(The New) Office Coach

Microsoft Results just in - does it need another Bill

2012-01-21T14:40:00.001+11:00

For your reading pleasure, here are excerpts from the famous Bill Gates memoes at the Seattle Times. Windows 7 hacker just noted some Microsoft results. Nothing like the heady yesteryear. The fountains of money - Windows and Office, are now down to one - Microsoft Office. Windows is selling lots but the income isn't as high.

The Server and Tools business is doing ok, the Entertainment business is doing ok. Sort of correlates to my perceptions. Server and Tools are moving Microsoft upstream to the IT Department and away from their core business supporters - the ones who buy PCs. Is the end user computing dead? Not by a long shot. But Microsoft's slice of the pie is getting smaller.

Remember, lots of gurus were predicting the death of the personal computer by the onslaught of terminals linked to servers? That didn't happen - but now it's mobile and tablet devices linked to the cloud - and that's real, not imagined. What share does Microsoft have in that? Some share of the server business (who, we, the end user don't see) and zilch in the tablet and the phone (devices that are everywhere).

Xbox? Yeah, that's ok but the console games business is terribly competitive and prone to fashion.

Will Windows 8 herald a new coming? Right now, I doubt it. Bringing "fat finger" from hand held mobile devices to the desktop is just uncomfortable - the desktop has the strength of precise pointing and a clean screen at arm's length.

Will Microsoft Office continue its monopoly? For me, yes because I am so, so used to the richness of functions that Excel, Access provide. But better and better web based office administration products are more than capable of making mindless robots out of workers.

Food for thought

Bullet Points in Excel

2011-10-26T17:11:00.000+11:00

Funny how things evolve. I was leading an introductory class in Excel (yes, we still have those) and one participant wanted demoes on how to use Excel to make Standard Work Procedures - yes, no calculations, just using Excel to draw non uniform tables and grids.

One seasoned Word person noted that some of the grids could have been carried out in Word but admitted that as the grids became wider and so forth, that the Word screen would scroll and sway in a wordy kind of way compared to the grid like behaviour of Excel.

The issue with Excel heavily presented textual work is planning ahead on non uniform tables - if the smallest unit of a grid is not catered for, you can't easily split big cells into smaller cells.

Another point was the infamous bullet points in Word and PowerPoint. Coincidentally, Debra Dalgleish just blogged about this same topic. Here's her video

The rebuttal to the Anti-PowerPoint Party

2011-10-26T16:57:00.000+11:00

Don't Blame PowerPoint! It's just a vehicle

View more presentations from Clear Presentation Design

The Trouble with PDFs

2011-10-24T23:24:00.001+11:00

A client was having some issues where Adobe Acrobat Standard and Reader would not display some pages inside a PDF document. The PDF document was composed of a mix of pages cut and pasted from several PDF documents.

Turns out that the Acrobat PDF standard is a moving target and there are multiple authoring apps (even hardware document scanners) which may or may not comply to one of the standards - there is an Appligent document that explains the issues - and yes it is a PDF document.

Anyway, I found that Acrobat Reader and Standard X (10.1.1) refused to display the thumbnails and the pages in a Version 1.6 document but free NitroPDF Reader 2 (and other third party readers) would display those pages. One work around with some files was to use the free and Portableapped PDFtkBuilder to export the file to a Version 1.4 document. Whether this corrected the malformed PDF or Version 1.4 compliances are less rigid, I don't know.

Excel Macro does SEO comparison

2011-10-24T23:09:00.000+11:00

I was looking at Chandoo's recent blog entry - he notes that there is an Excel macro by the Search Engine People that allows you to put in keywords, your website - it then returns a list of competitor websites ranking above your website. Nice example of VBA executing HTTP calls.

