Dead Ink Vinyl

I was given a Microsoft Access database (MDB file) containing an old mailing list. I didn’t want to fire up my long-dormant PC just to open this file, so I looked for alternatives available on OSX. A quick Google search popped up Actual Technologies, who—as luck would have it—just released a read-only Access ODBC driver for OSX. I grabbed the trial version and it worked slick as could be.

The installation was painless, but requires administrative rights. After the ODBC driver was installed, I used the ODBC Manager to configure an ODBC connection to the Access file I received. This opened the Actual Technologies configuration wizard which made the setup a snap. Once the ODBC instance was defined, I was able to open Excel 2004 and pull in the records without any difficulty. The trial edition limits the result set to three rows, but it was obvious that the product did exactly what I needed.

Here’s an interesting detour for you, though. I actually took the time to scan the license agreement and was surprised to see that the license included the copyright for an open source project to read MDB files. Well, who needs a commercial product when you can have the open source product on which it was built?! Too bad that it didn’t compile under OSX. Well, it might have compiled with enough work. The ./configure script wanted GTK libraries. I thought about it for a few minutes… How far was I will to go to avoid spending $30 bucks? But then the reason I use OSX instead of Linux is that I decided long ago that I’m willing to trade money for mortality (time); I’m willing to pay to not have to futz around making things work. I love OSX for many reasons, but the biggest is that it just works.

So Actual Technologies got my money and I got a license key to unlock the driver to return more than three rows. The product works exactly as advertised and I highly recommend it. And Actual Technologies is local to Chicagoland, so I’m helping the area technology industry. Go me!