use a Linux machine for years and never touch the command line. Same with Windows. You can still use the command line with Windows, but not nearly to the extent as with Linux. And Microsoft tends to obfuscate the command prompt from users. Without going to Run and entering cmd (or command, or whichever it is these days), the user won’t even know the command-line tool exists. And if a user does get the Windows command line up and running, how useful is it really?

6: Centralized vs. noncentralized application installation

With Linux you have (with nearly every distribution) a centralized location where you can search for, add, or remove software. I’m talking about package management systems, such as Synaptic. With Synaptic, you can open up one tool, search for an application (or group of applications), and install that application without having to do any Web searching (or purchasing).

With Windows, you must know where to find the software you want to install, download the software (or put the CD into your machine), and run setup.exe or install.exe with a simple double-click. For many years, it was thought that installing applications on Windows was far easier than on Linux. And for many years, that thought was right on target. Not so much now. Installation under Linux is simple, painless, and centralized.

7: Flexibility vs. rigidity

I always compare Linux (especially the desktop) and Windows to a room where the floor and ceiling are either movable or not. With Linux, you have a room where the floor and ceiling can be raised or lowered, at will, as high or low as you want to make them. With Windows, that floor and ceiling are immovable. You can’t go further than Microsoft has deemed it necessary to go.

Take, for instance, the desktop. Unless you are willing to pay for and install a third-party application that can alter the desktop appearance, with Windows you are stuck with what Microsoft has declared is the ideal desktop for you. With Linux, you can pretty much make your desktop look and feel exactly how you want/need. You can have as much or as little on your desktop as you want. From simple flat Fluxbox to a full-blown 3D Compiz experience, the Linux desktop is as flexible an environment as there is on a computer.

8: Fanboys vs. corporate types

I wanted to add this because even though Linux has reached well beyond its school-project roots, Linux users tend to be soapbox-dwelling fanatics who are quick to spout off about why you should be choosing Linux over Windows. I am guilty of this on a daily basis (I try hard to recruit new fanboys/girls), and it’s a badge I wear proudly. Of course, this is seen as less than professional by some. After all, why would something worthy of a corporate environment have or need cheerleaders? Shouldn’t the software sell itself? Because of the open source nature of Linux, it has to make do without the help of the marketing budgets and deep pockets of Microsoft. With that comes the need for fans to help spread the word. And word of mouth is the best friend of Linux.

Some see the fanaticism as the same college-level hoorah that keeps Linux in the basements for LUG meetings and science projects. But I beg to differ. Another company, thanks to the phenomenon of a simple music player and phone, has fallen into the same fanboy fanaticism, and yet that company’s image has not been besmirched because of that fanaticism. Windows does not have these same fans. Instead, Windows has a league of paper-certified administrators who believe the hype when they hear the misrepresented market share numbers reassuring them they will be employable until the end of time.

9: Automated vs. nonautomated removable media

I remember the days of old when you had to mount your floppy to use it and unmount it to remove it. Well, those times are drawing to a close — but not completely. One issue that plagues new Linux users is how removable media is used. The idea of having to manually “mount� a CD drive to access the contents of a CD is completely foreign to new users. There is a reason this is the way it is. Because Linux has always been a multiuser platform, it was thought that forcing a user to mount a media to use it would keep the user’s files from being overwritten by another user. Think about it: On a multiuser system, if everyone had instant access to a disk that had been inserted, what would stop them from deleting or overwriting a file you had just added to the media? Things have now evolved to the point where Linux subsystems are set up so that you can use a removable device in the same way you use them in Windows. But it’s not the norm. And besides, who doesn’t want to manually edit the /etc/fstab fle?

10: Multilayered run levels vs. a single-layered run level

I couldn’t figure out how best to title this point, so I went with a description. What I’m talking about is Linux’ inherent ability to stop at different run levels. With this, you can work from either the command line (run level 3) or the GUI (run level 5). This can really save your socks when X Windows is fubared and you need to figure out the problem. You can do this by booting into run level 3, logging in as root, and finding/fixing the problem.

With Windows, you’re lucky to get to a command line via safe mode — and then you may or may not have the tools you need to fix the problem. In Linux, even in run level 3, you can still get and install a tool to help you out (hello apt-get install APPLICATION via the command line). Having different run levels is helpful in another way. Say the machine in question is a Web or mail server. You want to give it all the memory you have, so you don’t want the machine to boot into run level 5. However, there are times when you do want the GUI for administrative purposes (even though you can fully administer a Linux server from the command line). Because you can run the startx command from the command line at run level 3, you can still start up X Windows and have your GUI as well. With Windows, you are stuck at the Graphical run level unless you hit a serious problem.