How to Insert Live Web Pages in PowerPoint Presentations

2011-10-05T19:21:00.000+11:00

Live Web allows you to embed webpages into your PowerPoint Shows:

How to Insert Live Web Pages in PowerPoint Presentations

Most Essential Tools for Presenters and Conference Organizers

2011-10-05T19:19:00.000+11:00

Amit gives a roundup of things Presenters could do:

Most Essential Tools for Presenters and Conference Organizers

The Anti PowerPoint Party

2011-09-22T23:48:00.000+10:00

As featured by Mike Elgan

The Importance of the installed Printer in Windows

2011-08-19T21:33:00.000+10:00

Ross, one of my clients was having a heck of a time trying to make sense of "CoInitialize" Automation errors in VBA. It happened in VBA commands for Page Setup. He had enlisted professional help in uinstall and re-install of Office. I thought about it and wondered whether Excel was behaving like Word - the existence of a proper printer setup is vital for these programs that need to calculate Print Previews or even calculate document line width and page rendering when they work. He reported back that this was indeed the case.

Whether you are using the Windows machine for long term or for a short teaching stint or short development / testing gig, make sure you install at least one good printer driver. Sometimes a light weight driver like a free Acrobat driver isn't even good enough.

Using Custom Number Formats to Highlight Chart Axis | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online

2011-08-19T21:14:00.001+10:00

Hui via Chandoo.org has written a fun article on the creative use of Number formatting to create unique charts.

Using Custom Number Formats to Highlight Chart Axis | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online

He's also previously written about Data Tables (no, not the new Tables feature in Excel 2010)

Data Tables & Monte Carlo Simulations in Excel – A Comprehensive Guide | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online

Thanks Hui and Chandoo for freely sharing....

Comprehensive List of Excel Keyboard Shortcuts - 97 shortcuts to boost your productivity | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online

2011-08-08T19:42:00.000+10:00

Good ol' Chandoo has a big list of shortcut keys for Excel.

Comprehensive List of Excel Keyboard Shortcuts - 97 shortcuts to boost your productivity | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online

The problem with Microsoft Excel Charts

2011-08-05T13:52:00.002+10:00

To put it succintly, Microsoft Excel charts, either work or they don't. That makes it hard to train, particularly as the learning process with charts is non linear and the user interface is non linear as well, there are several entry points to display a menu and not all entry points are obvious. This is particularly maddening considering that Excel is such a comprehensively well thought out and planned program.

For example, if you have seen several series of data points on a chart and they are drawn on different vertical scales, you have to search Excel Help (well, now, it's actually Office Help) on "secondary vertical axis"

And although it's easy peasy to use your Excel cell cursor to highlight a chartable range and press F11, again, Excel maddeningly makes glaringly bad assumptions when your proposed X axis labels are numeric - Excel assumes they are another data series. Tip: Put a leading apostrophe on your proposed X axis labels to force Excel to treat them as X axis labels. Or go the painful way of Select Chart Area > Select Data

Solver Tutorial - Step by Step - Product Mix Example - Frontline Systems

2011-08-04T13:20:00.001+10:00

And for those who were just curious where Microsoft got Excel's Solver and to see an example of use:

Solver Tutorial - Step by Step - Product Mix Example - Frontline Systems

Introduction to Microsoft Excel Array Functions « Methods In Excel

2011-08-04T12:49:00.003+10:00

I often hesitate to discuss Excel array functions with class participants in introductory levels of Excel. As much from lack of examples than anything. Here are some links

Sitting is Killing You

2011-08-02T13:57:00.000+10:00

Via: Medical Billing And Coding

Pivot Table Tips (Part 1) « Automate Excel

2011-07-25T19:29:00.002+10:00

I was once asked about how to deal with missing values in Pivot Tables. The questioner didn't actually word it that way, for him, the issue was that there was a category in the column axis that was turning out blank and "spoiling" the pivot table. Here's an interesting blog article. Pivot Table Tips (Part 1) « Automate Excel

Excel Blog - College students learn about SkyDrive and embedding workbooks

2011-06-22T10:14:00.000+10:00

Interesting article on how to embed an Excel document on Skydrive in a webpage:

Excel Blog - College students learn about SkyDrive and embedding workbooks

Microsoft Excel: The Program's Designer Reveals The Secrets Behind The Software That Changed the World 25 Years Ago - The Daily Beast

2011-06-17T21:50:00.001+10:00

Microsoft Excel: The Program's Designer Reveals The Secrets Behind The Software That Changed the World 25 Years Ago - The Daily Beast

Access 2007 compatibility with Access 2010 databases....

