arobbo wrote:
> Step 2.  How do I connect to an Access Database to gather my URLs ?
> In the past i've used ADO to connect to an MS Access database

> Step 3. How would I insert the results back into the database ?

The simple way is to export the list from the database into a text file
(CSV would be an obvious choice), get Ruby to read that text file and
write a new one, then import that back in.

The direct way is to use DBI to connect to the database from Ruby; see
http://ruby-dbi.rubyforge.org/

Your code might look something like this:

db = DBI.connect(
  "DBI:ODBC:driver=Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb); dbq=my.mdb")

list = db.select_all("select * from firms")

list.each do |row|
  ranking = get_ranking_for row['url']
  db.execute \
    "update rankings set ranking='#{ranking}' where id=#{row['id']}"
end

Cheers,
Dave