Rocky Smolin - Beach Access Software
bchacc at san.rr.com
Mon May 24 00:17:36 CDT 2004
Drew:
Don't know if I can do anything for you but let me know. I have a home brew
way to create a key kind of like the key you get with windows or Office -
this one has sixteen alpha numeric characters with a bunch of data fields
encoded and a hash character.
Rocky
----- Original Message -----
From: <DWUTKA at marlow.com>
To: <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 2:58 PM
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Licensing / Registration Stuff (was Date Format Aga
in)
> It's funny that you mention this. I have talked about a project with Mike
> Mattys, where I would host a 'web registration' setup. I would provide a
> module to place within your project, then it would interact with my
website,
> allowing you to setup registration 'flags', ie, system info, etc, along
with
> when it's registration expires, etc. It is not quite on a back burner,
> somewhere in the middle of the stove right now, but I was thinking about
> charging per registration, and splitting the income with the list. (I'm
> sure it's not going to generate much, but it would be something....)
>
> Drew
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
> Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 4:38 PM
> To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
> Subject: [AccessD] Licensing / Registration Stuff (was Date Format
> Again)
>
>
> Your code looks nice and I have no complaints on it. Rather I'm
> wondering how you all feel about these automatic-internet installations
> that seem to send your CD serial # to home office, and in most cases
> prevent duplicate installations of the same CD. (If you have Enterprise
> MSDN, for example, you can install everything a bunch of times without
> issue, but if you only have Professional, it'll pop you on the second
> install, which IMO SUCKS, but that's another issue.)
>
> What I'm getting at is, How many of your clients are net-ready? Is it
> realistic in your environment to assume net connections and try a
> registration scheme like Microsoft's, where the new install logs in
> automatically, sends the serial number and whatever else, checks the
> database to see if this serial number is allowed multiple installations,
> and so on?
>
> Is this where registration is going? In general, and specifically for
> you freelance developers?
>
> TIA for your responses.
>
> ATTN: moderator -- if I'm taking this discussion off-topic please
> redirect us to dba-Tech.
>
> Arthur
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin
> - Beach Access Software
> Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2004 5:13 PM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Date Format Again
>
>
> Jim:
>
> Here's how I solved it. I have two dates encoded in the key - one is
> the license expiration date, the other is the date of last access.
> Every time the user starts the app I update this last access date in the
> key.
>
> (This stops the user from just rolling their clock back a year when the
> expiration date rolls around. If the system date is less than the last
> access date I give them a message that says 'adjust your system date',
> and quit the app.)
>
> So, instead of trying to reconstruct the expiration and last access
> dates correctly based on the user's regional settings I set up global
> variable to hold the month date and year:
>
> Public gintExpirationDay As Integer
> Public gintExpirationMonth As Integer
> Public gintExpirationYear As Integer
> Public gintLastAccessDay As Integer
> Public gintLastAccessMonth As Integer
> Public gintLastAccessYear As Integer
>
> and put the values in there when I decrypt them from the key. Then,
> everywhere I need to do a test I use the DateSerial function with the
> proper
> values:
>
> Like on the caption of the label on the opening screen which displays
> the
> expiration:
> "License Expires: " & Format(DateSerial(gintExpirationYear,
> gintExpirationMonth, gintExpirationDay), "Short Date")
>
> or checking the expiration date
>
> ' Check to see if license has expired
> If Date > DateSerial(gintExpirationYear, gintExpirationMonth,
> gintExpirationDay) Then
> MsgBox "License has expired. Please call Beach Access Software
> (858) 259-4334.", vbExclamation
> Application.Quit
> End If
>
> Hopefully this will be a global solution to the problem.
>
> Thanks for all inputs, folks. But the subject's not closed if there's a
> better way...
>
> Rocky Smolin
> Beach Access Software
> http://www.e-z-mrp.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim Lawrence (AccessD)" <accessd at shaw.ca>
> To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving"
> <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
> Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 3:46 AM
> Subject: RE: [AccessD] Date Format Again
>
>
> > Hi Rocky:
> >
> > Why not just store your expiry date in 'yyyymmdd' format. It can then
> > be used as a date or string and will still validate and sort
> > correctly. Then just DateSerial and Format their date, as previously
> > described to match
> your
> > expiry date....
> >
> > Dim TheirDate as Date
> > Dim MyExpiryDate as String
> >
> > TheirDate = Date
> > MyExpiryDate = "20040630" '30 June 2004
> >
> > if str(format(DateSerial(Year(TheirDate), Month(TheirDate),
> > Day(TheirDate)),"yyyymmdd")) >= MyExpiryDate then
> > MsgBox "Your viewing time has expired, please contact....