2011-06-16T16:22:00.002+10:00

Just a quick reference to an article on MSDN

Spreadsheets: Moving Data from PDF to Excel - - CFO.com

2011-06-14T20:13:00.000+10:00

Bill Jelen (MrExcel.com) mentioned AbleToExtract - a utility to read PDF and convert the data to Excel cells.

Spreadsheets: Moving Data from PDF to Excel - - CFO.com

10 Excel Formula Myths – Busted! | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online

2011-06-07T19:57:00.001+10:00

Good ol' Chandoo's come up with a interesting article on Excel Formulas:

10 Excel Formula Myths – Busted! | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online

Kyra asked about how to plot an Excel chart with a broken Y axis

2011-06-06T17:10:00.000+10:00

I said - "use a log scale" but that isn't a direct answer.
Supporting links are:

Building "Windows 8" - Video #1

2011-06-03T08:04:00.000+10:00

Cleaning data in Excel

2011-06-02T22:32:00.002+10:00

In class, I noted that Excel is a gigantic toolbox of tools - there are so many ways to perform a task. Some ways are old (Excel is a long lived program), some techniques are freshly designed, some are easy but limited in power, some are powerful but need more thinking. Here is the Excel 2010 help page discussing different data cleansing techniques.

Wheee! Microsoft a one click solution to follow hyperlinks

2011-05-20T20:18:00.001+10:00

For a long time, I've noticed the onerous security lockdown on Microsoft Office programs that pop up a warning message when you click on a hyperlink. This Fixit program defeats that warning.

in reference to: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925757 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Cascading Validation Drop Down Lists in Excel

2011-05-18T18:55:00.001+10:00

Tony(?) asked in class about enhancing Validation Drop Down Lists in Excel so that he could use a cascading set of three Drop Down Lists. The article hyperlink explains how to do this.

in reference to: http://www.bluepecan.co.uk/excel_training_cascading_drop_down_lists_using_data_validation.html (view on Google Sidewiki)

Pivot Table Glee

2011-05-07T08:46:00.000+10:00

A Word irritation that is easily fixed if you knew about the fix

2011-04-27T09:50:00.001+10:00

"In Word 2010 choose File > Options > Advanced tab and locate the Cut, Copy and Paste group. From the Insert/Paste Pictures as dropdown list choose Square and click Ok."

in reference to: http://projectwoman.com/wordpress/2011/04/permanently-fix-words-image-insert-behavior.html (view on Google Sidewiki)

The pesky problem when Excel via Automation won't quit

2011-04-18T22:20:00.001+10:00

Tushin Mehta explains how to resolve VBA programming issues when Excel won't exit

in reference to: http://www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/vba/xl_doesnt_quit/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excel's Fill > Justify

2011-04-11T19:01:00.001+10:00

Chandoo describes a way to merge cells

in reference to: http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/12/07/merge-cells-without-loosing-data/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Maths and Engineering use of Excel

2011-04-07T21:30:00.001+10:00

Nitin Mehta has a collection of tools.

in reference to: http://engineers-excel.com/Tools/List.htm (view on Google Sidewiki)

Database compatibility between Access 2007 and 2010

2011-04-07T12:27:00.001+10:00

Microsoft Office Knowledgebase article

in reference to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cc907897.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

I never thought I could go out with Nancy Davolio

2011-03-23T21:10:00.000+11:00

You now you're a Microsoft Access tragic when you pine for Maria Anders of Alfreds Futterkiste or want to hang out with Nancy Davolio. Seems she's just had a new life and is giving us Access Love.

