As a member of the Microsoft Office suite, Access 2000 is frequently deployed by users in need of immediate database solutions.
Teach Yourself Access 2000 in 24 Hours helps the complete Access 2000 neophyte gain proficiency with this powerful--yet difficult-to-learn--data management tool.
Using Access effectively requires a general understanding of relational databases and how they work. Authors Craig Eddy and Timothy Buchanan open with discussions of these topics before explaining the techniques and procedures involved in working with your own data. The authors begin by describing how to use and modify tables, forms, and queries from preexisting Access databases. You'll also find more elaborate information on creating a new database (including tables, queries, forms, and reports). This book may not hold enough technical information for big-time Access application developers, but users will find some material on creating macros to ease your work.
Teach Yourself Access 2000 in 24 Hours deserves special praise for the attention it pays to the integration of Access 2000 with Microsoft SQL Server--an important topic that many books (even those written at a higher level than this one) ignore. Its stepped procedures are notable too, since the authors take time to explain the reasons for what they tell you to do. --David Wall
User review
Not Recommended
Want to learn to use Access? This is not the book for you, regardless of your knowledge of databases and computers. Learning to use software is one part reading and four parts doing. There simply isn't enough doing in this book. For the first nine chapters, all one does is open windows in an existing database and look at them.
look at a Table
look at a Query
look at a Form
look at a Report
After 137 pages, in Chapter 10 one finally starts making minor modifications to the data base.
modify a Table
modify a Query
modify a Form
modify a Report
It isn't until page 227 that we start to talk about making a simple database.
create a Table
create a Query
create a Form
create a Report
Is this starting to get repetitive? That is what reading the book is like. First, you get a shallow introduction to tables, and then you look at other stuff. Sixty pages later, you return to tables, reviewing what you already know and learning a little more, and then you move on to other topics. Ninety pages later, you return to tables again, review, and learn some more.
The authors do not write badly, and they know their material, but the 24 chapter format of this SAM's series has suckered them into organizing the book in a way that makes it less useful than it could be.
User review
Good Book
I like the 24 hour format of the `Sams` books. I did teach myself Access (from scratch) in 24 hours with this book. It's a good book.
User review
Next to useless!
I knew less about databases after reading this book than before. Most of the book focuses on how to use existing databases, not create one of your own. A surprising amount of space is wasted in describing basic Windows procedures (how to open a file, etc). You will not be able to make a database after reading it. Do not, under any circumstances, buy this book.
User review
Good, but unnecessarily long,,.
You could learn this stuff from scratch (as I did) in a book that should be called `Teach Yourself Access 2000 in 1 hour`. As another comment on this book reads, it is true: there's is a lot of duplicate info in here. However, it is a good reference to learn Access.
User review
Beginners Orientation type of book
Good all around primer on Access. You can blow through the first four or five chapters in two to three hours, depending on your level of concentration and your familiarity with other Microsoft Products and 'wysiwyg' all-in-one database programs.
No one book can hope to provide every reader with the best solution to tackling an application that is new or unfamiliar to him or her. TYMSA2KI24 should be considered an introduction to the interface, functionality and basics of Access 2000, with a brief tutorial on relational databases thrown in for good measure. You should also be able to create relatively simple database projects by `Hour 24`. Your mileage may vary, since database design talent cannot be acquired from any book.
IMHO this book will help provide a solid foundation to learning the application. After going through the chapters I hope to find a good `Beginning Access Programming & Development` type of book - something along the lines of `Beginning ASP 3.0` from WROX.
