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  Web http://www.klippert.com


  Wednesday, September 30, 2009 – Permalink –

When 28 is 30

How long is a month?


When you use the banker's DAYS360 function to calculate the number of days between two dates, you can get an odd answer.

If you use the DAYS360 function with a start date of February 28 and with an end date of March 28, a value of 28 days is returned.
You expect a value of 30 days to be returned for every full month. (12*30=360)

This behavior may occur if you use the U.S. method, also known as the NASD method, with the DAYS360 function.

To work around this behavior, use the European method with the DAYS360 function. With the European method starting dates and ending dates that occur on the 31st of a month become equal to the 30th of the same month. To use the European method with the DAYS360 function, use the following syntax: 

=DAYS360(cell number of start date,cell number of end date,TRUE)

Using FALSE or omitting the third parameter uses the U.S. method

Support.microsoft.com
An unexpected value with the DAYS360 function


[Edited entry from 9/6/2006]



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<Doug Klippert@ 3:18 AM

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  Tuesday, September 29, 2009 – Permalink –

Collection of the Good Ones

Striking sites


Here is a collection of well designed sites that make use of CSS.

How do you pick the sites?

Well first they have to be done in CSS. Tables can only be used for tabular data. Second they just have to look good to me. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so I do not expect every site that is posted to be liked by everyone or even anyone. Also do not expect a site to be posted just because you sent it in.

With the large amount of submissions I get daily and the increasing number of showcase sites, getting your site into the Vault will now be more challenging. I look for use of color, typography, whitespace, IA and how they all fit overall in the site's structure.



CSSVault.com



[Edited entry from 9/4/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:58 AM

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  Monday, September 28, 2009 – Permalink –

It's Your Move

Do the
Hucklebuck


Echosvoice.com has some sample animations techniques you can borrow.



  • Grow/Shrink

  • Jeopardy (exit animations)

  • Text crawling across slide during bulleted list

  • Text crawling across slide continuously

  • PPT 2002/XP vs 2000 (transitions and animations)

  • Modifying animations for just a few slides

  • Animating bulleted text

  • Animating bulleted text individually

  • Star Wars Credits

  • Adding Animation vs Changing Animation

  • Using Triggers
Animation Features

Also see:
Animation Videos



[Edited entry from 9/2/2006]



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<Doug Klippert@ 3:58 AM

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  Sunday, September 27, 2009 – Permalink –

Hold the Book in Your Hand

DaVinci and friends


It's close to impossible to be able to physically handle a classic text by Mozart, Jane Austin or others.

There is a way to get pretty close. Look at:
Turning the Page



This was brought to my attention by
BookofJoe.com



[Edited entry from 9/1/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:58 AM

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  Saturday, September 26, 2009 – Permalink –

Reduce Trips to the Toolbox

Save shoe leather


When you add controls to forms and reports you'll often need to add several of the same type, such as when creating a group of option buttons or a series of unbound text boxes. In such cases, repeatedly moving between the Toolbox and the object you're designing can quickly become tedious.

Fortunately, you can make the process easier. When you select the control you want to add from the Toolbox, double-click the control button (like double-clicking the Format Painter). Doing so lets you add as many controls of that type as you need. When you finish, click the button again to disable the control tool.



[Edited entry from 8/31/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:07 AM

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  Friday, September 25, 2009 – Permalink –

Format Cleansing

Go back to a simpler time


There can come a time when a document becomes too complicated and the formatting appears more like mud.

For most documents it's a good idea to use styles. These help standardize the formatting for the whole document. But what happens when the paragraph or word doesn't appear in the correct style? While a style is set for each paragraph, it can be overridden by separate formatting for all or part of the paragraph. When you paste in text from another document or web page, it will bring with it the formatting on the source page.

Here's a quick shortcut that will remove all additional formatting from a selection and leave you with normal formatting.

Ctrl+SPACEBAR Remove character formatting

Ctrl+Q Remove paragraph formatting

To clear up the whole document try:

Ctrl+A Then one or both of the shortcuts.

To just get back to Normal Style use:
Ctrl+Shift+N



[Edited entry from 8/29/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:40 AM

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  Thursday, September 24, 2009 – Permalink –

Shut it All Down

Close the spreadsheet and Excel


As it comes out of the box, at this point, Excel 2007 is set to display spreadsheets on the task bar. No big deal 2003 did too.

If, however, you only have one workbook open and want the application to shut down when you close the book you must make a little change.

Just as before, you must deselect Windows in the Taskbar from the View Options.

