Hi FullName,
This message tells you about great opportunities and content from ProgrammingMSAccess.com. Despite our site's name, we provide information that targets the interests of Access, SQL Server, VBA, and VB.NET developers. If you are just starting out with either SQL Server or VB.NET from an Access/VBA background, you are likely to derive substantial value from our site. If you are just beginning to program Access and you want to ramp up the Access programming learning curve quickly, ProgrammingMSAccess.com has an abundance of information to help you.
As a registered site visitor or other friend of ProgrammingMSAccess.com, we send you messages like this one that give you a fresh perspective on how the site can help you achieve your technical and business goals as a developer of solutions with Microsoft database technology. For example, this message tells you about your chance to win two great prizes by joining our Database Developers Group (DDG). You may be asking just what is the DDG? We'll give you an answer to that to help you decide if you want to join. Also, we'll remind you about some of our past newsletter issues and tell you how to look them up if you need them. Finally, we have some information about a book by the webmaster that is in short supply. We give you some tips on how to search for this book on your own and get the best price while you are at it.
This message is longer than usual. Therefore, we urge you to scan the headlines to make sure you don't miss any content that you really want.
What is the DDG?
The DDG is a worldwide association of ProgrammingMSAccess.com fans. Many DDG members are professional database developers. Others want to become professional database developers. A few use Microsoft database technology in their business, and they join to stay current with the latest significant developments and to get help on how to take advantage of those developments.
Our slogan at ProgrammingMSAccess.com is that membership has its privileges. By membership, we mean membership in the DDG. The DDG is all about helping you from technical and business objectives. This section highlights a few of our special benefits for DDG members. You can learn additional details about the DDG from our DDG page at ProgrammingMSAccess.com.
We maintain a library of resources for the exclusive use of DDG members with in-depth white papers, book excerpts, slide presentations, and code samples that demonstrate how to put these technologies to work. If you like the free content at ProgrammingMSAccess.com, but you want more, then join the DDG. Our DDG library doesn't just focus on the latest technologies, we also cover traditional topics that everyone developing solutions with Microsoft database technology should know about. You can see a recently updated list of the 50+ resource items in the library.
We also provide consulting and tech support referrals to DDG members. These referrals come from the hundreds of thousands of annual visitors who browse ProgrammingMSAccess.com. Some of these visitors, seek technical support or consulting services. We screen requests to find those who are willing to pay for professional database support, and we then pass the referrals along to DDG members. It is possible to earn much more in revenue from even one of these referrals than the cost of DDG membership. In the pass year, we have delivered about one referral per month. Just last month, we sent out two referrals.
We also offer prizes on a regular basis to DDG members. You can typically win these prizes for joining the DDG or renewing your membership. These prizes come from vendors who want to get to know you because you are a DDG member. We maintain a list of recent prize winners. See the next section for a mention of two great prizes available from now through August 7.
DDG members also get a rebate of some of the registration fee on seminars sponsored by CAB, Inc., the training division of the webmaster's practice. My practice sponsored five previous annual seminar presentation series. The opportunity available from these seminar presentations provides high-value training at a low price. If you need training in Microsoft database development technology, you might as well get a rebate on your registration fees by joining the DDG. We maintain a page at ProgrammingMSAccess.com that includes links to help you find out who came to prior seminars as well as what they had to say about the experience.
Prizes for New and Renewing members in July and August
We are constantly striving to help you understand how much we appreciate our DDG members. One way of expressing our appreciation is through the offering of prizes for new and renewing DDG members. A typo at the site that made it confusing about how to qualify for two prizes. We are extending eligibility for these two spectacular prizes through August 7 at midnight.
Our two prizes for new and renewing DDG members in July are from the Microsoft Office team and vb123.com. One prize is Office 2003 Professional Edition. This edition includes the latest in Microsoft Office technology for personal productivity. The second prize is Garry Robinson's Programmer's Pack, which includes the highly regarded Access Workbench along with other great software. You can learn more about each of these prizes from the links at our web site. The website says the prizes are available through July 31. However, this newsletter extends the availability through August 7. Anyone joining or renewing before that date becomes eligible to win. We pick winners from those who join by midnight August 7 Eastern time.
BTW, we have two additional great prizes for those joining or renewing with the DDG during both August and September. You can learn more about these prizes and the eligibility for winning them at our site. Because of the extension of the July prize availability, there is a special seven-day period from August 1 through August 7 that provides eligibility to win both July and August prizes. This kind of opportunity is rare so we invite you to join during these deals for one of our best offers ever.
How to View Prior Newsletters
Are you enjoying the newsletter so far? We certainly hope so. Each newsletter contains a fresh perspective on how our site can help you. Sometimes we feature news about the DDG as in this newsletter, but other times you get links to the most popular pages as in the prior newsletter. Looking these prior newsletters over is a great way of finding a link to some content that is of special value to you.
Since June of 2004, we have been archiving our prior newsletters at the site. In our newsletter section, you can just click on the link for any newsletter to open a prior edition and search for a link of special value to you. We invite you to take advantage of this resource. Let us know if you find anything of special value. Maybe we'll feature it again in an upcoming issue.
ProgrammingMSAccess.com is an authored-sponsored site
ProgrammingMSAccess.com is an authored-sponsored site. I author books, seminar presentation materials, and articles for leading computer publications. This is fun for me, but I couldn't do it unless somebody bought my books. Recently, several site visitors have complained to me about the expense of buying my "Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET" title. The book is in very limited supply and some re-sellers at Amazon.com are offering the book for prices in excess of $88. Before discussing solutions to this problem, I want to thank those of you who bought the book and put it in scarce supply. The ProgrammingMSAccess.com site includes additional detail about all my book and DVD titles. Some of the site's content includes excerpts from books and slides from DVD presentations. I hope that you find these informative.
Now for the solutions.
First, from the Fetch Book site, I found several booksellers who advertise the availability of the book from within 24 hours to several weeks. The prices of the book at these vendors range about $40 through about $50.
Second, Microsoft Press has acknowledged to me that the book is in short supply, and they are trying to recover copies to make them available for those who want them. If you want the book from MS Press, sign our Guest Book and leave a comment that you want the book from MS Press. I will pass these requests along to MS Press so that the firm can satisfy your need.
Third, consider one of my other titles. For example, I have a DVD titled "Beginner's SQL Server 2000 T-SQL Programming on DVD". This eight-hour DVD is available from Amazon.com site for $26.96. If you are especially interested in Visual Basic .NET database programming, I recommend my "Programming Microsoft Visual Basic .NET for Microsoft Access Databases". As the title suggests, the book focuses on Access databases, but the vast majority of the samples can be readily adapted for use with SQL Server. Finally, if you want to learn more about using SQL Server with Access, I recommend "Programming Microsoft Access 2003". This is one of my best selling books ever. The book includes three chapters with 200 pages of content on programming SQL Server from Access.
I hope that you found this message interesting. It is a little longer than usual, but I was trying to cover some essential content. I like to close by encouraging you to visit ProgrammingMSAccess.com and look over our content. If you have a question about Access, SQL Server, VBA, or Visual Basic .NET, you may well find what you need at our site. Also, take a moment to share this message with one or more of your colleagues who may also be able to benefit from our content or our prizes or our information about how to buy my books and DVDs. If you no longer wish to receive messages from ProgrammingMSAccess.com, just reply with Remove in Subject field.
Rick