Streamlining my old IBM Thinkpad?

[tyme]

I have to run IE in order to use a personal security certificate.

Is that an ordinary client SSL cert or something more complex like a cert on a smartcard?

[Monkeyleg]

It's a certificate that's created by Persits. On their website I enter the name of the certificate, submit it, get the code for the personal certificate, install the certificate in IE, and then copy the encryption code into my shopping cart software. With this setup, credit card information can only be viewed on the computer that has the certificate.

[AZRedhawk44]

I need Excel 2003 or later in order to import the data into SQL databases.

Untruthiness, from the lips (er, fingers) of a DBA and developer.

You do need "something" to import data into SQL, but Excel is a gawd-awful tool for importing to SQL.

If using SQL 2000, get Enterprise Manager installed on your computer and learn how Data Transformation Services works.  Easy-peasy and ninja-smooth.  If on SQL 2005, DTS was sunsetted in favor of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) which sucks... but some legacy DTS-like elements are still available for data import purposes using the SQL Management Studio product.

I'd rather write a whole VB application than use SSIS, I hate it so much.  I've yet to play with SQL 2008 and see how data imports work in that new product, but I'm not exactly up-beat about what they probably did to deliberately obfuscate data import even further.

[Monkeyleg]

Maybe I should clarify. My distributors update their inventory each day and have it available online for download in a tab delimited Excel file. I use DTS to import data from the Excel files into SQL Manager. For whatever reason, though, DTS requires Excel files created from the 2003 edition of Excel or later. At least that's what I was told.