Sunday, January 31, 2016

Change Categories

Fit people into the right peg hole



Go to View>Arrange by>Current View and select by Category.
(View>Customize Curent View)

You can create a new Category and then just select Contacts and drag them into the right slot.

This technique works with any Outlook item for many Outlook fields, including Private and Company but won't work on fields that aren't editable. You can use it to add Categories but not remove them.
  1. Make sure at least one item has the new field value.
  2. Create a new view or edit one of the existing group by views to group by the field you want to change
  3. Apply the view.
  4. Select one or more items from the other groups and drag them to the new group and drop.
Slipstick.com:
Group By



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Saturday, January 30, 2016

Baaaaad PowerPoint

How to make truly horrendous PowerPoint Slides


Incase you needed any help, here are some suggestions about how to develop really bad presentations.

"Of course, there comes a time when the PowerPoint amateur discovers two very dangerous tools indeed. Custom animations and slide transitions have recently been classified by the UN as 'weapons of mass destruction' and cited at the War Crimes tribunal in The Hague on more than one occasion. As far as both of these tools are concerned, my advice is the same: pick a style and stick to it.

Potentially there is boredom if every slide element skates in from the right or fades in from the background. It might be tiring for each slide to segue into the next using a diagonal wipe. But if the alternative is a dizzying combination of mismatched zooms, shrinks, checkerboard wipes and pirouettes then boredom is a very small price to pay."

Slides From Hell
by Ray Blake

From a fascinating "e-zine" called Indezine published by Geetesh Bajaj.



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Friday, January 29, 2016

Lookup, Down, and Sideways

A very useful Excel feature


Excel does not have "relational" tables like database applications such as Access.

You, however, can make use of database functions including the ability to look up values in a table based on a value.

You could, for instance look up a salesperson's records based on an employee ID.

Using VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX, and MATCH in Excel to interrogate data tables

John Walkenbach has a book "Excel 2003 Formulas" with a 24-page chapter on Lookup functions and other database/list tricks.

Chip Pearson talks about lookups on his site as well..

Daily Dose of Excel:
VLookup on Two Comumns



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Thursday, January 28, 2016

Survey on Line

Test the wind electronically


Surveys can be used to appraise the sentiments of your audience, or just to gather data.

Here is a tutorial about how to use the Expression Web tools.

"Designing surveys is an art unto itself, requiring careful analysis, skill, and an absolute attention to detail. On the other hand, coding or developing a Web page that contains an electronic form that collects the data from a willing participant is often just as arduous.

Expression Web/FrontPage makes developing and publishing a Web form or survey a breeze. Moreover, it doesn't require that you know any programming or scripting languages that interactively collect and dynamically display results from a database as you will see in this tutorial."

Creating Online Surveys

by William C. Jeansonne


Also:

Survey Forms



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Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Make Your Own Templates

Fit any need


You are not dependent on microsoft for PowerPoint templates. You can create your own for use on special occasions or to share with others.

What is in a Custom Template?
  • Slide background
  • Slide Layout- which placeholders appear and their positions
  • Color Scheme
  • Formatting of placeholders
  • Formatting of text and bullets
  • Slide transition
  • Placeholder animations
Jan's Web Work & Experiments:
Custom Templates

Indezine.com:
Creating PowerPoint Templates



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Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Half Staff

When and how


A Proclamation by the President: Death of Coretta Scott King

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

As a mark of respect for the memory of Coretta Scott King, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, that on February 7, 2006, the day of her interment, the flag of the United States shall be flown at half staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset on such day. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirtieth.

GEORGE W. BUSH
Issued 2/6/06


Free notification of Official orders to fly the flag at half staff. Contact FlagsExpress.com.

You will be notified when orders are released.

Also:

Veterans Administration:
Guidelines for Display of the Flag

and:

Flag Etiquette

Washington State flag



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Monday, January 25, 2016

Duplicate Table Structures

No need to reinvent


When setting up a database, you may find that there is a table structure in another database that would be appropriate. You could Import the table, but then you have to clear out the useless records.

