Access is certainly NOT a love...a necessary evil maybe...not a love...

bapu
I am not in love with Access. I'm an Oracle (and if pressed MySQL) database guy.

 
I've got Orifice 2010 only due to a client as well.  There are certainly better small databases around now. 
 
Oh yeah, and I've got plenty of those Oracle certificates around as well.  Excellent for covering up that odd hole in the wall.

craigb

bapu
I am not in love with Access. I'm an Oracle (and if pressed MySQL) database guy.

 
I've got Orifice 2010 only due to a client as well.  There are certainly better small databases around now. 
 
Oh yeah, and I've got plenty of those Oracle certificates around as well.  Excellent for covering up that odd hole in the wall.

I'm a hack. I've never been to an Oracle class sans a night class for Forms 4.5 back in like '97 or summpin' like that.
 
Sirteefacats! Sirteefacats! We doan need no SIRTEEFACATS!!!!!

I go wayyyy back to the TI 99 4a....with it's MASSIVE (no NI PUN INTENDED) computing power...
and the Commodore 64....now THOSE were MONSTER machines...I'm sure they'd run X2a flawlessly...
 
Oh yes..don't forget PONG....and Oregon Trail...and Cobol and Fortran....

Then, low and behold, this company called IBM comes out with a QUANTUM LEAP in Personal Computing..
the 8086 processor based IBM XT!!!  256 Kb of RAM and a 20 MB hard drive...

The rest ...is HISTORY...

I started my programming career in Fortran. He's the kicker.... it was an MRP system, not anything scientific in nature.
 
Moved on to COBOL about four years later. Then got stuck in Oracle Forms and Report (aka Developer). I made a sheetpotfull of dollhairs in that environment. It's now been superseded by J2EE et. al. (which I never really got into, hence unemployed for almost 18 months).

Boy, those were the days....

I remember when Windows 3.0 came out....it was HEAVEN...

I could NOW run both my Dos Based Lotus 123 spreadsheet, and my Wordperfect 5 at the SAME TIME!!!
 
I was SERIOUSLY OVERJOYED!!!  That was completely unheard of....LOL
And then the leap to 3.1 and then Windows for Workgroups...

Man, I miss those days....

I started on an HP-2000 when I was only 7 years old...
 
Ended up half-way through college working as a 19 year-old hacker at a Defense Contractor.  Spent five years there...  Another nine was lost to the healthcare/insurance industry and seven more as a consultant to VerizonWireless.  I was considered an "expert" on the DEC (Digital Equipment) products which is why I was left hung out to dry when Intel's Server Division took over the machines and Oracle took over the databases...
 
I still remember doing a contract for Intel up here and just as we were entering one of the back test rooms all we hear is swearing about Vista - LOL!
 
I sort of miss doing real programming.  [Insert heavy sigh here.]

I was originally hired as the new IT guy for an LCD repair company in Newbury Park, CA.  My main job before moving over to accounitng was maintaining and writing MS Access programs for their service/repair database.  We had laptops at the end of each row and would scan a serialized barcode number into Access to bring on the specific LCD.  We then would update the repair/failure.  At our top we were processing about 5,000 LCD's a month.  Fun times.
 
Rimshot
 

After graduation, I worked in a video arcade.  I broke up fights, gave change and locked up at night.  That's almost like IT, right?
 
I delivered pizza, sold Herbalife (unsuccessfully), worked in a factory, utterly failed to find work as an audio engineer, sold pre-packaged vacations on the phone, worked as a travel agent, opened accounts as a personal banker, haunted a data center as an AS/400 operator, wrote RPG III code, administered NetWare networks, shipped out as a network consultant, transformed into a business analyst consultant, and eventually morphed into a project manager consultant.
 
It's the typical IT career path.

RPG III had code?
 
(We keed!  We keed!  )
 
I only had to do about a month of RPG III back in '81.