Your call…

Those are 10 fundamental differences between Linux and Windows. You can decide for yourself whether you think those differences give the advantage to one operating system or the other. Lets debate and find out..

Aug 27, 2008 Author: Ashish | Filed under: Strategy

When it comes to programming, more specifically the development of web applications, it is important to consider all the tools of the trade before using the one that is going to be used for the job.

PHP is great. With the release at the time of PHP 4 and now its time for PHP 6. it’’s initial object functionality I started to get up to speed with many of the OOP principles. I was building some pretty amazing Content Management Systems, Digital Asset Management Systems, even Web Top Publishing Systems. My previous commitment to learn Java was fading as my experience grew with PHP was growing, seeing that I could build all the amazing things with what I had originally felt was a subordinate language.

We have search the performance for the PHP and many other languages like python,Perl,java,Vb,and finally ruby, below the difference between all the programming languages as graph which shows the future for the PHP.

Following graph shows the new lines of code in various languages in recent years

PHP dominates the new lines of code and only PHP and Ruby are on a steady curve upward.  Yeah – I know that “number of lines of code� is not a great measure, but none of these languages are overly verbose so it’s an interesting proxy metric.

Active developers tells a different story.  While PHP is growing a little relative to the others, they all seem to have a relatively flat curve.  The well known shortage of Ruby developers is reinforced by this data, as well as the next graph.

Comparison between all the programing language..

Does it prove anything?

This was the chart I found really interesting.  Ruby is clearly the trendy new language.  Given normal supply / demand lags, you’d expect that this is a leading indicator of a significant uptick for Ruby on the other two charts in 2007.  My conclusion is different than Robin’s – while PHP appears to be dominant today, the rapid growth in new projects in Ruby indicates that it is currently positioned as “the language of the next wave of applications.�  This is consistent with what I’m hearing and seeing from many new startups.

Conclusion

I suspect very few people will argue that PHP is a more elegant language or is more powerful than Ruby. Frankly, Ruby is probably may favorite language that I have ever worked with and I have worked with Classic ASP, ASP.NET, VB.NET, C#, Java, and Perl all rather extensively over the years. Ruby is both highly expressive and concise which is rare and refreshing.

Rails is a very comprehensive and effective web development Framework and there’s nothing exactly like it in PHP. You get a huge amount of functionality for free. Developing in Ruby on Rails is also a very fast process because Ruby is a very concise language requiring much less typing than any other language I’ve worked with. Code Igniter is a really nice PHP framework. It will give you a great boost when developing your next PHP application.

The hosting and deployment struggles with Ruby on Rails is a major sticking point for me though. As the owner of a web development company many of our smaller clients do not have the budget for their own VPS account and even if they did, we don’t have the staff to manage a large number of VPS accounts or dedicated servers. Keeping the security updates current, managing any issues that may occur with email, and all the other headaches that go along with managing your own VPS or Dedicated server is more than we care to take on for the relatively small, practical difference between PHP and Ruby. For large projects, it may be worth the trouble, but for small to medium sized projects, PHP is much easier to deploy, less expensive to host, and the language is capable of taking on everything those types of sites require. For our projects, development time with PHP is not noticeably longer than with Ruby on Rails. Ruby on Rails integrates a lot of things for the developer.

There is ActiveRecord for managing the link between models and the database, migrations for keeping development and live databases in sync, built in testing, the ajax – prototype javascript library is included, and you get a well defined file system structure. While it may not all be packaged together as well, PHP can do all of the above.

Thank you for reading this and I would love to read your comments! Also subscribe to our RSS.

Aug 25, 2008 Author: kailashK | Filed under: Development Process, Programming

The truly smart and effective IT professional knows that there are many tools. The key is to know which database engine is the best for the job at hand. Why throw massive resources at a simple need? In other words, you don’t want to pay for a Rolls Royce engine if you’re building a go-cart. Knowing when and when not to use Access will help your budget and make you look good, whether you’re a freelance developer or you’re managing IT resources.

1: It’s cheap

Access is a desktop database and its place in the hierarchy — layered between Excel and SQL Server — determines its price. Access costs the same as any other desktop application. Acquiring a copy of Access won’t require a loan or a call to investors.

The large client-server databases, such as SQL Server and Oracle, require specific hardware and expensive licensing. After the project’s up and running, a client-server database needs a dedicated administrator. Access requires none of that.