Access 2010 leg up learning material from Microsoft

2011-03-18T18:56:00.001+11:00

Released as multiple downloads.

in reference to:

"Getting"
- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2fc21a6e-c752-4ead-a7f7-ec8d09c566bc (view on Google Sidewiki)

A listing of the Access 2010 vs 2007 Incompatibilities

2011-03-04T18:38:00.001+11:00

A comprehensive description of incompatible features

in reference to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-AU/office/cc907897.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

And this is the Springboard Series for Microsoft Access 2010

2011-03-04T18:36:00.001+11:00

Nice to have a hub for Access as well.

in reference to: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-AU/office/gg406142.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excel 2010 Resource Portal at Technet

2011-03-04T18:35:00.001+11:00

This appears to be labelled as the "Springboard Series" - nevermind, it seems to be a hub of links.

in reference to: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/gg605176.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

An Exhaustive Guide to working with odd Characters in Word

2011-03-02T11:53:00.001+11:00

The people at the University of Reading have created this comprehensive .pdf file on the many ways one can insert a foreign character or symbol into Word 2007.

in reference to: http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/its/Symbols2007.pdf (view on Google Sidewiki)

Classic use of the Style Area Pane

2011-01-28T12:16:00.001+11:00

Wish more people knew about it

in reference to: http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-word/archive/2010/08/09/show-me-the-style-area-pane-in-word-2010.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

Living and Breathing Excel

2011-01-15T12:24:00.001+11:00

It’s Excel’s 25th Anniversary Year. As someone who is lives and breathes Excel, it’s great to see Excel greats from Microsoft speak. People like Charles Simonyi who gave us the Hungarian Naming Convention (and influenced not only Excel VBA but many other products) had a hand in Excel. And I remember this colleague called Mei Ling – she was into Multiplan as well – when I said why? It’s R1C1 – that’s dyslexically confusing compared to Lotus 1-2-3, Supercalc, Visicalc and now Excel’s A1 (grin). Little did I know when you program Excel in VBA, it’s often easier to think in R1C1 for cell addressing. Two videos from the Office team:

History of Excel Part 1

History of Excel Part 2

del.icio.us Tags: Excel,Multiplan,Simonyi

A look back at Excel History

2011-01-14T09:55:00.001+11:00

2010 is Excel's 25th anniversary and here's news from the start up days

in reference to: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-12-27/microsoft-excel-the-programs-designer-reveals-the-secrets-behind-the-software-that-changed-the-world-25-years-ago/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Advanced Font Ligatures in Word 2010

2011-01-08T21:08:00.001+11:00

I remembered demonstrating Garbriola aesthetics in a class and promptly lost my reference. Here is the how to.

in reference to: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/13484/use-advanced-font-ligatures-in-office-2010/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Managing your Styles

2011-01-08T17:39:00.001+11:00

I’ve been teaching more than doing recently, so this start of 2011, I am by chance, having the time to work with some documents with Word 2010. The management of Styles has been enhanced and modified to some extent. I found my favourite keystrokes to strip paragraph formatting Ctrl+Q and to strip direct character formatting, Ctrl+Space didn’t do it for me. Puzzled, I looked around at how things had subtly changed.

Really, if you are writing, you don’t want to be bothered with formatting. And yet when you cut and paste, the alien paragraphs indeed look alien. First thing is to check out the default Paste attributes:

The defaults are to keep source formatting – ask yourself whether you want to change that to Merge Formatting or to Use Destination Formatting. Sure avoids all that frustrating alien looking chunks and the obsessive compulsive behaviour in cleaning up after every Paste.

If you really need to strip Paragraph and direct Text formatting, you need to get the Style Inspector. One way to get it is to click on the Styles Pane Dialog Launcher in the Ribbon – Home Tab. Then click on the icon exposing the Style Inspector. If you are going to use it frequently, consider dragging it to the left or right so that it becomes a static vertical pane (non floating).

