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Thursday, September 30, 2010 – Permalink –

Look for Bullets

Find lists

Unless you have used a style to create a bulleted list, it is difficult to search for them.

This macro locates any bulleted list (wdListBullet) in your document.

Sub FindBullet()
Dim rngTarget As Word.Range
Dim oPara As Word.Paragraph

Set rngTarget = Selection.Range
With rngTarget
Call .Collapse(wdCollapseEnd)
.End = ActiveDocument.Range.End

For Each oPara In .Paragraphs
If oPara.Range.ListFormat.ListType = _
WdListType.wdListBullet Then
oPara.Range.Select
Exit For
End If
Next
End With
End Sub

Other choices might be:

wdListListNumOnly: ListNum fields that can be used in the body of a paragraph.
wdListMixedNumbering: Mixed numeric list.
wdListNoNumbering: List with no bullets, numbering, or outlining.
wdListOutlineNumbering: Outlined list.
wdListPictureBullet: Picture bulleted list.
wdListSimpleNumbering: Simple numeric list.

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Labels: Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:26 AM

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010 – Permalink –

Statistical Functions

Definitions and list

Excel contains a slew of functions relating to statistical analysis.

That's a slew not a skew.

SKEW(number1,number2,...): Returns the skewness of a distribution. Skewness characterizes the degree of asymmetry of a distribution around its mean.

Positive skewness indicates a distribution with an asymmetric tail extending toward more positive values.

Negative skewness indicates a distribution with an asymmetric tail extending toward more negative values.

Statistical Functions

Training - Statistical

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Labels: Excel

<Doug Klippert@ 3:14 AM

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Tuesday, September 28, 2010 – Permalink –

Speedy Net Stuff

How fast is it?

Your connection to the internet is based on a number of factors; your machines capability, connection mode, and sometimes even the weather.
Here are some sites that let you test your up and down speed.

Speakeasy.net

BandWidthPlace.com

CNET.com

And here's a cool one from SpeedTest.net:

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Labels: Internet

<Doug Klippert@ 3:07 AM

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Monday, September 27, 2010 – Permalink –

Verbose Messages

The whole story

If you have trouble with slow startup, shutdown, logon, or logoff, you might try this procedure.
This setting allows you to configure Windows so that you receive verbose startup, shutdown, logon, and logoff status messages!

Go to Run and enter Regedit

Find or create the key in

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.

To enable verbose status messages create a new DWORD value called "verbosestatus" and set it to "1".
In order to see the messages, an additional value called "DisableStatusMessages" should be set to "0".
Restart Windows.

VerboseStatus

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Labels: Windows

<Doug Klippert@ 3:05 AM

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Sunday, September 26, 2010 – Permalink –

Speed Up the Show

Worth a try

If you have a slow machine, these tips from the Help file may speed things up:

If your presentation seems to be running slowly, try one or more of the following Settings

Reduce the resolution for the slide show presentation display.

On the Slide Show menu, click Set Up Show.
In the Slide show resolution box, click 640x480 in the list.

Note: Changing resolution may cause the slide image to be slightly shifted. If this happens, either choose a different resolution or click Use Current Resolution. Set the color depth to 16 bit for optimal performance.

On the Microsoft Windows Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
Double-click Display, and then click the Settings tab.
Under Colors, click High Color (16 bit) in the list, and then click OK.

On the Slide Show menu, click Set Up Show, and then select the Use hardware graphics acceleration check box. If your computer has this capability, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 will attempt to use it. Note: If you notice performance problems with the slide show after you change this setting, turn off the option. Your computer may not have this capability.

Also: From Microsoft Office Online:
Improve slide show performance

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Labels: PowerPoint

<Doug Klippert@ 3:48 AM

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Saturday, September 25, 2010 – Permalink –

Home School Computers Available

Need PCs?

"Our economy is at a crucial turning point. Jobs in America require technological skills and computer expertise. The CFL program places computers in our classrooms and prepares our children to contribute and compete in the 21st century.

The CFL website connects the registered needs of schools and educational nonprofit organizations with available computer equipment. The program allows federal agencies and private sector entities to transfer unneeded computers and related equipment to schools and educational nonprofit organizations, while giving special consideration to those with the greatest need."

Computers for Learning (CFL) FAQ

"Schools and educational nonprofit organizations can participate in the CFL program.

