We have just installed CutePDF Writer on our Shared RDP hosting offering.  This will allow you to print any of your reports from Access 2010 to PDFs for easy download to your local computer or as an attachment/automated email from Outlook 2010.

To learn more about RDP hosting, visit: http://www.accesshosting.com/remote-desktop-hosting.asp

Our remote desktop option has become more and more popular, especially with traditional Access Developers that want to utilize the full power and robustness of the Access software, plugins, VBA code, and more!  Here are some frequently asked questions that we always receive regarding our RDP hosting:

How can I load my Access database into the remote desktop session?

There are 3 ways to accomplish this. 1) Use a Copy/Paste from your local machine into the remote session 2) Look under the “Computer” icon in the remote session. You should see your local drive displayed 3) Use a web based storage service like www.dropbox.com to transfer the files.

Can I have multiple concurrent users accessing the same database?

Sure – if you purchase more than one instance of the remote desktop we can provide a networks storage location that can be mapped as a Z: (or any other letter) drive and used for the backend of your Access Database.

How do I connect my Macintosh to the Access Application in the Remote Desktop?

The Microsoft Remote Desktop client for Macintosh OSX can be downloaded at no charge from http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads

How do I connect my iPhone and iPad to the Access Application in the Remote Desktop?

We recommend purchasing www.jumpdesktop.com from the App Store to connect your iOS devices to the remote desktop

How can I backup my Access database?

We recommend using a www.dropbox.com account and installing that into your desktop. You can then setup regular backups that move your information into the cloud.

Can I use a local printer?

Yes. Any printers that are locally attached via on LPT port are fully supported. Printers that are connected via your local network or USB are also supported but need to be mapped into a local LPT port before they are visible to the remote desktop session. The command to do this looks something like net use lpt3 \servernameprinter /persistent:yes. Do this before connecting to the remote session and the printer should be visible.

Can multiple users share a single remote desktop instance?

Yes, but only one user can be connected at a time. If your users connect at different times during the day they can share a single remote desktop instance.

This video demonstrates how easy it is to use Access Hosting’s great SharePoint hosting service on your iPad.  Because of our SharePoint configuration, your Access 2010 Web Databases look great on Apple’s iPad.  You can easily navigate and use any web forms, queries, and reports right from your iPad’s touchscreen.  This video demonstrates logging into your Access Hosting SharePoint site, navigating SharePoint, loading a Contacts Web Database, and then navigating and using your Web Database:

1. Open iPad’s Safari Browser
2. Type in your SharePoint site URL into the Safari Browser
3. Fill out the prompt with your Access Hosting Credentials
4. Click login
5. After you SharePoint site loads, click All Site Content in the left quick launch menu
6. The iPad sometimes has issues with scrolling in SharePoint 2010, so you may need to click the View button ans select “Sites & Workspaces”
7. Click on your desired Access Hosting Database
8. Your start-up web form will load in the browser
9. Viola! you can use your Database right on your iPad!

Here is a quick video demonstrating how Access Hosting’s Web Databases work on Android devices.  In this quick video, we are using our simple Web Contacts Database and running it on an HTC Droid Incredible from Verizon Wireless:

As mentioned in our previous post, the key is to have Firefox downloaded and installed on your Android Device.

This blog post is a follow up to a very important post/question: How much SharePoint 2010 storage will my Access application consume ?

Unfortunately, there is still no way to figure out how much space your local Access 2010 database will take up on the web before it is published to SharePoint.  The good news is that after working with clients on this and their databases, I can tell you that queries are a big reason for the ballooning of the database file size.  The more queries that you have in a Database, the more your database will increase in size once it is published to Access Hosting and SharePoint 2010.

The best way to describe this problem is to give a real word example.  Recently a customer had a database that was about 40MB that they had built from scratch in Access 2010.  The Database and tables passed the web compatibility checker (BTW – Microsoft’s Checker doesn’t catch everything, but that’s a story for another post). The database had over 500 Queries.  This local  Access database  that was 40MB (under 10MB zipped) grew to be over 100MB after it was published to SharePoint.  It more than doubled in size and took over 10 minutes to upload!

Please take into account that Queries seem to massively increase the storage space needed on SharePoint.  The additional load times is also something to be weary of.  If you are making a database from scratch, the best thing to do is create a few forms, tables, and queries and then publish the site to Access Hosting.  The first publish takes the longest.  After you have the basics published and your database started, you can continue to develop your database.   As you work in Access to add new queries, tables and reports, all of these changes will be uploaded and synced to the server seamlessly.

TIP: Don’t build a huge complex database locally and then attempt one large (and long) publish