Here's an easier way to do it:
  1. Choose File>Get External Data>Import from the menu bar
    (External Data tab in 2007, then select Access in the Import group)
  2. Select the database that contains the tables you want to copy and click the Import button.
  3. Select the appropriate tables on the Tables sheet
  4. click the Options button, select the Definition Only option and click OK
.

To export a table definition from your current database to another:
  1. Select the appropriate table in the Database window.
  2. In Access 2000 and above, choose File>Export.
    (If you're using Access 2007, choose More in the Export group)
  3. Click OK.
  4. Now, regardless of version, select the target database and press Enter
When the Export dialog box appears, select the Definition Only option button and click OK. See all



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Sunday, January 24, 2016

Where do you store your Spam?

It's Your Mess, Clean It Up


Previous versions of Outlook can handle PST files just this side of 2 GB (1.82) and Outlook 2003+ can go up to about 20-30 gigs with the new MSUPST format. However, very few administrators are going to allow users to save anywhere near that amount of information.

Outlook does have a tool to managing the size of the mailbox from within Outlook:

  1. Go to the Tools menu
  2. Select "Mailbox Cleanup"
    or Files>Info



 This dialog includes quick links to find large items of a chosen size and items older than a selected number of days. You can view the size of folders, fine tune AutoArchive and empty the deleted items folder.



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Saturday, January 23, 2016

Date an Octothorpe

Some more of those things I'm sure I used to know


The keyboard combination of Alt+Shift+D inserts the current date in MS Word and PowerPoint. Ctrl+; (semicolon) does it in Excel and Access.

If you do not like the date's format, select a different one with Insert>Date and Time and, if you would like to make that permanent, click on the Default button in the lower left corner of the dialog box (in PowerPoint it's in the lower right corner).

In Excel, Ctrl+Shift +# formats the entry as day-month-year. Ctrl+1 will display the "Format cells" dialog box.

BTW, the "hash, pound or number" sign # is also called an "octothorpe".

The person who named it combined Octo for the eight points and Thorpe for James Thorpe.

"Bell Labs engineer, Don Macpherson, went to instruct their first client, the Mayo Clinic, in the use of the new touch tone phone system. He felt the need for a fresh and unambiguous name for the # symbol. His reasoning that led to the new word was roughly that it had eight points, so ought to start with octo-. He was apparently at that time active in a group that was trying to get the Olympic medals of the athlete Jim Thorpe returned from Sweden, so he decided to add thorpe to the end."

While we're at it, the "backwards P, Enter mark" is actually named a "pilcrow".

The pilcrow was used in medieval times to mark a new train of thought, before the convention of using paragraphs was commonplace.

Also see:
Geek-speak names for punctuation marks

Wikipedia:
Punctuation



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Friday, January 22, 2016

Border Magic with CSS

Consistent formatting



Cascading Style Sheets can be helpful in applying dependable format characteristics to web sites. Like Styles, CSS provides a reference point when a certain look is called for.

Stu Nicholls provides directions for "Fluid" borders:
"If you resize your browser window you will see that these borders are fluid and stay in shape. Resize the text and they will also stay in shape."


Even in this static shot, you can see some nice possibilities.

Fluid Borders to with CSS



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Thursday, January 21, 2016

Windows Keyboard Tricks

Mouse-less motions


Here is a collection of shortcuts for Windows:
Keyboard shortcuts for Windows

One of the shortcuts is a way to minimize all Windows from the keyboard.

+M

Also see:

Kürzungen für jeder



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Wednesday, January 20, 2016

That's the Way I Believe it's Sppelled

Wrong list


Spelling feels more like art than science. Here's a site that shows 100 (actually 250) words that are often misspelled.

It also gives you reasons and memory tricks to get it right.

Not all pens and pencils come with spellcheckers.


The "i-before-e" rule has more exceptions than words it applies to.

Dr. Language has provided a one-stop cure for all your spelling ills. Here are the 100 words most often misspelled ("misspell" is one of them). Each word has a mnemonic pill with it and, if you swallow it, it will help you to remember how to spell the word. Master the orthography of the words on this page and reduce the time you spend searching dictionaries by 50%.


