E Commerce And Online Trading Information Technology Essay

E Commerce And Online Trading Information Technology Essay E-commerce has made a great impact on business activity culture. Customer can shop online in privacy at their own houses. This is also strength small businesses to close their doors, or modify to being completely online. It can also change people approach to look at making purchases decision and spending money. Ecommerce also changed the retailer picture, promotions, services, and other things that make our market work. Undeniably, it will continue to pressure how can companies sell and market their products/services, as well as people choose to make purchases in coming years. Selling through the websites is the best method of increasing trade worldwide. Two forms of e-commerce: First form is mostly used as a business trading where companies mostly meet each other and share information through the World Wide Web. The other form is that, where companies taken orders from the customers through web site and also prepared their order to satisfy their need. HASM have many different types of products and services that are traded or selling online including audio equipments new and used both. All companies who used e-tailing or e-trading definitely have their own websites for their business requirement/needs. Trading online Trading online facilitate businesses to attain larger audiences while also cutting the costs of traditional retailing methods of sales. It is not necessary that a web company have to spend on bigger high street markets for their presence. Although the expenditure on developing a good website is substantial and the potential benefits can be massive. Any group of businesses who is running successful business as a result of the development of the web are ability suppliers of items. Ecommerce Impact On Business Impact of Ecommerce on the economy globally Marketing and Product promotion E-commerce helps the products promotion and services during direct sale, information providing and customerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s connections. Sales channel/path E-commerce creates a new flow channel for existing products. It facilitates direct contact of customers and the bi-directional contact. Cost Reduction/savings The way of delivering information to end customers over the Internet results in major savings to senders when compared with any method. Most savings also realized in delivering digitized products against physical delivery. Cycle time The delivery of products and services can be reduced to minimum time frame. Also, the organizational work related to corporate delivery facility, also across international borders sale can be reduced considerably, cutting the cycle time by more than ninety percent. Customer service approach Customer service can be greatly improved by enable clients to find comprehensive information online. Also, sharp agents can answer standard quarry in seconds and human experts contact can be expedite using automatic software. Business image New customers can create corporate images very quickly. Corporate reflection means expectation, which is very important necessary for direct sales. Marketing Impacts Customization Ecommerce provide for customization of products/services, in response to buying in a store or ordering through television, which is normally limited to standard products only. Advertising Direct marketing and customization is very effective than mass advertisement. This creates a essential changer in which advertisement is conducted to change the existing customer behaviour with product but also for the new customer demands and their behaviour towards products and services. Ordering System Orders recived from customers can considerably be improved if it is happen by online system and through internet. Through electronically, orders can quickly be sent to the appropriate department and place. This saves time and reduces expenses. This can give sales-work force more time to sell the product/services. Also, customers can add the cost of their orders through saving time for all parties involved inthe activity. Markets The physical market disappears because the need to deliver the goods/services to the market. In market space, an electronic place where items are delivered directly to buyers/suppliers when purchase is completed online and making the markets cost effective and efficient. Technology behaviour and Organizational learning behaviour Speedy progress in Ecommerce customers and staff, companies to settle quickly to the new technology and offer customers an opportunity to deal with new products/services such as HASM in new and used audio systems and tools. Changing Work Nature The work nature and employment also be transformed in the computer Age. The computer Age work force should have to become flexible. Few of them consistently have secure jobs in the complex environment and all of work force/staff have to willing and able to frequently learn skills and make decisions, and stand behind in complex environment. New product features Ecommerce allows new products to be formed and existing products to be modified in innovative ways. These changes may be satisfied organizations missions and the way in which they have