I am the epitome of the “alternative student”; at the age of 40, I’ll graduate with a Bachelors’ Degree in Information Technology, and will mark my 14th year of intensive involvement with the various aspects of the Technological Information field.

With so much experience, my friends often ask me why I bothered with a degree, when I’d already been working in the field and making money.

The easiest reason to cough up is that throughout my working career, I’d been passed up many times for high-paying positions, simply because of my lack of degree. So now, theoretically, assuming that a full time job is what I’m after, I can at least qualify, if not command, any number of positions that range far higher than those I’d previously been able to be considered for, depending on responsibilities and locations.

But money is not the ultimate reason why I went to college, even though, the Lord knows, I really do need it! I already knew how to fix computers, and it’s true, I know how to do so even better, now, but computers themselves are not the actual technology, you see. The software that runs on them is a product of technology, but not really a technology unto itself.

The real value of a thing is the concepts and ideas which led to the creation of the thing itself… My good friend Dr. Li gives a good description of this.

First, he gives us a bit of clarification:

“To clarify, IT is a field of study, whileinformation technology is just a procedure that processes data. ComputerScience is a field of study, while the act of coding is a sequence of

Dr.Li then goes on to remind us that IT in a corporation is not just computer support when things go wrong; IT adds value, not only to the employees of the corporation, but also to its customers, by providing new services and reduced operating costs, which can result in great savings.

Just take a look at this definition of IT, though — He really hits it on the head!

Definitions: (5/12/2006 – whatcanbe)
InformationTechnology (IT) is the discipline that systematically studies methodsand processes that increase the value of data and structured data by

processing, generating, and/or delivering the result to the right

person in the right place at the right time.

If you read this carefully, you’ll see that there is no reference to computers at all. In fact, information technology pre-dates computers, and in one form or another has been used for most of the 20th century.Â

Probably the simplest example possible is a toaster — yes, even a toaster uses a little information technology. I mean, just imagine a toaster that didn’t let you know it was done toasting! Even the simplest toaster makes a distinct noise when it pops up, and you can see the toast sticking out of the top — it has sent you, the operator, a clear stream of information that you can easily understand: “The toast is ready”.

But toasters did not always work this way — I’ve seen antique versions, where you had to manually flip the toast. Granted, it was still an improvement over yet earlier attempts, but somebody had to sit back and conceive of a better way. The idea that arose from this, and the research, development, and testing, is the essence of IT.

Granted, I don’t know the actual story of the development of the toaster, I was just using that as an example. A more purified example, however, is ISO 900X. ISO stands for the International Standards Organization, and the different levels of specifications that they provide can be applied to different business specialties. When businesses enroll, and then document their compliance with these specifications, they can display the ISO logo on all of their paperwork, and qualify for a greater number of contracts with governments and businesses worldwide.

actions that produces software applications.

Sometimes you need to do more advanced searches (and replaces) on your data than the access interface will allow. This article shows a generic function which can help!

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Start by adding a new Module to your database. Open the module in the code view window, and then go to tools/references; you’ll need to add a reference to the “Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.x Library” (I currently use 2.5, although you can use later versions if you prefer).

Next, paste this code into the module:

`Option Compare Database
Option Explicit

Sub testfunction()
SearchAndReplaceAField “tblTours”, “TourID”, “DY%1#19.000000″ ‘, “DY%1$Cab.DZ – 5″
End Sub

Sub SearchAndReplaceAField(strTable As String, strField As String, strFind As String, Optional strReplace As String)
Dim con As New ADODB.Connection
Set con = Application.CurrentProject.Connection
Dim rs As New ADODB.Recordset
Dim rs2 As New ADODB.Recordset
Dim fld As ADODB.Field, strFileName As ADODB.Field
Dim stsql As String

stsql = “SELECT * FROM ” & strTable

rs.Open stsql, con, adOpenKeyset, adLockOptimistic
Set fld = rs.Fields(strField)

If (rs.EOF) Then
Debug.Print “No Records Found.”
Else

While Not rs.EOF
If InStr(1, fld.Value, strFind, vbBinaryCompare) Then
If IsNull(strReplace) Or strReplace = “” Then
Debug.Print “Found ‘” & strFind & “‘ in: ‘” & fld.Value & “‘”
Else
Debug.Print “Replaced ‘” & strFind & “‘ in: ‘” & fld.Value & “‘”
rs.Fields(strField) = Replace(fld.Value, strFind, strReplace)
rs.Update
End If
End If
rs.MoveNext
Wend
End If

‘ Close the recordset and the database.
rs.Close
Set rs = Nothing
Set con = Nothing
End Sub`

The first function is nothing more than a way to launch the second function, with all parameters filled in.

The second function is a very generic function, which, by the use of parameters, can be called to search and optionally replace data from any table in the database.

You may notice that Instr is using the “vbBinaryCompare” option; you may need this if the data you are searching has been encoded in any way.

If you find this useful, leave me a comment!

– Gon

This graphical Java Applet which lets you visualize search results; Very useful for seeing how keywords relate!

• TouchGraph — This awesome tool lets you enter any search phrase or keyword(s), and returns the results in a graphical format which represents the way that the results are related to each other.

Some tools do even more than just track statistical data; they give site developers a way to create a permanent registration of their site(s) with their respective search engines. They also allow the site to expose an RSS feed which the search engine can use to collect links and information to be used in displaying indexed content to users.

• Yahoo! Site Explorer — I’m not sure which came first, but this tool reminds me a lot of the Google Sitemap tool, which I describe next. Basically, what it does is to allow you enter your URLs into the online database, verify that you actually control those sites, and then explore the information that the search engine carries for your site. Additionally, by providing RSS feeds of site content with links, the search engine can be automatically informed of updates to your site.
• Google Sitemaps — As mentioned above, Google and Yahoo! provide very similar offerings, but there are some key differences. First off, it seems that Yahoo! uses a standard RSS feed, which allows you to stuff it with more keywords and content. Google, however, uses a very simple format which only lists links to pages, and when was the last time they were modified. Any additional information about your pages has to be collected by the GoogleBot.

I’ve seen some pretty good results with the sitemaps; this site is maintained in the engines almost primarily via these mechanisms… My rankings aren’t great, but then again, I don’t always have full content articles in here, as this site mainly serves as a knowledge base of disparate technologies.