Then all you have to do is to place your cursor appropriately in the document and hit the Reset or Clear buttons. There are four of them in All.

Notice the Clear All button. By the way, in the Styles Pane there is a Clear All pseudo style. I did try that, it didn’t seem to deliver the goods.

PowerPivot demoes on YouTube

2011-01-06T13:58:00.001+11:00

Good ol' Bill Jelen shows PowerPivot with 1.8 million records. Other PowerPivot videos on the right vertical panel in YouTube. He shows the automatic match without needing to write VLOOKUP.

in reference to: YouTube - PowerPivot Mashup (view on Google Sidewiki)

We're seldom all satisfied

2011-01-05T10:19:00.001+11:00

Here we are, Tables in Excel, in 2010, version 2 and it's got even better. But reading responses from users, people are seldom satisfied with anything, all together.....

in reference to: Table Improvements in Excel 2010 - Microsoft Excel 2010 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs (view on Google Sidewiki)

Comparing lists in Excel using conditional formatting

2010-12-30T22:59:00.001+11:00

Gee, I still prefer Microsoft Access.

in reference to: http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/06/17/compare-2-lists-in-excel/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

A nifty way to remove blank rows

2010-12-30T22:56:00.001+11:00

Chandoo says to Go To Special, Select Blanks and Ctrl+- to delete rows.

in reference to: http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/01/26/delete-blank-rows-excel/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Tables in Excel 2007, 2010

2010-12-25T13:03:00.001+11:00

A support article at Microsoft - this is a quickref sheet. One point - remember that the zebra stripes are dynamic and managed by the table but un-managed and baked in after they are converted to a range.

in reference to: Quick Reference Card - Use Excel tables to manage information - Microsoft Office (view on Google Sidewiki)

Creating formulae in Excel

2010-12-04T19:55:00.001+11:00

The tutorial page.

in reference to: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/get-to-know-excel-2010-create-formulas-RZ101862712.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excel financial functions implemented in .NET

2010-12-04T19:48:00.001+11:00

For consistency between Excel 2010 and your DIY .NET programming

in reference to: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/FinancialFunctions (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excel 2010 migration resources

2010-12-04T19:44:00.001+11:00

As mentioned at the Excel blog

in reference to: http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/archive/2010/11/16/switching-to-excel-2010-start-here.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excel and the Maths inclined

2010-11-24T21:25:00.001+11:00

Excel is now used by all and sundry. For those with higher Math in mind, here is a resource page.

in reference to: excel resources (view on Google Sidewiki)

A bunch of migration to Excel 2010 resources

2010-11-17T19:40:00.001+11:00

From the Excel Team Blog....

in reference to: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/excel/archive/2010/11/16/switching-to-excel-2010-start-here.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

Powerpoint and Presentation Learning Resources

2010-11-15T08:29:00.004+11:00

A few quick ones:

How you should say it: Do Not Steal This Presentation
Standard use of Smart Art
WizIQ Tutorials
Presentation Zen: Food for Thought
Gar Reynolds: Top Ten Slide Tips
Powerful speakers: TED

The MsgBox prompt IF…THEN…ELSE Access macro

2010-10-26T22:46:00.001+11:00

I don’t like Microsoft Access macros as much as I like VBA – I do a lot of work in VBA and know it well – although Access macros are useful in limited, simple tasks, anything that requires VBA expressions are not fun because you have to enter a VBA expression in a non VBA IDE.

Notice also, the editing environment is not conducive to using VBA Enumerations in the MSGBOX expression.

Note that Microsoft Access 2010 has enhanced the Macro Designer and added more Macro commands – you can create a macro in Access 2010 that will not survive running the same file under Access 2007. If you used VBA, you will probably need to re-compile to ensure VBA binary compatibility and keep on going.

Dynamic Named Ranges in Excel the classic way...