> > end if
> >
> > HTH
> > Jim
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin
>
> > - Beach Access Software
> > Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 9:18 AM
> > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> > Subject: Re: [AccessD] Date Format Again
> >
> >
> > Drew:
> >
> > The date is encoded in three characters in the key - one for month,
> > one
> for
> > day, one for year. I encode it from mm/dd/yy because I'm an
> > ethnocentric American. But the system may be shipped anywhere in the
> > world where they may be using little known date formats like dd/mm/yy.
> >
> > So when I uncode the expiration date from the key I have to know
> > whether
> to
> > create an mm/dd/yy date or a dd/mm/yy date. I think. (There's
> > probably a better way, but I don't know what it is.)
> >
> > In the Taiwan case, they were using the (popular if common) American
> > date but had chosen yyyy-mm-dd for the short date format. Which
> > caused another problem.
> >
> > So now I'm thinking that instead of assembling the expiration date I
> > could just keep the month, day, and year in separate strings and use
> > date serial to compare to the date serial of the system date? Is that
>
> > where you're trying to lead me? Like:
> >
> > DateSerial(varExpireYear, varExpireMonth, varExpireDay) <
> > DateSerial(DatePart("yyyy",Date), DatePart("m",Date),
> > DatePart("d",Date)
> >
> > ?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Rocky Smolin
> > Beach Access Software
> > http://www.e-z-mrp.com
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <DWUTKA at marlow.com>
> > To: <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
> > Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 8:53 AM
> > Subject: RE: [AccessD] Date Format Again
> >
> >
> > > Again, why Rocky? A date is a date. If you are 'encoding' it, you
> > > know
> > the
> > > format you have encoded it as. So if you are encoding mm/dd/yy, and
>
> > > you want to compare it to the local date, then just use DateSerial.
> > >
> > > It doesn't matter what region you are in, you are setting the
> > > encoding
> to
> > > the format that you want, right?
> > >
> > > Drew
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> > > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Rocky
> > > Smolin - Beach Access Software
> > > Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 10:23 AM
> > > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> > > Subject: Re: [AccessD] Date Format Again
> > >
> > >
> > > Jim:
> > >
> > > One problem - I'm not using a regular date. I'm assembling the date
> which
> > > is encoded in a key. So to build the date, I need to know the
> > > format to construct it in - mm/dd/yy or dd/mm/yy.
> > >
> > > I then compare it to the system date to see if the license has
> > > expired.
> > >
> > > Rocky
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Jim Lawrence (AccessD)" <accessd at shaw.ca>
> > > To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving"
> > > <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
> > > Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 6:04 PM
> > > Subject: RE: [AccessD] Date Format Again
> > >
> > >
> > > > Hi Rocky:
> > > >
> > > > Why do you not use this piece of code to check the date. It does
> > > > not
> > > matter
> > > > what is the format of the date, in which region because a Day is
> > > > still
> a
> > > > day, a Month is still a month and so on... The following code will
> > > translate
> > > > any date.
> > > >
> > > > if format(DateSerial(Year(Date), Month(Date),
> > > > Day(Date)),"yyyymmdd") > MyCutoffDate then...
> > > >
> > > > Just pick your required result format.
> > > >
> > > > HTH
> > > > Jim
> > > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> > > > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Rocky
> Smolin -
> > > > Beach Access Software
> > > > Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 8:06 AM
> > > > To: AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
> > > > Subject: [AccessD] Date Format Again
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Dear List:
> > > >
> > > > I thought I had the date format problem solved but in Taiwan they
> > > > use
> > the
> > > US
> > > > format but they've got their machines set to yyyy-mm-dd.
> > > >
> > > > The problem is that I have a license expiration date encrypted in
> > > > a
> key
> > > and
> > > > so the routine that decodes the key yields (among other things)
> > > > the expiration date which I compare to the system date.
> > > >
> > > > So I guess I'm going to have to use an API to get the regional
> > > > setting
> > for
> > > > short date format? I've been mucking around in the Knowledgebase
> > > > but
> > > can't
> > > > seem to find what I want.
> > > >
> > > > Does anyone know the format for retrieving this item?
> > > >
> > > > I guess I will have to use a Select Case on the short date format
> > > > to
> do
> > > the
> > > > decryption to yield a short date in the local format. And just
> > > > add
> > cases
> > > as
> > > > I find more short date formats.
> > > >
> > > > MTIA,
> > > >
> > > > Rocky Smolin
> > > > Beach Access Software
> > > > http://www.e-z-mrp.com
> > > >
> > > > --
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