to survive. Ecommerce can also allow supply the suppliers to collect personalized customers data sheet and buying behaviour. Building customer profiles on the basis ofcollecting data on certain customers group and can be used as a information source for improving products/services or designing new ones. Manufacturing Impact Ecommerce is also changing manufacturing systems from mass production to the demand and supply chain process and also on the need of customers. Finance Impact Ecommerce needs a very special finance and accounting systems. Traditional payment systems, which are ineffective and inefficient for electronic trade, because there is no physical availability/presence of staff. Ecommerce is any type of business activities that is selling and purchasing of products and services carried out over web based systems for the approach of getting far away customers. Advantages and Disadvantage: HASM electronic commerce is also categorized by advantages and inbuilt drawbacks of web. Some of these important advantages and disadvantages are as follows: With the use of fast and rapid scale of internet technology and strong online techniques and software, companies can get many advantages of Ecommerce but also some disadvantages as well but also having a reason of some problems: Advantages: Fast buying and selling method, as well as effortless to find any products type. Buying convenience and selling convenience, round the clock 24/7. Wider reach to customers, there is no geographic limitations for selling product. As compare to the stores low operational costs for product and better quality of services can be provided. Physical company set-ups are not necessary. Undemanding start and manage a business. Business or individual to reach the global market is simple and easy. Electronic commerce gives the customers the chance to look for cheaper and quality products. Ecommerce cuts down the cost attached with marketing once is being launched and working and also on customer care, processing stage, and information storage and inventory management. Disadvantages: Any one, good or bad, can easily set up a business website and there are many bad sites which fool customers. There is no assurance of product quality. There are many internet hackers just waiting for any opportunity and then an ecommerce site, service, payment gateways can cause attack in any business. Mechanical failures can be reason of unpredictable effects on the total processes. Least chance of direct customer to company interactions, and also customer loyalty is always on a test. Perishable items such as foods are also not very convenient and nor predictable due to small life cycle.

Shakespeare Breaks the Way for Feminism Essay -- ophelia, hamlet, gende

â€Å"Gender hardly determines the nature of a character, in the plays of Shakespeare. It is for this very reason, that his plays are read, viewed and enjoyed by both the sexes equally, even after five hundred years of their composition† (Singh). Gender is not something that defines what a character is going to be like in Shakespeare’s plays. This quote illuminates that in Shakespeare’s writings females and males were on equal level playing fields when it came to their traits. Females during the time period were considered inferior to men. Over the course of the semester, we have read some beautiful plays from comedies to tragedies; Shakespeare’s later plays exhibited an extensively wide range of female characters from the weak, obedient to the strong, empowering woman. One of the examples of this would be Ophelia in Hamlet exhibits weak and obedient characteristics whereas Viola in Twelfth Night is a strong female role that breaks the gender roles by disguising herself as a male and proving women are equivalent to men. Even Shakespeare’s weakest female characters seem to break some of the stereotypical role of the period. For example, Ophelia does listen to her father, however, talks back to Hamlet which during the Renaissance breaks the stereotypical role. Shakespeare was an early feminist because of his nontraditional female characters; despite his weak female characters, Shakespeare still provides his female characters with some trait that follows a nontraditional role. I will focus on in this paper are King Lear, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. I will use Hamlet to show that even the weakest of female characters have gender breaking characteristics. A feminist is someone who is trying to advocate for the equality of women. I believe ... ...ed Atkin, Graham. Twelfth Night : Character Studies. London: Continuum, 2008. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 13 Apr. 2014. Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare without women. Routledge, 2002. Jajja, Muhammad Ayub. "Women In Shakespearean Comedies: A Feministic Perspective." Journal Of Educational Research (1027-9776) 16.1 (2013): 112-119. Education Research Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. Orgel, Stephen, and Sean Keilen. Shakespeare and Gender. New York: Garland Pub., 1999. Online text. Sharma, Pankaj. "Depiction Of Woman As Human: A Reading Of Excesses Of Feminist Readings Of Shakespeare's King Lear." Language In India 13.12 (2013): 433-446. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. Singh, Rahul. "Shakespeare's Plays: Men Celebrated, Women Despised?." Language In India 14.2 (2014): 141-156. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2014