2010-10-26T22:37:00.001+11:00

In Excel 2007 forwards, lists that expand and contract needed OFFSET calculation. Now with the new Tables feature, we don't have to use this old method.

in reference to: Dynamic Named Ranges That Expand and Contract Automatically in Your Excel Spreadsheet (view on Google Sidewiki)

Watermark and Background in Excel worksheets

2010-10-20T22:02:00.001+11:00

Funny thing about Excel backgrounds – You’d think that

Page Layout > Background

would apply a background image to the worksheet. It does and it doesn’t. It does display the graphic on-screen but not when you print. I think.

If you want a washed out watermark, what you need to do is to

go to Page Header (or Page Footer?) section boxes.
Insert Picture
Format Picture > Picture > (Image Control) > Color > Washout

Done.

del.icio.us Tags: Excel,Excel2007,Watermark,Graphic,Background

Animated Flash Charts for Powerpoint

2010-10-07T18:25:00.001+11:00

OOMFO is a free Powerpoint Add-In - in Beta.

in reference to: http://oomfo.com/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

Getting to know PowerPivot desktop extension in Excel 2010

2010-10-02T11:17:00.001+10:00

Powerpivot can grab massive amounts of data for digestion...

in reference to: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/excel/archive/2010/10/01/top-5-ways-powerpivot-helps-excel-pros.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

Creating custom classes and objects in VBA

2010-10-01T21:30:00.001+10:00

An MSDN article

in reference to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa140954%28office.10%29.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

An article on Word application event triggering

2010-10-01T21:27:00.001+10:00

And hooking VBA code to these events

in reference to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa140279%28office.10%29.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

MSDN article on Advanced use of User Forms

2010-10-01T21:22:00.001+10:00

and creating a Multi-Step Wizard in Excel

in reference to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa192538%28office.11%29.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

An MSDN article on referring to cell ranges in Excel

2010-10-01T21:21:00.001+10:00

Haven't used .resize. Maybe I will...

in reference to: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa139976.aspx (view on Google Sidewiki)

Dick Kusleika improves the Excel formula editor

2010-09-30T23:44:00.001+10:00

Picking up the thread, enhancements to the formula editor

in reference to: Daily Dose of Excel » Blog Archive » Formula Editing Made Easier (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excel formulae in Notepad++

2010-09-29T22:17:00.001+10:00

Bob Phillips writes about using Notepad++ with custom syntax handling for Excel formulae

in reference to: Formulas Made Easy - Excel Do, Dynamic Does (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Up Folder Facility

2010-09-25T10:11:00.001+10:00

Looks like someone else other likes the good ol' Up Arrow that we used to have in classic Windows XP Explorer....

in reference to: How to add a “go up to parent folder” button in explorer for Windows 7 and Vista » freewaregenius.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Paramdeep writes about Excel NPV and other financial functions

2010-09-21T19:59:00.001+10:00

A 6 parter (actually a 5 parter since 4 and 5 are one part, but who's counting?)...

in reference to: Introduction to Financial Modeling - What is a Financial Model and how to build one? | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online (view on Google Sidewiki)

Migrating to Office 2010

2010-09-08T19:04:00.001+10:00

PDF Migration Guides, Interactive Menu to Ribbon applets (Silverlight based) and Command Reference Excel workbooks here

in reference to: Office 2010 Migration Guides - Excel - Microsoft Office (view on Google Sidewiki)

CSS Tutorials

2010-09-04T23:20:00.001+10:00

A well written but dated book by Stephen Mulder - the Web Designer's Guide to Style Sheets - Hayden Press is no longer updated and the website has disappeared. Mulder wrote summaries for webmonkey - they're very readable.

in reference to: Mulders Stylesheets Tutorial | Webmonkey | Wired.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Get the details on Microsoft Office Themes

2010-08-31T22:32:00.001+10:00

An article by Stephanie Krieger on creating Document Themes

in reference to: Creating Document Themes with the Office Open XML Formats (view on Google Sidewiki)