In 2007 it is located by clicking on the logo icon, then choose Excel Options. The Windows entry is on the Personalize screen




[Edited entry from 8/29/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:42 AM

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  Wednesday, September 23, 2009 – Permalink –

Insert Page Numbers

Don't get framed


If you use Insert>Page Numbers to number your document, the character will be contained in a frame.

This can, sometimes, make formatting the Header or Footer difficult.

A more versatile solution is to use Insert>Field.
Look for PAGE and NUMPAGES.

See:
Word.MVPS.org:
How to control the page numbering in a Word document

"Page X of Y" gives wrong numbers

Texas A&M University:
Placing the page number correctly on a landscape page


There is, also, an excellent discussion about how Word handles numbering at the
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ Site

[Edited entry from 8/27/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:40 AM

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  Tuesday, September 22, 2009 – Permalink –

Online Crash Analysis

May you never need it



Windows Memory Diagnostic


The Windows Memory Diagnostic tests the Random Access Memory (RAM) on your computer for errors. The diagnostic includes a comprehensive set of memory tests. If you are experiencing problems while running Windows, you can use the diagnostic to determine whether the problems are caused by failing hardware, such as RAM or the memory system of your motherboard.

Windows Memory Diagnostic is designed to be easy and fast. On most configurations, you can download the diagnostic, read the documentation, run the test and complete the first test pass in less than 30 minutes.


[Edited entry from 8/26/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:59 AM

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  Monday, September 21, 2009 – Permalink –

Should Employees Blog?

What are the rules?


Blogging has spread throughout the internet. It's not just geeks yelling in an echo room or kids babbling in MySpace. Corporate blogging is a reality.

What should the guidelines be?

Michael Hyatt has put together some suggestions for his company:
Like many companies, we have struggled with what guidance to give to our bloggers. I personally checked with several companies. None had formalized a set of blogging rules or written guidance.
One Microsoft blogger told me that the only rule his company provided was, "Be smart." I thought we probably needed a little more guidance than that, so several of us cooked up a list of "Blogging Terms and Conditions." Our corporate counsel has also had a crack at it.

Working Smart
The alternative to working hard!:
Blog Terms and Conditions


[Edited entry from 8/26/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:51 AM

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  Sunday, September 20, 2009 – Permalink –

Rewrite the Bill of Rights

A wiki for the people


Try it out. Experiment. Funny-looking wig not required!

Which is the best version?

The Second Amendment
  1. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

  2. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms within militias coordinated by the States, shall not be infringed.
It is increasingly difficult for the average person today to participate in shaping the public agenda. Most policy initiatives are drafted in back-rooms with a few individuals providing all of the input; the public is rarely involved in this process; outreach to others is not a standard practice.
Along with these imposing barriers to entry, television, radio and print meda are largely accessible in only one direction, with little interactivity or opportunity for everyday citizens to contribute ideas.
In contrast, more perfect offers an open public forum where everyone is a potential contributor and participants create their own content. By focusing on the written word instead of the 20-second sound bite and enabling anyone to contribute to the public discourse, more perfect offers a unique opportunity to re-invigorate the marketplace of ideas originally envisioned by our founding fathers.
  • Rewrite the Constitution of the United States
  • Edit the Bill of Rights
  • Tweak the Washington State Constitution
  • Help define the Priorities of Government for Washington
  • Revise Washington State Party Platforms: Dem/Rep
MorePerfect.org


[Edited entry from 8/23/2006]


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<Doug Klippert@ 3:39 AM

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  Saturday, September 19, 2009 – Permalink –

Disable Confirmation

Only for the brave


Access tries to prevent user errors that would have calamitous effects on data or an application by throwing up confirmation boxes before potentially dangerous actions. This provides users with an out before committing irreversible changes to the database.

Although you probably want these confirmation dialog boxes in place for end-users, you may find that they slow your work down too much. You may, also, click through the dialog boxes so quickly that they're essentially ineffective.

If you have a programmer's version of hubris, you can prevent Access from displaying confirmation dialog boxes.

To do so, choose Tools>Options from the menu bar and click on the Edit/Find tab. Then, clear the appropriate check boxes in the Confirm panel that correspond to the dialog boxes you want to suppress.

Finally, click OK.
In 2007, click the Office logo and then Access Options



Good luck, you've been warned.



[Edited entry from 8/22/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:58 AM

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  Friday, September 18, 2009 – Permalink –

Where da Store?