Accounting for leases Essay

Abstract This paper will provide an overview of lease accounting. It will present the history, current status, and future implications of the latest proposed standard, as jointly issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Furthermore, the paper will take into account relevant observations made by various proponents who are concerned about the standard, and conclude with a personal opinion on the standard and why it’s better than the current standard. Existing accounting standards between the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) have allowed corporations to avoid reporting assets and liabilities via â€Å"operating leases.† Thus, it has become common practice for corporations to utilize these operating leases as a source of deceptive financing—by being able to materially mislead creditors and investors due to off balance sheet accounting. Lease accounting is a classic example (or phenomenon) that shows how people tend to exploit accounting standards in order to violate the â€Å"substance over form† accounting principle (where the economic reality can be distorted from the legal reality). The history of lease accounting is an interesting one. In 1976, FASB released Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 13 – Accounting for leases. Since then, the accounting standard allowed companies to report some leases as an asset and a liability (i.e. capital/finance leases), and other leases as a non-asset and non-liability (i.e. operating leases). However, since the FASB-IASB convergence project began (from the 2002 Norwalk Agreement), they have reached a general consensus with investors that in many instances, operating leases can be misleading and could cover up material amounts of credit risk of a given company. It is interesting to note that such an issue had already been acknowledged by the late 70s, shortly after FASB released SFAS 13 (Kieso, Warfield, & Weygandt, 2004, p.1119). The issue was momentarily brought up again during the early 90’s for resolution, but was sharply protested by corporate interests and subsequently dismissed (Norris, 2013). Only now, has there been serious reconsideration of the standard; and can demonstrate how long it can take for accounting standards to respond back to the needs of financial statement users. On June 16, 2005, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in response to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002, publically released â€Å"On Arrangements with Off-Balance Sheet Implications, Special Purpose Entities, and Transparency of Filings by Issuers.† This public statement proposed several important goals and recommendations, among them a proposal to improve accounting for leases. By July 2006, the FASB and IASB established a Work Plan, in order to improve the standard for lease accounting (â€Å"Work Plan for IFRS – Leases,† 2013). The project has yet to be completed. Details about its current status will be described next. On May 16, 2013, FASB-IASB has released their latest exposure draft on accounting for leases. Based on user feedback, this draft arose from earlier draft iterations that were released in March 2009 and August 2010 (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 1). If approved, the draft would supersede IFRS IAS 17 and FASB Topic 840 (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 2). As a result of this draft, FASB-IASB will also attempt to concurrently update revenue recognition standards accordingly, as the latest proposal intends to make sure the  accounting for revenues and expenses for both the lessor and lessee will be consistent with each other (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 1). Furthermore, there are still some minor differences that exist between the FASB and IASB drafts, among them being: revaluations, cash flow, disclosure, non-public entities, and measurement issues (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, pp. 4-5). The feedback deadline for this draft is September 13, 2013 (â₠¬Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013). As it turns out, this draft decided to take a much more prudent approach (compared to earlier proposals) towards lease accounting, allowing standards similar to SFAS 13 to remain applicable in practice for any leases that have terms of 12 months or less†¦ or if it is a â€Å"Type B† lease (which will all be further explained below) (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 3). In effect, this would allow lessors to continue to structure their lease terms accordingly, which allows lessees the ability to renew these short-term leases in order to continue to practice off balance sheet financing. So what’s the current proposal to account for lease terms that are more than 12 months? First, the exposure draft would require entities that enter such a leasing contract to recognize the â€Å"right of use† asset and its associated liability (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 2). Second, the draft requires the entities to recognize the