Jon, I could often figure out how to do what I wanted by messing around before I found it in the manual. Had an experience last year with an Access DB. I'm really good at figuring out how I should have set the tables up after I've already set them up and the thing's too complicated to re-do.

At one place I worked, I'd go into our System (IT) office, and the bookshelves were full of "Dummies" books. I asked, and they told me even they got more out of them than the 1,000 page manuals.