Important Considerations
Now that Jim is up and running with Oracle Developer using a Microsoft Access database, there are some important considerations. The original scenario described for Jim was that he was simply prototyping some applications. Access does not have the capability to execute PL/SQL stored procedures. Therefore, Jim cannot build these into his prototype. There are also many other features of Oracle that Jim will not be able to take advantage of.
If you find yourself connecting to an ODBC database and not able to get Oracle Developer to perform as expected, you might want to connect to an Oracle database and test it out. If it works on Oracle and not on the ODBC database, you will have to devise a workaround or switch back to Oracle.
Oracle Corporation provides a fairly large PDF file (more than 100 pages) on the Oracle Technology Web site that is dedicated to OCA (it can be found at http://otn.oracle.com/products/forms/pdf/275201.pdf). Please be sure to download the article and read it thoroughly before embarking on the task of connecting to an ODBC database with Oracle. It will provide specific information on other ODBC database connections as well as provide a list of caveats.