A school is eligible to participate if it is a public, private, parochial, or home school serving pre-kindergarten through grade 12 students. Day care centers must provide a state approved preschool curriculum in order to participate. "

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Labels: Addendum

<Doug Klippert@ 3:58 AM

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Friday, September 24, 2010 – Permalink –

Define Relationships by Keyboard

It's not a drag

If you've played with Access, you know that you can create relationships by dragging fields from one table to another.

There is another way to do it using just the keyboard.

I don't know why you would do it this way, but let's assume you lent your mouse to your brother-in-law for the week-end. (?)

Close any open tables.
Use F11 to switch to the Database window.
Press ALT+T to select the Tools menu, and then press R to open the Relationships window.
If the Show Table dialog box does not appear, press ALT+R to select the Relationships menu, and then press T to open the Show Table dialog box.
In the Show Table dialog box, select the first table that you want to relate, and then press ENTER to add it to the Relationships window.
Repeat step 5 for any other tables you want to relate, and then press ALT+C to close the Show Table dialog box.
Press ALT+R to select the Relationships menu, and then press R to open the Edit Relationships dialog box.
Press ALT+N to open the Create New dialog box.
In the Left Table Name box, select the name of the table that contains the primary key.
In the Right Table Name box, select the name of the table that contains the foreign key.
In the Left Column Name box, select the primary key field, and in the Right Column Name box, select the foreign key field.
Press ENTER.
In the Edit Relationships dialog box, use the arrow keys to make sure that the two columns contain the field names you want.
Press ALT+C to create the relationship.

MSDN.Microsoft.com:
Define relationships by using the keyboard

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Labels: Access

<Doug Klippert@ 3:02 AM

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Thursday, September 23, 2010 – Permalink –

Font Properties Plus

Everything you need to know

To embed a font in a document or slide show so it can be displayed on any other machine, the font must support that action. The standard Windows properties statement does not show all the needed information.

The bottom of this illustration shows the standard information shown when you right-click a font file, and choose properties. The two views at the top are what appear when the Microsoft Font properties extension is installed.

If you right click on a font file in Windows its basic properties are displayed. The Font properties extension adds several new property tabs to this properties dialog box. These include information relating to font origination and copyright, the type sizes to which hinting and smoothing are applied, and the code pages supported by extended character sets.

It also will tell you if the font can be embeddedand/or edited in a document.

Protected: The font may not be embedded, copied, or modified. If you use a protected font in a document and if the document is opened on a computer that does not have the font installed on it, a font substitution occurs. Word substitutes the closest font available on the computer for the missing protected font.
Print/Preview: The font is embedded and temporarily loaded on the target computer. Documents that contain print/preview fonts must be opened read-only, and no edits are stored in the document. Embedding a font of this nature has the least impact on file size increase.
Editable: The font behaves just like the print/preview fonts, except that you may also apply the font to other text in the same document.
Installable: The font is installed on the target computer permanently when you open the document. This allows you to use the new fonts as if you installed the fonts directly into Windows yourself. This type of embedded font has the greatest impact on file size because the entire font or fonts are included with the document.

Versionand Features tabs: The Version tab includes version and date information. The Features tab describes the font in terms of number of glyphs, number of kerning pairs, the possible existence of a euro symbol and the presence of embedded bitmaps within the font.
Linkstab: If a font doesn't include a Web site URL, but does include a 'vendor ID code' a link will be provided to Microsoft's font vendor database.

The latest version is 2.3 as of December, 2006.
Font properties extension, version 2.3
(32-bit only)

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Labels: Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Windows, Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:42 AM

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Wednesday, September 22, 2010 – Permalink –

Result is a Picture

If 4, show kumquat

Allen Wyatt has a cool procedure that will let you show a picture of an object on your spreadsheet depending on a value.

Maybe a snow suit when it's 29 or, say, a pair of bloomers when the computed temperature is 70.

The procedure does not use any VBA, just equations and bright thinking.

ExcelTips.VitalNews.com:

Display Images based on a Result

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Labels: Excel

<Doug Klippert@ 3:56 AM

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Tuesday, September 21, 2010 – Permalink –

Send Large Files

Surpass Attachments

Some email services such as Hotmail and Yahoo mail only allow email attachments up to 10 MB in size.

If you need to send larger files take a look at services such as YouSendIt.