100 Most Misspelled
Also:
Most Mispronounced
(You mean it's not "pronounciation"?
That's what happens when you have Old-timer's disease.)



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Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Business Rules!!! ... Rules

Bean Counting Models


Data modeling can be an exhausting, time consuming process. Here are some samples that may establish a starting point.


The website has close to 100 database models for experimentation, practice and examples.

"My intention is to provide a wide range of 'Kick Start' Models that anyone can use as a starting-point, and could extend cleanly and logically, with appropriate reference to the Business Rules.

It is not my intention to provide Models that can be used off-the-shelf to meet the requirements of a large commercial organization.

After all, that is one of the things I do for a living !!!

None of the Models is the complete and final solution in its area, but any of them can be added to easily and quickly to meet a specific requirement. The logic in each Model is intended to be correct and to contain the minimum Entities for the area being modeled."


Database Answers



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Monday, January 18, 2016

Excel-lent E-mail

Outlook, Excel, and VBA


Ron de Bruin, Microsoft MVP - Excel, has put together a collection of VBA routines to make Excel e-mail friendly.

See if these topics tempt you:

Example Code for sending mail from Excel
  • Mail Workbook
  • Mail one Sheet
  • Mail more than one Sheet
  • Mail the Selection or range
  • Mail Every Worksheet with Address in cell A1
  • Mail sheet or sheets to one or more people
  • Mail range or sheet in the body of the mail (Send personalized email)
  • Mail a message to each person in a range with Outlook
  • Mail a message to each person in a range with CDO (no security warnings)
  • Sending a different file to each person in a range with Outlook
  • Zip the ActiveWorkbook and mail it with Outlook
  • Security (Prevent displaying the dialog to Send or not Send)

Also Download Addins for Excel e-mail information

Also see:

John Walkenbach:
Sending Personalized Email from Excel



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Sunday, January 17, 2016

Booklets

Sized and numbered


Word has the built-in ability to print booklets with automatically numbered pages.

"If you don't want to spend money on an add-in, or use VBA; and are willing to do a bit more work yourself, here is the method I use. I've produced booklets up to 100 pages long this way, and it works quite satisfactorily for me."


Word.MVPS.org:
Booklet printing

How-to Geek:
Create Booklet

RickySpears.com:
Microsoft Word Booklet Templates
"The WordBookletTemplates.zip file contains Microsoft Word templates for 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, and 32 page booklets, with and without page numbers (16 templates in all). I think I developed these with Microsoft Word 97 and I've never made any changes to them. They use a series of text boxes that flow from one to the other to get the text where it is supposed to be in the booklet."




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Saturday, January 16, 2016

Photo Mélange

Colorize without Adobe


Photoshop is a great program, but sometimes you just want to add a little pizzazz without the hassle.

Geetesh Bajaj has once again come up with a "Why didn't I think of that!" technique.
" Have you ever wanted to fill a picture with a gradient - or another picture in PowerPoint? Have you wanted to blend two pictures in PowerPoint to create a montage?




Transparent montages in PowerPoint



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Friday, January 15, 2016

Where have all the Bytes gone?

Folder size list


You can create a list in Excel of all the folders on a drive and their sizes.
(The credit goes to Peter Beach, an Excel MVP.)

Get Folder Size code

  1. Copy the code and open Excel.
  2. Press Alt+F11 and, if necessary, on the Visual Basic Editor menu, Insert>Module
  3. Paste the code.
  4. You could use Alt+Tab to bring the worksheet forward.
  5. Go to Tools>Macros and run the Macro named "GetFolderListing".

It may take a little time to complete. BTW, if you feel geeky enough, here is a picture of some of the year 2005 MVPs from John Walkenbach's site.



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Thursday, January 14, 2016

Relationships

How it all ties together

"Find out how to reap the benefits of data normalization in Access while ensuring that your system provides users with all the information they need. Learn to relate your application's tables to each other, so that your users can view the data in the system as a single entity. After you define relationships between tables, you can build queries, forms, reports, and data access pages that combine information from multiple tables."