On the other hand, Access is a desktop application. That means that everyone who uses a customized database application needs Access installed on their local system. All those copies of Access can be expensive. One alternative is to invest the time and money it takes to turn your database into a runtime application. (Access 2007 doesn’t support this option.)

2: It’s easy

Anybody with just a bit of time and reasonable intelligence can learn to use Access. It doesn’t take weeks of classroom instruction and then months of mentored on-the-job training to acquire the skills necessary to create and administer a database. It’s safe to say that most Access databases have one user and they live out their lives on one system. The user generally creates the database in his or her spare time. The casual user with no professional database or development skills can get data into an Access database and then manipulate that data without blowing up the building.

A good database grows and a bad one dies — regardless of the data engine that’s driving it or the skill set of the person who created it.

3: Development costs less

Many developers make a good living creating custom database applications in Access. (Call me, let’s talk.) However, in general, they charge less than SQL Server and Oracle developers. Moreover, the development costs are just the beginning if you go with SQL Server or some other client-server software (see #1). If you really want to use Access and you’re smart, you’ll see that an enthusiastic and eager employee gets the right training. Then, pass out all that money you save in employee bonuses.

On the other hand, it doesn’t matter how much money you save initially, if you use the wrong database. Don’t let money be your only consideration or you’ll surely regret it. For instance, the security model is minimal (and doesn’t exist at all in Access 2007). Recovery isn’t as easy, either. Don’t use Access for mission-critical applications unless you really know what you’re doing — and even then, it might be a good idea to keep your resume updated.

4: Prototyping is a snap

Access is a great way to show fast results for the impatient client or boss. You can collect a little data and in just a few hours (or days) wow them with a few neat forms and reports — I can hear them ooing and ahhing already. You don’t have to use Access to build the production database, but you can ease client concerns by showing that you understand their needs. Access lets you get results fast and often with little to no code.

5: It’s easy to upsize once it outgrows Jet

People who control the purse strings aren’t usually willing to dedicate resources to developing a noncritical database. Most of the time, you’re on your own. However, that doesn’t mean that a good design won’t grow and evolve into a truly useful tool. If that happens, you can upsize an Access database to SQL Server. You don’t have to start from scratch.

Still, Access is limited to 2GB. Even if the database’s purpose isn’t critical, the amount of data alone might force you into the arms of a more robust engine. Realistically, you probably won’t run into that limitation too often. If you do, you can eliminate Jet from the picture and use an Access front end to link to SQL Server data.

6: It’s a one-time fling

Not every custom database has a long shelf life, but that’s not because it’s bad and dies an agonizing death. Sometimes its purpose is timed. For instance, generating, collecting, and analyzing questionnaire data can be a big job, even for Access, but a single questionnaire has a limited lifespan. If you’re going to use a database once, or for only a short time, use Access if possible.

7: It can provide a quick fix

The best solution for your needs might be a powerful client-server database such as SQL Server. However, while you’re waiting — and you will wait — how’s the work being done? You can use Access as a quick fix until the more robust version is ready. You’ll have to compromise, because if you really need SQL Server, you’re not going to get the same work done in Access. But you might get portions of the work done. Analyze the overall tasks and see what components you can automate in Access, at least for the time being.

8: You want to change what?

Access is flexible, and that’s one of its best attributes. Even if you can put a custom database together in a matter of weeks, needs are likely to change. Almost immediately, the user or client will think of something they want to add or change. If you designed the database well in the first place, Access will handle enhancements and changes without complaint.

9: It talks to Office

Access is part of the Microsoft Office suite, so it plays well with the other applications. Users can quickly and easily export data from or import data into Excel or publish reports to Word. In addition, it shares a similar interface with other Office apps, which helps new users feel more at home and diminishes the learning curve.

10: There’s less code!

All things being equal, Access can get the job done with less code than SQL Server (or some other client-server database). In addition, VBA is an easy language to master.

11: It offers connectability

Access offers an affordable solution for individual users and smaller teams. Despite protests from some member of the IT club, you can even use it across a network if you know what you’re doing (file server solutions on a local network).

On the other hand, Access isn’t optimized for the Web. Although a skillful developer can use Access on the Web, in general, it just isn’t a good idea. Jet can’t handle large numbers of simultaneous users, unless of course you really know what you’re doing — and that level of expertise is really closer to magic than development. It can be done, just not by many.

Aug 25, 2008 Author: Ashish | Filed under: .Net

Aug 23, 2008 Author: Ashish | Filed under: Security