"The Services provide a user the ability to send a file to one or more recipients identified by a valid email address. The Services operate by storing the specified User File on a YouSendIt server and then sending to the recipient(s) an email that contains a link to the User File.
The recipient(s) can then access and download the User File by clicking on the link."

YouSendIt.com

Also:

DropSend.com

Top 6 Services to Send Large Files

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Labels: FrontPage, Internet, Outlook

<Doug Klippert@ 3:45 AM

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Monday, September 20, 2010 – Permalink –

Back Me Up

Tomorrow is too late

There is a company called the Argentum Corporation. They produce some commercial products to help organize files and facilitate backups.

They, also, provide a free Back up guide

"This backup guide focuses on backing up in general, assists you in finding important data on your computer, explains you how to locate the proper paths, files and folders that may be recommended for regular backup.
The following topics are covered in detail:

My Documents backup,

Outlook data backup,

E-mail backup (Outlook Express),

registry backup,

messenger backup (ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, AOL),

system folders backup and more"

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Labels: Vista, Windows

<Doug Klippert@ 3:44 AM

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Sunday, September 19, 2010 – Permalink –

Create Animation Schemes

Roll your own

When you click on Slide Show>Animation Schemes, the task pane will display pre-set animations.

You can create your own Animation Schemes.

Shyam Pillai from PowerPoint MVPS.org details the steps to take and a downloadable template.

Animation Schemes in PowerPoint

"The best part is that you can add/modify and distribute animation schemes of your own.
All the schemes are present in a read-only file quikanim.ppt located in
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\1033 
(the path may vary depending on the drive and installation folder).
This file is essentially a normal PowerPoint file. You can open the file in PowerPoint directly. However it is best to remove the read-only flag before opening it."

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<Doug Klippert@ 3:07 AM

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Saturday, September 18, 2010 – Permalink –

Tiny Trebuchet

Pumpkin (seed) flinger

Something there is that is fascinated by hurling things through the air. The medievals tossed oil and rocks.

Today it's mostly Fall vegetables.

Here's away to bring the machine down to desk level and make cubical living even more dangerous.

Build your own 3" trebuchet out of paperclips

Also:
Build a Trebuchet in your backyard

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Labels: Addendum

<Doug Klippert@ 3:11 AM

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Friday, September 17, 2010 – Permalink –

Search the Way You Want

It's your choice

Using Find in Access can be frustrating when you forget to change the search options.

You can change the defaults to something closer to your personal search preferences.

To do so, select Tools>Options from the menu bar (the Office Logo in 2007).

Then, click on the Edit>Find tab (under Advanced in 2007) and select the option button you want from Default Find>Replace Behavior.

Fast Search is the default, and causes Access to search the current field for an exact match to your criteria.
General Search, searches all fields and matches any part of the field.
Start Of Field Search, searches the current field for matches between your search string and the beginning characters in the field.

When you've made your selection, click OK.

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Labels: Access

<Doug Klippert@ 3:05 AM

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Thursday, September 16, 2010 – Permalink –

Make Sender Safe

Vouch for your friends

Add names to your Safe Senders List.

If the Junk E-mail Filter mistakenly marks an e-mail message as junk, you can add the sender of that message to the Safe Senders List. E-mail addresses and domain names that appear in the Safe Senders List are never treated as junk.

On the Tools menu, click Options.
On the Preferences tab, under E-mail, click Junk E-mail.
Click the Safe Senders tab.
Click Add.

In the Enter an e-mail address or Internet domain name to be added to the list box, enter the name or address that you want to add. For example, you can add the following types of addresses:

All@Once.com
@Once.com
Once.com
Click OK. .

Information About the Safe Senders Option

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Labels: Outlook

<Doug Klippert@ 3:08 AM

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Wednesday, September 15, 2010 – Permalink –

Large Documents

Plan ahead

Jack M. Lyon has prepared a list of steps to be considered when working with large documents:

"I can't leave the topic of typesetting without explaining some of the things I learned on the last book I typeset--in Microsoft Word. The book had more than 400 pages and several hundred footnotes, and Word would have handled it better if I'd been more particular about the following:"

Typesetting Tips for Word

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Labels: Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:59 AM

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Tuesday, September 14, 2010 – Permalink –

Worksheet Name

Formula construction

There may come a time when you need to display the name of a worksheet.