Pick your own location


If you need to change or just locate where Outlook stores its information:

"With Outlook closed, open Control Panel and double-click Mail. (Type Mail in the Search box.)
In the Mail Setup dialog box, click Data Files and then click Open Folder. This opens Windows Explorer using the folder where your Outlook Personal Stores (PST) file is located. The default name is Outlook.pst. Back up that file, which contains all your messages, rules, contacts, and appointments."




See more from Ed Bott:
Find your e-mail folder fast



[Edited entry from 8/22/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:58 AM

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  Thursday, September 17, 2009 – Permalink –

Lock the Barn

Protect your work



John Walkenbach has put together an FAQ on Workbook/Worksheet/VBA protection.
Spreadsheet Protection FAQ

The Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB 293445 Has a list of references to protection information.


Microsoft Excel provides multiple layers of protection to allow you to control who can access and change your data:
  • Worksheet protection: You can protect elements on a worksheet (for example, cells with formulas) from all user access, or you can grant individual users access to the ranges that you specify.
  • Workbook-level protection: You can apply protection to workbook elements, and you can protect a workbook file from being viewed and edited. If a workbook is shared, you can protect it from being returned to exclusive use and prevent the change history from being deleted.
... articles address some of the more frequently asked questions about workbook and worksheet protection in Excel:
  • How can I grant only a few users access to a range in my worksheet?
  • Why are users not allowed to edit the ranges that I established permissions for?
  • What new features are available in workbook protection?
  • Why don't the permissions that I set on ranges in my worksheets carry over to Windows 98 computers?
Here is more information
Overview of security and protection in Excel



[Edited entry from 8/20/2006]



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<Doug Klippert@ 3:41 AM

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  Wednesday, September 16, 2009 – Permalink –

Relative Font Sizes

What size are your relatives?



Relative font sizes make websites more accessible and easier to read - but they're not much help unless the person using the site can find a way to actually change text size.

Here's a simple solution for text resizing:

Power To The People: Relative Font Sizes
Article by Bojan Mihelac

Original link from Lockergnome

[Edited entry from 8/19/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:46 AM

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  Tuesday, September 15, 2009 – Permalink –

Thumbnail Sizing

Just right


You can change the size of your thumbnails by adding a new value to the registry. The range is between 32 and 256. Pick one that fits your prescription.


  1. Click Start and click Run.
  2. Type regedit and click OK.
  3. Locate the following registry key: 
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer.
  4. From the Edit menu, point to New, and click DWORD Value.
  5. Type in ThumbnailSize and press Enter.
  6. Double click the new value. Enter in a hexadecimal value between 32 and 256.
  7. Close the registry editor.
This tip was brought up by Lockergnome.com:
 Change The Size Of Your Thumbnails




[Edited entry from 8/17/2006]


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<Doug Klippert@ 3:31 AM

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  Monday, September 14, 2009 – Permalink –

BW to RGB

A Kansas trick


Have you seen The Wizard of Oz lately? The film starts out in black and white. Then when Dorothy opens the door in Oz, the movie suddenly switches to full color. Why not try the same effect in a presentation?

To see how this would work, run PowerPoint and open a blank slide. Choose Insert>Picture>ClipArt and insert any picture. Now, choose Insert>Duplicate Slide to copy the slide. Go back to the first slide now, and select the picture by clicking it. When the Picture toolbar opens, click the Image Control button (second from the left) and choose Grayscale.

Now, choose Slide Show>View Show. When the first slide appears, click the mouse to move to the second slide. The ClipArt picture remains in place, but suddenly appears in color.

Sue Whitehouse



[Edited entry from 8/16/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:12 AM

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  Sunday, September 13, 2009 – Permalink –

Combine Pharmacokinetics and Bowling

Shape the Zeitgeist



I like to jump head first into subjects that I have no understanding of at all.
Here's a site that meets the criteria. A site that discusses the book:

"Agronomic Representation of Muddles in Linguistic Theory"
by Peter Cannings

The august journal Speculative Grammarian has a long, rich, and varied history, weaving an intricate and subtle tapestry from disparate strands of linguistics, philology, history, politics, science, technology, botany, pharmacokinetics, computer science, the mathematics of humor, basket weaving, archery, glass blowing, roller coaster design, and bowling, among numerous other, less obvious fields.

SpecGram, as it is known to devotees and sworn enemies alike, has for centuries sought to bring together the greatest yet least understood minds of the time, embedding itself firmly in the cultural and psychological matrix of the global society while simultaneously illuminating, reflecting, and shaping the universal Zeitgeist.

