Data management: After taking a look at Office 2007 and the accompanying version of Access, Sean McCown thinks the same thing he always does every time a new Access comes along. "When is MS finally going to just get rid of this thing?" he poses in Die Access die! A large part of the problem is that in SQL Server Express Microsoft offers a better product -- and it's free. "Making the decision to stay away from Access is a good business decision."

Columnist's corner: Having just been turned on to the PsTools suite, a freebie on Microsoft's site aimed at helping you manage your Windowed wires, Oliver Rist explains that "the authors of PsTools specifically chose functionality for which they couldn't find appropriate utilities under Microsoft's own banner." Microsoft PsTools bolster Windows admins' utility belts. There are most exciting happenings this week in the world at large, indeed, but "into every life must a little commonplace creep. PsTools makes that fact a mite easier to take."

Careers: One reader writes in asking Bob Lewis how to handle a bad CEO. The type who plays games, bullies, and just outright annoys workers until they leave the company. "How can I stop the harassing and let the board know what is actually going on?" But Lewis explains in Advice Line that such a move is highly unlikely. "You can't effectively let the board know, because the board doesn't care. You can't have a heart-to-heart with the CEO because this sort of behavior works for the CEO. It's how he got to be CEO, in fact." So our reader is left with three choices, one of which involves playing the CEO's ego.

Video: Spock's CEO and co-founder Jaideep Singh shows off his people-finding search engine. The inspiration emerged from Singh's frustration with trying to find, you guessed it, people. "We index about 100 million people on the Web...I can take people that I know and build up favorites very fast," Singh explains. "We crawl the Web, analyze the documents and try to organize the information around a person." And, no, this Spock is not exactly named after the Star Trek character. Watch it here.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 9, 2007 04:50 AM