I am really impressed with myself… I now have software working that will automatically generate reports for me and email them out. Even better it will combine a number of reports into the same email, and send them all out at once. The software is not yet finished but it is working. I think that there is some debugging to be done, particularly to make it bulletproof.

When I was telling a client I was working on this, his comment was immediatly ‘So, you have heard about CRD‘ which he assumed I was using. This program apparently generates nice reports, which is fine if you are connecting straight to database tables. But since I am not I am unable to use this program. Licensing wise it is actually cheaper to do things how I am right now since Crystal Reports has some interesting licensing terms.

Whilst working on this I found a couple of interesting VB.NET functions…
Dim strFilename As String = System.IO.Path.GetTempFileName()
system.io.file.delete
The first creates a unique filename for you to use as a temporary file. The second deletes a file. Useful.

Some strange news from the USA. According to Kron, details of some items on the US list of ‘Critical Infrastructure’ as defined by the Department of Homeland Security. Sources indicate that Emerald Hills Golfland, a three-acre theme park with two miniature golf courses had been added to the list. Nice to know that Put Put Golf is critical!