And here's to Gabriola

2010-08-30T19:03:00.001+10:00

She's a Font with Flourishes in Windows 7 and Office 2010

in reference to: The Importance of Gabriola | Larry Larsen | Channel 10 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excel 2010 is alluring

2010-08-21T09:26:00.001+10:00

Visicalc was never like this

in reference to: Allure Bays Corp – Department of Information (view on Google Sidewiki)

Chandoo mentioned that Peltier had broken Y Axis

2010-08-20T20:17:00.001+10:00

I just had to drop by to have a look at the technique

in reference to: Excel Chart with Broken Y Axis (view on Google Sidewiki)

Debra Dalgleish's free Pivot Table Tutorials

2010-08-19T18:39:00.001+10:00

Contexture's has several free tutorial articles, videos and books you can buy.

in reference to: Excel Pivot Table Summary Functions (view on Google Sidewiki)

Dynamic Ranges in Excel - low maintenance

2010-08-18T21:21:00.001+10:00

I like Named Ranges in Excel. They free you from remembering to $A$1 every time you need to refer to an absolute block. And Named Ranges allow you to set up a reference block away from the worksheet that contains the Data Validation in-cell drop down list.

However, one more thing, Named Ranges still don't autoexpand to handle more items added later. Use ranges overlaid onto Lists (Excel 2003) or Tables (Excel 2007 and later). Or use OFFSET and COUNTA formula directly in the Name Manager specification.

in reference to: Excel Video Lessons | Dynamic Validation (view on Google Sidewiki)

Surprise, Surprise - the VLOOKUP cheatsheet

2010-08-18T20:08:00.001+10:00

Microsoft has created (maybe more than one) Excel Quick Reference Card. This one is for VLOOKUP

in reference to: officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-au/files/818/530/AF101984660.pdf (view on Google Sidewiki)

Interesting app

2010-08-16T23:16:00.001+10:00

Haven't tried it yet - works with Powerpoint and OneNote - Microsoft Interactive Classroom - you can poll and quiz participants in a class

in reference to: Download details: Microsoft Interactive Classroom (view on Google Sidewiki)

The catalogue of Excel functions

2010-08-13T20:14:00.001+10:00

Often, in Excel classes, participants ask about Excel functions and formulae. Of course, our job as trainers is to show and tell about functions specifically how to key them in, how to handle keying errors and recover from syntax errors. I tend to tell people that Excel has so many functions (and even more in the Excel 2010 version) that as generalists we don't have the domain intimacy with specific theory used in a function. Easily getting a list of function names in the catalogue is important. Walkenbach has written several Excel books and Excel function books. Here is a listing of the functions, with hyperlinks to the Microsoft Office website.

in reference to: The Spreadsheet Page Excel Downloads: Excel 2007 Function List (view on Google Sidewiki)

Connect Access 2010 to cloud computing Azure

2010-08-09T19:05:00.001+10:00

Interesting. Remember when IT snobs say that Access is lightweight? Not big iron? How about when Access front ends to Windows Azure?

in reference to: Access 2010 and SQL Azure - Microsoft Access - Site Home - MSDN Blogs (view on Google Sidewiki)

The comprehensive Excel Range Name Manager has been updated

2010-08-09T00:09:00.001+10:00

JKP and collaborators have updated their Name Manager to support 64 bit Excel 2010. Really useful if you dig Range Names

in reference to: Name Manager (view on Google Sidewiki)

Created custom menus in Excel

2010-08-09T00:04:00.001+10:00

Here's an short and sweet article from JKP Application Development Services about the difference in custom user menus in classic Excel vs Excel 2007.

in reference to: Menu's (view on Google Sidewiki)

The different types of Webpage Layouts

2010-07-24T23:09:00.001+10:00

We were discussing the difference between static and elastic width webpage layouts in a class. Here's an interesting article

in reference to: A Guide on Layout Types in Web Design (view on Google Sidewiki)