underlying â€Å"nature† of the asset as being either: Type A (non-property) or Type B (property) (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 2). Third, the draft requires the lessee to assess how much economic benefit it reasonably expects to derive from the â€Å"right of use† asset (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 2). Furthermore, the draft has guidelines for both the lessee and the lessor. These accounting guidelines will be described next—first for the lessee, then for the lessor. For the lessee, if the lease is Type A, the lessee is required to recognize the associated Leased Asset and Lease Obligation on the Balance Sheet (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 2). The asset could be depreciated, and the respective portions of the Lease Obligation are to be listed under the Liability and Debt sections of the balance sheet, respectively. The asset and associated liability is to be initially measured by using the â€Å"present  value† method (where the initial account balances reflects the present value of the future amount) in order to account properly for Interest Expense payments made during the whole course of the Lease Obligation (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 2). The lessor is required to de-recognize the Leased Asset from the Balance Sheet. In its place, the lessor must recognize the Lease Receivable and Residual Asset (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 3). The assets are also initially measured using the same present value method , in order to account properly for the interest earned apart from the Lease Revenue throughout the whole term of the lease (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 3). If the lease is Type B, the exposure draft proposes that both the lessee and the lessor should account for the lease as an operating lease if the lessee is NOT â€Å"expected to consume more than an insignificant portion of the economic benefits embedded in the underlying asset† (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 3). Thus, the lessor would continue to recognize the underlying asset, while the lessee simply account for the annual lease expense (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 3). Again, this accounting treatment is the same for any leases that have terms of 12 months or less. Keep in mind however, that if the lessee were to consume a significant portion of the economic benefits under a Type B lease, the accounting treatment for both the lessee and lessor would be similar to a Type A lease (â€Å"Exposure Draft,† 2013, p. 2). In this case, the lessee would be required to recognize an asset and liability from the property lease. I believe such proposal was intended, as it allows companies to gradually adjust to the new treatment standards, whereby future amendments could someday require all short-term leases (and Type B leases) to be capitalized to better reflect the economic reality of â€Å"short-term† lessees. So, what do the proponents of the exposure draft think of the new standard and its impact on the future? As expected, there are some who agree with the draft and others who think otherwise. Dhaliwal, Lee, and Neamtiu (2011) did a quantitative and qualitative empirical study—of which evidence suggests â€Å"that lessees bear insufficient risk to treat the leasehold as an asset† (p. 193). This implies that the new proposal would not significantly increase the cost of capital for any firms that would have to start capitalizing  their operational leases. Cotton, McCarthy, and Schneider (2012) found that most firms under current lease accounting are able to combine associated obligations from their capitalized leases with other obligations (p. 118). This would not be allowed under the new proposal, thus improving transparency and quality of information to investors. Middelberg and Villiers (2013) did a similar study, of 40 JSE-listed (South Africa) companies. Interestingly, their findings within this study suggest that the cost of financing would increase for firms that would have to capitalize operating leases. Their findings suggest that companies should expect to experience the following changes to their financial ratios: Debt-to-equity to increase by 9%, Debt ratio to increase by 8%, and the Interest cover ratio to decrease by 8% (Middelberg & Villiers, 2013, p. 663). This implies that the new proposal would cause investors to see such companies as higher investment risks, thus increasing borrowing costs. Burton (2013) doesn’t believe in the new proposal, instead suggesting that the current standards be amended to address the areas that are vulnerable to exploitation. He thinks the FASB should consider revising the four criteria provided in SFAS 13 that determines if a lease should be capitalized. In particular, he encourages the FASB to change the 90% present value rule—which currently impose no such requirements for lessors to reveal the actual discount rate to the lessee. As a result, lessors are able to keep the leased asset on their books as a capital lease by using a low discount rate, while the lessee can use a higher, in-house discount rate in order to avoid the need for capitalizing the lease. Quah (2013) reasoned that the proposed changes could have