February’s quick links:

• Via my new colleague (Hi Ben), some tutorials for using QGIS and GRASS as opposed to (or in conjunction with) ArcGIS on an archaeological project
• Andlinux- a different way of accessing linux-based programmes without going through cygwin.  I’ve managed to get GRASS installed, though I haven’t tried it out in anger yet.
• A n00bs guide to installing linux programmes from source. Don’t be scared, it’s not that bad, though I’d add in how to get the command line to send it’s output to a log file for those times when it all goes wrong and you didn’t happen to catch the error as it scrolled past really fast…

Access 97 is still a popular choice for databases (especially in archaeology!) but the default ArcGIS 9.2 geodatabase is in Access 2000 format and cannot be opened in earlier versions of Microsoft Access. It is possible to create a geodatabase that can be used by both programmes.

1. Create a blank database in Microsoft Access 97 and save it to the location where you want your geodatabase to be stored. Close Access
2. In ArcCatalog, navigate to the database, and right-click to add a new object. Choose “table” rather than “feature class” or any of the other options.
3. Create a simple table called”test”, or similar- you can delete in in a minute. This creates all the geodatabase-specific tables that you need in the database.
4. Import your spatial data into the geodatabase, or create new data as required. You should now be able to access the data in both Microsoft Access and ArcGIS.

As always with geodatabases- do not delete geodatabase tables or feature classes in Access as they will remain visible in ArcCatalog. Only use ArcCatalog for deletions.