Number and Date formats

2010-07-23T21:33:00.001+10:00

I had trouble the other day trying to find the Office Help reference for the Date formatting placeholders in Word. The good thing about the Office suite is that Word, Excel, Access all share the same formatting syntax.

in reference to: Number Formats in Microsoft Excel (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excel Pivot Table Tutorials

2010-07-23T21:30:00.001+10:00

by Debra Dalgleish - heaps and heaps of tips

in reference to: Excel Pivot Table -- Dynamic Data Source (view on Google Sidewiki)

Chandoo does conditional formatting in Excel like a rockstar

2010-07-23T21:23:00.001+10:00

Some inventive ways to use Excel conditional formatting and this does not even need the latest Excel version.

in reference to: Conditional Formatting in Excel | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel Online (view on Google Sidewiki)

Video Show and Tell on Access Services

2010-07-21T19:18:00.001+10:00

Ryan McMinn and Dick Moffat show off uploading an Access database to Sharepoint

in reference to: Developing Access 2010 Hybrid Apps with Dick Moffat | The Access Show | Channel 9 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Class programming in VBA

2010-07-19T21:01:00.001+10:00

Chip Pearson has a very readable, concise intro to VBA Classes.

in reference to: Classes In VBA (view on Google Sidewiki)

The age old Calendar Control is dropped from Access 2010

2010-07-17T19:00:00.001+10:00

It's been a while since I used the MSCAL calendar control. It's been dropped in favour of the Date and Time ActiveX picker

in reference to: Using the calendar control in Access - Access - Microsoft Office (view on Google Sidewiki)

Revised Web References

2010-07-14T08:00:00.003+10:00

Here’s a revised reading list for those who want a leg up to the world of web pages.

The authoritative and definitive source of information for is the World Wide Web Consortium (otherwise known as W3C). They discuss What is HTML, XHTML and CSS and the draft HTML5 specification.
Head over to W3Schools for tutorials on HTML, XHTML, HTML5, CSS.
ILoveJackDaniels.COM has moved on to AddedBytes. There, will find cheatsheets for CSS, HTML (as well as regexp, PHP and Python.
The Web Design Group is still around with .CHM (Windows Help) and HTML format desktop references for HTML4 and CSS
Discussions of ems vs pixels at the Web Developer Forum and a cited W3C font Tip for Webmasters and Big Baer's CSS Font Size explained - see also Jon Tan's Incredible Em & Elastic Layouts with CSS and About.Com's Using Points, Pixels, Ems or % for CSS Font Sizes
Why you shouldn't click here and other W3C Quality Tips
Colours on the web are indexed. See Big Baer's HTML Named Colours Reference.

You've got .chm compiled Help files but you can't see the content

2010-07-09T18:06:00.004+10:00

MSKB article on how to fix the viewing experience on .chm files

in reference to: Certain Web sites and HTML Help features may not work after you install security update 896358 or security update 890175 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Actually, very frustrated - followed the instructions, copied the text to the .reg file but it didn't work. Fiddled for ages, then read more MSKB articles. The article shows a UNC path to your .chm files but really the files were on my local hard drive so UNC is not appropriate. After all that reading and testing, here is text for Windows 7 .reg file - copy this into notepad, save as a .reg file and run it - I ran it from an admin account and suspected UAC and elevated security issues with Windows 7 but that was a red herring.

Note:

c:\refs is where I put the .chm files
I used both the C:\ and the file protocol - I think the file protocol was the one that solved it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\HTMLHelp\1.x]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\HTMLHelp\1.x\HHRestrictions]
"UrlAllowList"="E:\\refs;file:///E|/refs"
"EnableFrameNavigationInSafeMode"=dword:00000001
"MaxAllowedZone"=dword:00000003

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\HTMLHelp\1.x\ItssRestrictions]
"UrlAllowList"="E:\\refs;file:///E|/refs"
"EnableFrameNavigationInSafeMode"=dword:00000001
"MaxAllowedZone"=dword:00000003