a more significant effect on retailers, as they are known to have major property leases. In particular, she notes that as the liabilities increase from capitalizing such leases, it would have negative effects on debt, employee compensation, and tax balances. This could cause major implications, as retailers (department stores, discount chains, convenience stores) are key economic players in the economy. Similarly, it would effect other major industries—such as real-estate, major airlines, and shipping firms. Norris (2013) made a point that the new proposal could cause some revenue (income statement) challenges, as the present valuation methods would cause lessees to incur higher interest payments during the earlier years of the leased assets. This could especially be disappointing for early  business startups (that typically need to take out more loans) and for any firms needing to maintain a lower cost of capital (that they would have otherwise been able to receive under operational lease accounting). Taken all together, the aforementioned observations basically imply that the future impact of the new proposal on lease accounting would effect all the major players within the economy, especially the retail, real-estate, and tran sportation industries. Furthermore, there is likelihood that higher borrowing costs would result for some of these businesses, forcing them to possibly reduce employee benefits and/or compensation in order to better align their financials to changing budget forecasts. On the other hand, investors will have access to higher quality, transparent information—reducing uncertainty and risk to maintain lower interest rates. And as I mentioned earlier, the proposal still gives lessors and lessees the opportunity to restructure their lease terms for annual renewal, avoiding the need to capitalize such leases and to keep them â€Å"off the books.† But by doing so, it would imply higher legal costs for some of these lessors and lessees, and thus, act as a deterrent in support of the new standard for capitalizing leases. I feel the FASB-IASB is wise to have taken a more balanced approach for changing the requirements of lease accounting. By doing so, it allows the majority of companies to readjust their accounting policies to better reflect economic reality (instead of legal reality). Also, the more transparent and specific requirements stated in the proposal for reporting liabilities and debt in the financial statements will have a long-run, positive impact—as it ultimately helps reduce uncertainty between investors and management. I feel these benefits will outweigh the costs (including the transitional-related costs that entities would have to pay in order to update their accounting policies and methods). Besides, these new accounting costs will be reduced over time anyway, as firms become accustomed to the new standard. In summary, by forcing companies to report more honestly to investors, it induces management to better utilize their resources in order to maintain healthy margins, instead of resorting to fraudulent activities. Thus, I believe that the standard is a win-win for both internal and external parties, as it better forces them to manage their resources more responsibly, and prevents management from supporting an exploitative culture that had been taking place during the past 25+ years  with the old standard. References Burton, D. (2013, May 22). Lease-Accounting Rules: Tinker, Don’t Trash [News Article]. Retrieved August 24, 2013, from LexisNexis Academic database. Cotton, B., McCarthy, M.G., & Schneider, D.K. (2012). A METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING INFORMATION CONTENT OF PROPOSED LEASE ACCOUNTING RULE. Journal of Theoretical Accounting Research, Fall 2012, Vol. 8 Issue 1, 113-127. Dhaliwal, D., Lee, H.S., & Neamtiu, M. (2011, April). The Impact of Operating Leases on Firm Financial and Operating Risk. Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance, Vol. 26 Issue 2, 151-197. Financial Accounting Standards Board. (2013, May 16). Exposure Draft Leases (Topic 842) [PDF Document]. Retrieved August 24, 2013, from http://www.fasb.org/cs/BlobServer?blobkey=id&blobnocache=true&blobwhere=1175826935767&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs Kieso, D.E., Warfield, T.D., & Weygandt, J.J. (2004). Intermediate Accounting 11e. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Middelberg, S.L., & Villiers, R.R. (2013, June). Determining The Impact Of Capitalising Long-Term Operating Leases On The Financial Ratios Of The Top 40 JSE-Listed Companies. International Business & Economics Research Journal. Jun2013, Vol. 12 Issue 6, 655-670. Norris, F. (2013, May 17). Accounting boards try again on leases; Revamped proposal for valuing assets would still be a radical change [News Article]. Retrieved August 24, 2013, from LexisNexis Academic database. Norris, F. (2013, May 17). New Accounting Proposal on Leasing Portends Big Change [News Article]. Retrieved August 24, 2013, from LexisNexis Academic database. Quah, M. (2013, May 18). New proposals on lease accounting under fire; Some say they are a compromise, while others feel they will raise costs for firms [News Article]. Retrieved August 24, 2013, from LexisNexis Academic database.