The Speculative Grammarian


[Edited entry from 8/15/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:56 AM

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  Saturday, September 12, 2009 – Permalink –

Declaring Multiple Variables

Declare each one


When setting up a macro in VBA, if you want to declare multiple variables in one line of code, be sure to specify the type for each variable, even if the variables are the same type. Avoid code like the following:

Dim strFName, strLName, strMI As String

In such a case, only the last variable, strMI, is actually declared as a String type. The first two variables are designated by default as Variant data types.

To correctly declare the three variables, you would use the statement:

Dim strFName As String, strLName As String, strMI As String



[Edited entry from 8/14/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:52 AM

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  Friday, September 11, 2009 – Permalink –

AutoShapes

Drawing bar objects



Kim Hedrich has put together a series of basic articles on AutoShapes for TechTrax.

AutoShapesPart 1 - How to draw circles, ovals, squares and rectangles; also modifying fill and line colour

AutoShapes Part 2 - Fill Effects

AutoShapes Part 3 - Shadows and 3-D

AutoShapes - Text Inside a Shape




[Edited entry from 8/13/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:09 AM

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  Thursday, September 10, 2009 – Permalink –

Trouble with Save?

Also great notification service



You may experience issues when you try to save a Microsoft Excel file if one or more of the following conditions are true:
  • You save an Excel file to a network drive where you have restricted permissions.
  • You save an Excel file to a location that does not have sufficient drive space.
  • The connection to the Excel file has been lost.
  • There is a conflict with an antivirus software program.
  • You save an Excel file that is shared.
  • The 218-character path limitation has been exceeded when you save an Excel file.
  • The Transition Formula Evaluation feature is turned on in Excel.
  • The file was created from a template that contains embedded objects.

How to troubleshoot errors when you save Excel files. KB 271513.
Receive Free Email Alerts every time Microsoft Publishes NEW Support or Knowledge Base Articles! kbAlertz.com is an e-mail notification system that scans the entire Microsoft Knowledge Base every night, and e-mails you when updates or additions are made to the technologies, you subscribe to.
kbAlertz [Edited entry from 8/12/2006] See all Topics

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<Doug Klippert@ 3:49 AM

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  Wednesday, September 09, 2009 – Permalink –

Delegate Sends

Fill the managers Sent file


Here's a trick that your manager may find helpful. Instead of asking if a note was sent, they’ll be able to find it in their own Sent Items folder.

When messages and meeting requests are sent by a delegate, on behalf of a manager, a copy of each item is saved in the delegate's Sent Items folder; this behavior is by design.

To save sent items to the manager's Sent Items folder and not the delegate's Sent Items folder, the delegate must be logged on as the manager. This may not be acceptable because of privacy or security concerns. By design, items that are sent by a delegate cannot appear in someone else's Sent Items folder.

A solution is for the manager to grant permissions to their Sent Items folder to the delegate. The delegate can then move or copy the items from their own Sent Items folder to the manager's Sent Items folder after they open the manager's mailbox as an additional mailbox. To do this:

  1. In the Folder List, right-click the Sent Items folder, and then click Properties.
  2. On the Permissions tab, click Add.
  3. Click to select the delegate from the address list, click Add, and then click OK.
  4. Click to select the newly added name, and then click to select the appropriate permission level. Note that the Non Editing Author option is the minimum permission to set.
  5. Click Apply, and then click OK. Repeat the previous steps for the Outlook Today root level folder.
The delegate can now copy or move items to the manager's Sent Items folder.

Microsoft.com:
Save items to a manager's Sent Items folder


[Edited entry from 8/11/2006]


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<Doug Klippert@ 3:31 AM

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  Tuesday, September 08, 2009 – Permalink –

Start Pics

Change your Welcome avatar



Windows allows you to choose the picture that is displayed on the logon screen and the Start Menu.

It is absurdly easy to change the picture.

Just double click the picture that appears on the menu (as opposed to the Classic menu) and follow the prompts to Browse to the location of the graphic you want to show.



Ed Bott:

Change your picture on the Welcome screen and Start menu


[Edited entry from 8/9/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:18 AM

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  Monday, September 07, 2009 – Permalink –

Animated Animation

Some samples


The graphic designers at TLC Creative Services have compiled a set of animation demos that can be downloaded. Several quite sophisticated tricks.

