you should consider using a listview.... they are just so much nicer than the datagrid, especially since I see you are using it as a readonly data display...

i know sometimes people don't want someone suggesting them in the other direction and would rather fix the issue at hand...

I personally don't know how you can mask data in the datagrid, because I never use it, but I imagine there has to be a way, if there isn't you could always put that in your SQL Statement, with a select case or something along those lines

but have you used the listview in any of your other apps?