Relational Databases, Normalization, and SQL

A database is an application that can store and retrieve data very rapidly. The relational bit refers to how the data is stored in the database and how it is organized. When we talk about a database, we mean a relational database, in fact, an RDBMS: Relational Database Management System. In a relational database, all data is stored in tables. These have the same structure repeated in each row (like a spreadsheet) and it is the relations between the tables that make it a relational table. Before relational databases were invented (in the 1970s), other types of database such as hierarchical databases were used. However relational databases have been very successful for companies like Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft. The open source world also has RDBMS. Commercial Databases OracleIBM DB 2Microsoft SQL ServerIngres. The first commercial RDBMS. Free/Open Source Databases MySQLPostgresSQLSQLite Strictly these are not relational databases but RDBMS. They provide security, encryption, user access and can process SQL queries. Who Was Ted Codd? Codd was a computer scientist who devised the laws of normalization in 1970. This was a mathematical way of describing the properties of a relational database using tables. He came up with 12 laws that describe what a relational database and an RDBMS does and several laws of normalization that describe the properties of relational data. Only data that had been normalized could be considered relational. What Is Normalization? Consider a spreadsheet of client records that is to be put into a relational database. Some clients have the same information, say different branches of the same company with the same billing address. In a spreadsheet, this address is on multiple rows. In turning the spreadsheet into a table, all the clients text addresses must be moved into another table and each assigned a unique ID- say the values 0,1,2. These values are stored in the main client table so all rows use the ID, not the text. A SQL statement can extract the text for a given ID. What Is a Table? Think of it as being like a rectangular spreadsheet made up of rows and columns. Each column specifies the type of data stored (numbers, strings or binary data - such as images). Unlike a spreadsheet where the user is free to have different data on each row, in a database table, every row can only contain the types of data that were specified. In C and C, this is like an array of structs, where one struct holds the data for one row. For more information see Normalizing a database in the Database Design part of databases.about.com. What Are the Different Ways of Storing Data in a Database? There are two ways: Via a Database Server.Via a Database File. Using a database file is the older method, more suited to desktop applications. E.G. Microsoft Access, though that is being phased out in favor of Microsoft SQL Server. SQLite is an excellent public domain database written in C that holds data in one file. There are wrappers for C, C, C# and other languages. A database server is a server application running locally or on a networked PC. Most of the big databases are server based. These take more administration but are usually faster and more robust. How Does an Application Communicate With Database Servers? Generally, these require the following details. IP or Domain name of the server. If it is the on the same PC as you, use 127.0.0.1 or localhost as the dns name.Server Port For MySQL this is usually 3306, 1433 for Microsoft SQL Server.User Name and PasswordName of the Database There are many client applications that can talk to a database server. Microsoft SQL Server has Enterprise Manager to create databases, set security, run maintenance jobs, queries and of course design and modify database tables. What Is SQL?: SQL is short for Structured Query Language and is a simple language that provides instructions for building and modifying the structure of databases and for modifying the data stored in the tables. The main commands used to modify and retrieve data are: Select - Fetches data.Insert - Inserts one or more rows of data.Update - Modifies existing row(s) of dataDelete - Deletes rows of data. There are several ANSI/ISO standards such as ANSI 92, one of the most popular. This defines a minimum subset of supported statements. Most compiler vendors support these standards. Conclusion Any nontrivial application can use a database and a SQL-based database is a good place to start. Once you have mastered the configuration and administering of the database then you have to learn SQL to make it work well. The speed at which a database can retrieve data is astonishing and modern RDBMS are complex and highly optimized applications. Open source databases like MySQL are fast approaching the power and usability of the commercial rivals and drive many databases on websites. How to Connect to a Database in Windows using ADO Programmatically, there are various APIs that provide access to database servers. Under Windows, these include ODBC and Microsoft ADO. [h3[Using ADO So long as there is a provider- software that interfaces a database to ADO, then the database can be accessed. Windows from 2000 has this built in. Try the following. It should work on Windows XP, and on Windows 2000 if youve ever installed MDAC. If you havent and want to try this, visit Microsoft.com, do a search for MDAC Download and download any version, 2.6 or higher. Create an empty file called test.udl. Right click in Windows Explorer on the file and do open with, you should see Microsoft Data Access - OLE DB Core Services. This dialog lets you connect to any database with an installed provider, even excel spreadsheets! Select the first tab (Provider) as opens by default at the the Connection tab. Select a provider then click Next. The data source name shows the different types of device available. After filling in username and password, click the Test Connection button. After you press the ok button, you can open the test.udl with file with Wordpad. It should contain text like this. [oledb] ; Everything after this line is an OLE DB initstring ProviderSQLOLEDB.1;Persist Security InfoFalse;User IDsa;Initial Catalogdhbtest;Data Source127.0.0.1 The third line is the important one, it contains the configuration details. If your database has a password, it will be shown here, so this is not a secure method! This string can be built into applications that use ADO and will let them connect to the specified database. Using ODBC ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) provides an API based interface to databases. There are ODBC drivers available for just about every database in existence. However, ODBC provides another layer of communication between an application and the database and this can cause performance penalties.