The Power Of "Ping":

Create and use professional graphic images that have transparency
Let The Good Times Roll:

Learn how to make a round object literally roll onto the slide
4 Picture Animations:

Learn 4 unique animation techniques that think 'outside the box'
Master Linking Presentation:

Visual tutorial on one way to seamlessly link from one presentation to another
Formatting Best-Practices:

A sampling of the Best Practices employed here at TLC Creative Services for working efficiently and creating the highest level presentations.
Movie Across Slides:

Insert a movie and have it continue to play across multiple slides as the presentation continues. Visual step-by-step tutorial


And more -
TLCCreative.com:
PowerPoint Tutorials



[Edited entry from 8/8/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:55 AM

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  Sunday, September 06, 2009 – Permalink –

More PI, Please

Pick a piece


Is your Social Security number just part of Pi? How about your phone number?

In 1996, Arthur Bebak of Netsurfer Digest jokingly suggested the idea. I put the site online, linked from the now-defunct Useless Web Pages Pages. The original suggestion was to find your birthday in Pi, but things got out of hand. The original pi searcher featured 1.25 million digits. It was upgraded in 1998 to 50 million, in 2001 to 100 million, and in 2005, to 200 million digits to keep up with the times. The Pi Searcher has proven both exceptionally useless (see the comments) and occasionally useful to math & early science classes.

The Pi Searcher lets you search for any string of digits (up to 120 of them) in the first 200 million digits of Pi. You can also show any substring of Pi


Today's date:
The string 09062010 occurs at position 100,612,215 counting from the first digit after the decimal point.

The string and surrounding digits:

69799506351530413700 09062010 38508990326697425579

Dave Anderson at:
Angio.net:
PiQuery



[Edited entry from 8/7/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:06 AM

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  Saturday, September 05, 2009 – Permalink –

HTML Tutorials

How to HTML



Ezpression Web/FrontPage can quickly create good looking web sites. If you want more versatility and the ability to edit the underlying HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language ), look at these sites:

HTML Code Tutorial (NCSA )

Chris's FrontPage Info Web

Outfront Webmasters

And others:

FrontPage Solutions

[Edited entry from 8/6/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:26 AM

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  Friday, September 04, 2009 – Permalink –

Place Marker

If it's broke, fix it


To return to your last edit point, press Shift+F5. For instance, if you have copied and want to return to where you were in order to paste.

Press Shift+F5 again to go to up to the last three edit points, or a fourth time to return to where you started.

In Word 97 you could use this when you first open a document, to go straight back to where you last edited.

There was a change with 2000+ that broke this. The \PrevSel1 bookmark is destroyed when the document is saved.

The Word MVP site has a fix and some other interesting suggestions:

GoBack (Shift+F5) doesn't work in some newly-opened documents
Here are the bookmarks from ’97:
Predifined bookmarks



[Edited entry from 8/5/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:47 AM

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  Thursday, September 03, 2009 – Permalink –

Desktop Email Quickie

Click to create


If you need to send a note to someone on a regular basis, consider using a desktop shortcut.

Right click the Desktop and choose New>Shortcut.

Here is the command to enter in the "Type the location box".



mailto:doug@example.com,bill@example.com?subject=Centennial report&Body=This week's activities

EdBott.com:
Create instant e-mail messages

(I didn't find it necessary to add quotes to contain the spaces in the code.)



[Edited entry from 8/4/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:54 AM

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  Wednesday, September 02, 2009 – Permalink –

Dynamic Tabs

Change tab names automatically


Changing the names of tabs is easy, just double click the tab or right click and choose rename.

Allen Wyatt has a small piece of code that will automatically update the tab name based on the value of a cell in the spreadsheet.


Sub myTabName()
ActiveSheet.Name = ActiveSheet.Range("A1")
End Sub

Allen also has some error checking code on his site:

Dynamic Worksheet Tabs


Dick Kusleika suggests another way using a change event:

Naming a sheet based on a cell


[Edited entry from 8/3/2006]



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:28 AM

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  Tuesday, September 01, 2009 – Permalink –

Is It Christmas Yet?

Ideas to consider


All right, when this was posted, August was just put to bed. Still if you are going to do something for the holidays, you might want to start now.

37signals.com has a good selection of suggestions, tutorials, and links the will help you decorate your site. Elves are extra.


37signals is here to help. In these pages you'll find dozens of ideas for improving the holiday customer experience at your site. Each idea is accompanied by examples taken from top retail sites (we've visited hundreds of sites over the past two holiday seasons seeking smart techniques).


Is your Site Ready?



[Edited entry from 8/2/2006]




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<Doug Klippert@ 3:55 AM

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