| About the Video Quizzes Stardate 2026.0722: I want to thank everyone for all of the positive feedback on the new video quizzes. The response has been far better than I expected. I'm seeing a lot more comments than usual, and I love it. It's great to see people coming out of their shells, posting their scores, talking about the questions, and even a little friendly competition over who got a perfect 5 out of 5. One of my goals was to get... |  |
| One of Those Days... Stardate 2026.0717: You know those days where you look at the schedule in the morning and think, "I've got plenty of time. I'm going to get so much done today." Then reality says, "Hold my synthohol." I got through customer service this morning, knocked out some website work, and figured the rest of the day was going to be dedicated to recording. Then a couple of unexpected things popped up later in the afternoon... |  |
| LZARS the Customer Service Bot Stardate 2026.0716: So I gave the website's customer service chat bot a new name and a much-needed brain upgrade. Meet LZARS: the Learning Zone Automated Response System. New training. New face. Same attitude. Over the past year, I've been quietly building a much larger knowledge base from the customer service questions people ask me every day. I use it locally all the time, but the website version had fallen... |  |
| MVP Award Number Six Stardate 2026.0715: Well, I got the email from Microsoft today. I've been awarded Microsoft MVP status again for another year. By my count, this makes number six*. It's always an honor to be recognized alongside such a talented group of Microsoft Access experts. There aren't many Access MVPs in the world, so it's something I never take for granted. A big thank you to Alex Hedley, who first nominated me back in... |  |
| Ooops. Broke the Forums. Again. :) Stardate 2026.0710: This morning, Platinum member Bill reported a website error that turned out to be the unintended side effect of an optimization I made yesterday. One of the things I preach all the time in my Microsoft Access classes is that you should never perform lookups inside a loop. Every trip through the loop results in another database call, and those little delays add up quickly. Apparently I needed... |  |
| New Comments List Stardate 2026.0709: I took a few minutes and built a new Comments New For Me page that shows all of the recent comments across the entire site and lets you quickly see which ones are new to you. The biggest improvement is that it's sorted by the most recent reply, not just the original post. That means if someone replies to an older thread, it jumps back to the top of the list. The short list on the home page... |  |
| Another Youtube Milestone Stardate 2026.0708: Well, we reached another YouTube milestone today. We how have 254,000 subscribers. So... yay! Although growth has slowed in recent years, we're still growing and the count's still going up. We've gone from adding 500 or 600 new subscribers a month to only about 300, but that's OK. Growth is still growth. I'm happy. I think at this rate I'll be 135 years old by the time we reach 1 million... | |
| Something I'm Excited About Stardate 2026.0706: A few years ago, while I was on vacation, my wife wasn't feeling well, so I had a couple of days to myself with nothing but my laptop. I started wondering if I could make a Microsoft Access form behave like a web page. After a few hours of tinkering, I had text boxes working. Then I thought, "What if those web pages connected to SQL Server instead of local Access tables?" That worked too. I had a... |  |
| Wide Form Support in Beta Stardate 2026.0628: Microsoft has finally removed one of the oldest limitations in Access: the 22-inch maximum form size. If you've ever wished you could build dashboards or data entry screens that take full advantage of today's ultrawide or 4K monitors, your wish has been granted. The feature is currently available in the Beta Channel for Microsoft 365 Access. If you're already using the Beta Channel, simply... |  |
| Behind Schedule, Again Stardate 2026.0625: The captain is once again behind schedule. I had every intention of getting today's TechHelp video with an Extended Cut recorded. It's planned, prepped, and ready to go. Unfortunately, this week has been one of those where real life keeps barging onto the bridge and rewriting the mission orders. The good news is nothing's wrong. I'm just running behind. The extended cut is now scheduled for... |  |