This formula will do the job:

=MID(CELL("filename",$A$1),FIND("]",CELL("filename",$A$1))+1,31)

=CELL("filename",$A$1)

returns the path, the Workbook name and the Worksheet name. (C:\Documents\[April.xls]\Costs)

=MID(text,start_num,num_chars)

selects the text that starts at a certain point and goes on for a certain number of characters.

The formula, as written, looks at the full path and selects the first time a closing bracket (]) is found.

It then moves 1 character to the right and displays the results up to 31 characters.
(A worksheet name cannot be more that 31 characters long.

You could include a reference to that cell on other worksheets.

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Labels: Excel

<Doug Klippert@ 3:32 AM

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Monday, September 13, 2010 – Permalink –

Hosts File

I've got your number

"...the Hosts file is like an address book. When you type an address like www.yahoo.com into your browser, the Hosts file is consulted to see if you have the IP address, or "telephone number," for that site. If you do, then your computer will "call it" and the site will open. If not, your computer will ask your ISP's (internet service provider) computer for the phone number before it can "call" that site.
Most of the time, you do not have addresses in your "address book," because you have not put any there. Therefore, most of the time your computer asks for the IP address from your ISP to find sites."

What is a Hosts file?

MVPS.org has a Hosts file that you can download and install. It includes a BAT file that renames the old file before it saves the new one.
Hosts

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Labels: Internet, Vista, Windows

<Doug Klippert@ 3:55 AM

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Sunday, September 12, 2010 – Permalink –

Busted Links

Verify

With the Expression Web Designer go to Site>Reports>Problems>Hyperlinks.
You will able to check if any links have failed and need to be fixed.

There are a few third-party shareware programs that do the same thing.

One of them is:

Xenu's Link Sleuth

It's free and will create a report that can be saved for reference.

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<Doug Klippert@ 3:54 AM

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Saturday, September 11, 2010 – Permalink –

Squeezin' out the Pixels

Slim PP Fast

When you insert pictures into a PowerPoint show, the size of the file begins to bloat. There is a built in tool that helps.

Select the graphic.
Right-click and pick "Format Picture".
Click the "Picture" tab and click on the "Compress" button.
Click "Selected pictures" to compress the currently picture. Choose "All pictures in document" to handle all images in the show.
In the "Change resolution" section, choose how your show is going to be presented.
In the "Options" section, check both "Compress pictures" and "Delete cropped areas of pictures."
OK your way out.

In PowerPoint 2007+ select the picture and look at the Picture Tools >Format group.

The PowerPoint & OfficeArt Team Blog Compress Pictures

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Labels: PowerPoint

<Doug Klippert@ 3:44 AM

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Friday, September 10, 2010 – Permalink –

View Related Fields

The whole thing

When designing a query, you'll often find the need to temporarily view fields beyond the ones you want shown in the final result.

To do so, you probably drag the relevant fields to the design grid and then delete them when you're done. However, there's an easier way to view the data that you typically want excluded in the query.

To do so:

Open the query in Design view.
Display the query's Properties sheet
Set the Output All Fields property setting to Yes
Run the query

Data from all of the underlying tables' fields will be displayed in addition to the fields you specified in the QBE grid. To change the query so that it only displays the fields explicitly selected in the QBE grid, simply
reset the Output All Fields property to No.

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Labels: Access

<Doug Klippert@ 3:20 AM

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Thursday, September 09, 2010 – Permalink –

Delete Fast

No waiting

Unfortunately, Outlook does not allow you to use CTRL or Shift to select multiple folders at a time to delete them. Also the process slows down as the contents are deleted and then the folder. A quick way to get rid of them is to drag them to the Deleted Items folder.

The same is true of emails destined for the garbage bin.

Outlook-Tips.net:
Delete Folders

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Labels: Outlook

<Doug Klippert@ 3:20 AM

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Wednesday, September 08, 2010 – Permalink –

CSS Links

Some of the Best

If you have an interest in Cascading Style sheets, look at a few of these tutorials and downloads.

"CSS Creator site is a place for you to learn about and create CSS, Cascading Style Sheets. The CSS Forum is a place where you can discuss CSS page layouts, positioning, bugs and just about anything related to cascading style sheets.
The forum is new, free and most of all needs people like you to create a community. Talk about CSS, ask questions, find solutions, and help each other learn at the CSS Forum."

CSS Creator.com has a collection of links to valuable Web design information.

