It has no support for using foreign key constraints or stored procedures, and if you try to use them anyway it can be quite painful.

OK lost me at no support for foreign key constraints. Maybe it is a matter of having written too many applications where FK contraints were critical. But I don't think I'd like the design philosophy of a system that considered foreign key constraints "not worth the trouble".

Not as strong on stored procedures. But really, there are occasions when they are critical too - as in you want to use a database, but you want to make sure you maintain security and integrity even if someone accesses it outside your application. Of course most databases have ways of turning stored procedures off.

Anyway, I admit there is more room for argument on stored procedures. But no foreign key contraints? Huh.

How out of the box is this? I mean, if I install the RPMs on my box, have I gotten myself into the web server config business?

Before mod_rails, you had some significant apache configuration to do. With mod_rails it might be easier.

But I don't think I'd like the design philosophy of a system that considered foreign key constraints "not worth the trouble".

It's a lot of trouble to figure out from the constraints what a legal order is to write a set of mapped objects to the database. In fact, there may not even be a legal order.

That's not to say Rails doesn't provide some very nice validation tools. It just that they choose to do it in the application layer, rather than the database layer. Certainly a more appealing approach for an application writer than a database analyst.

At the very least, reading the framework docs helps tidy up my thoughts for code that perhaps doesn't warrant full Ruby on Rails treatment. MVC is dreamy.

I hate validation beyond about every other bit of coding, and streamlining the reporting and presentation was always frustrating. I like seeing how others do it.

What's the equivalent of mapping at logon with OS X? When I fired up bittorrent for a download I connected to a network drive for the destination. Upon restarting the machine and restarting Azureus it says the destination file is not found, even if I reconnect the same network drive.

In Azureus the destination is listed as /Volumes/MSHOME;BLAISE-2/Yadda Yadda. When I reconnect, the destination is /Volumes/MSHOME;BLAISE. What's up with the -2 deal? How do I make this more consistent? How can I statically refer to a Samba share, hopefully without having to manually make the connection in Finder?

Apple extended warranty - good idea or not? (A friend is buying a Mac right now.)

eta: This will be for a MacBook. She generally doesn't take her laptop with her....

She's calling me back in a few minutes....

Definitely, especially for laptops.

Apple extended warranty - good idea or not? (A friend is buying a Mac right now.)

Extended Apple Care? Definitely a good idea.

OK, she's going with the Apple extended warranty thingie....

Thanks.

I'm trying to automate importing a spreadsheet into an Access database, into a table that already exists.

My first angle of attack is creating a macro, using the TransferSpreadsheet action. Problems here are a couple:

• the filename changes weekly, but I guess I can edit the macro every week
• I need information from two worksheets in the spreadsheet, but I can't see how to get anything other than the first one--the help files says it can be done with the Range argument, but doesn't talk about format.

I guess the other option is to do it in Visual Basic and use the DoCmd object, but it's been years since I've been in VB and it skeers me.

Ideas?

I asked one of my bosses - he uses the docmd.transferspreadsheet command, but he doesn't know how to specify multiple worksheets either. My other boss might know - I'll ask him when he gets in.

I happen to have Access 97 open - the help says this about the Range argument for TransferSpreadsheet Action (i.e. a macro):

The range of cells to import or link. Leave this argument blank to import or link the entire spreadsheet. You can type the name of a range in the spreadsheet or specify the range of cells to import or link, such as A1:E25 (note that the A1..E25 syntax no longer works in Microsoft Access 97). If you are importing from or linking to a Microsoft Excel version 5.0, 7.0, or Excel 97 worksheet, you can prefix the range with the name of the worksheet and an exclamation point; for example, Budget!A1:C7.

Does that help? (I'm guessing the same applies for using VB.)