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Labels: Expression Web, FrontPage, HTML

<Doug Klippert@ 3:45 AM

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Tuesday, September 07, 2010 – Permalink –

Work that Menu

List of project docs

A collection of tips including:

Word (pre-07) allows you to add a menu to the toolbar that can keep a list of papers you're working on:

Go to Tools>Customize.
Click the Commands tab.
Under the list of Categories, click Built-in menus.
Under the list of Commands, locate and drag the Work menu to your toolbar.
Click Close

Work Menu In Word 2007+, you can see a list of 50 recently used documents when you click the Office logo. If you don't want them to drop off the list, they can be pinned. See all Topics

Labels: Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:15 AM

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Monday, September 06, 2010 – Permalink –

Custom Lists

Your Way

At times, you will want to enter the same information repeatedly in a spreadsheet.
It could be employee names, products or State names.

Here is a way to produce the information when needed.

Make a list of the items.
Enter the data in, say, A1, B1, C1 etc.
Be sure to enter in the right order; maybe Supervisor and then team members in alphabetic order.

Select all of the cells.
Go to Tools>Options and choose the Custom lists tab.
Click Import.
OK your way out.

Now you can delete the entries on the spreadsheet.

Choose any cell and type one of the items that are on your Custom List.
Click and drag on the fill handle; the tiny square at the bottom right corner of the selected cell.
As you pull, Excel will duplicate your list.

(In Excel 2007+, go to the Office Logo. Choose Excel Options. Edit Custom Lists will be on the Popular page.)

Also see:

The First Shall Be Last
by Dick Kusleika

Sorting by Color
by Chip Pearson

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Labels: Excel

<Doug Klippert@ 3:26 AM

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Sunday, September 05, 2010 – Permalink –

Secure Windows

Protection suggestions

Here is a collection of security measures you might consider installing.
Included is a way to require a stronger password. Also good for Windows+.

Use alpha-numeric passwords:

A normal password can be hacked easily. Hence, experts always recommend including alphabets, and numbers in the password.
Unfortunately, this limitation is not available in the password rules of Windows XP Operating System.
However, you can force the password to be alpha-numeric. Change the following registry entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network
Double-click AlphanumPwds key and change the value to 1.

NOTE: If this key does not exist, you may need to create this key.

Make your Windows PC more secured

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Labels: Vista, Windows

<Doug Klippert@ 3:07 AM

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Saturday, September 04, 2010 – Permalink –

PowerPoint Screed

WSJ on slide shows

Here is another article trying to rein in the PP overkill.

It is easier to put together a PowerPoint show than it is to write an intriguing speech; Six bullet points vs. 6 pages of text.

Why is it the that polite audience members congratulate even the worse presentations?

"But the civility has some self-interest. Larry Chung, a software developer, doesn't criticize fellow presenters, he says, "because I know the tables could be turned a few weeks later."
To him, PowerPoint presentations are like corporate karaoke. "For the most part, it's tough to listen to," he says. "We all applaud each other even though we know how bad it stinks."

Go Easy on the Text

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Labels: PowerPoint

<Doug Klippert@ 3:13 AM

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Friday, September 03, 2010 – Permalink –

Calendar Templates

New days

Here are calendars that you can produce using Word, PowerPoint, or even Visio.

Calendars

Also see
Make a Calendar

"For each month of each year featured, there are a variety of printable calendar pages for you to choose from. You can print out calendar pages that include coloring pages, selected craft projects, and special days to celebrate. "

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Labels: Addendum

<Doug Klippert@ 3:10 AM

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Thursday, September 02, 2010 – Permalink –

Progress Bar for Forms

Show movement

You can display computer time by using the Microsoft Progress Bar Control. In earlier versions of Access, it can be found by using the "More Controls icon in the Toolbox. In Access 2007 it's under "Insert Active X Control".

Here are the instructions from FunctionX.com
Progress Clock

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Labels: Access

<Doug Klippert@ 3:03 AM

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Wednesday, September 01, 2010 – Permalink –

Calendar Printing Assistant

Printing help for 2007

Some of the things you can do:

You can print and compare calendars in a variety of views:
Personalize your calendars with notes, images, colors, and designs:
Adjust information to changing views
Display information the way you need it:
Forecast your activities. The Calendar Printing Assistant has tools to display and organize long-range calendar

Calendar Printing Assistant Also see Slipstick.com: Printing Tools See all Topics See all Topics

Labels: Outlook

<Doug Klippert@ 3:12 AM

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