Relationships: Your Key to Data Integrity in Access

An article from Informit.com and Alison Balter.

Alison is the founder of InfoTechnology Partners, Inc., a computer consulting firm in California. She is a highly experienced trainer and consultant, specializing in Windows applications.




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Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Flag That Play

Dog ear your email


With RSS entries, I average 500 or more messages a day. Here's a suggestion about how to tame the problem.
"You clear up one problem and delete the e-mail message -- and meanwhile six others pop up in your Inbox. Microsoft Office Outlook can flag messages with priorities, set reminders, and flag messages for follow-up, so that you can glance quickly at Outlook and know immediately what needs to get done first."


Office.Microsoft.com:
Demo: Organize your e-mail



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Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Add Captions Programatically

When the project seems overwhelming


Faced with a repetitive task, I often have to make the decision, do I do it by hand again and again? Or do I write or find a macro to do the heavy lifting?
"Have you ever had a document with ten, twenty, or even 100 images, and then as an afterthought decided you wanted to add a caption to each of those images? This is an easy task through the user interface (UI). All you have to do is select each image, one at a time, and choose Insert, then Reference, then Caption. Unfortunately doing this through an image-heavy document is a boring chore and takes up a lot of time.

Fortunately, the Word object model lets you to apply a caption to a selected object. An add-in that does this for you is only a small chunk of code away. The sample add-in accompanying this article demonstrates how to do this. It also demonstrates many other details about working with shapes and images in Word programmatically that are useful to know about."

Working with Word Images Programmatically



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Monday, January 11, 2016

Linked Table Problems

Lost functionality


Have you found that you cannot update linked Excel tables in Access 2003+?


If you have installed Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2):

MORE INFORMATION
Because of legal issues, Microsoft has disabled the functionality in Access 2003 and in Access 2002 that let users change the data in linked tables that point to a range in an Excel workbook. However, when you make changes directly in the Excel workbook, the changes appear in the linked table in Access.

Support.Microsft.com:
You cannot change data in tables that are linked to an Excel workbook

You might try reinstalling and then only installing SP1.

Also:

PCWorld.com:
Patent ruling costs Microsoft $8.9 million

"A jury in U.S. federal court found that Microsoft infringed on a Guatemalan inventor's 1994 patent on technology linking the company's Access and Excel programs, and ordered the world's largest software maker to pay $8.9 million in damages.




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Sunday, January 10, 2016

Web Magazine

The difference between a blog and a magazine is thin


Here's on online mag that collects information, direction, and designs for web sites
"A List Apart Magazine (ISSN: 1534-0295) explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on techniques and benefits of designing with web standards.

Steal our code? Copy our content?

ALA's content is protected by copyright shared jointly by the magazine and its writers, but our source code is freely available to all."

A list Apart



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Saturday, January 09, 2016

Forgotten Password

Still sign on, or not


Forgetting your password can be an annoyance or a catastrophe. Here are ways to get back to work.
Note If you have not created a password reset disk, and you have also forgotten the password for all user accounts, you cannot log on to your existing Windows installation for security reasons. In this case, you must perform a "clean" installation of Windows, re-create all user accounts, and then reinstall all your programs.

Creating a Password Reset Disk

Petri.co.il:
Forgot the administrator's password?

ComputerHope.com:
Lost or forgotten Windows password



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Friday, January 08, 2016

Action When You Want It

Move it!


Here is a tutorial about animation.

"Need to make content appear, change or disappear out of order? Need to control the order that things appear while in front of your audience? Playing games? You need to play with PowerPoint's Triggers option for custom animations."
Trigger Happy Animations in PowerPoint


Also:
Office.Microsoft.com:
Use triggers to create an interactive slide show in PowerPoint



"Let's get past the term, first: A trigger is nothing more than an item on your PowerPoint slide-- it could be a picture, a shape, a button, or even a paragraph or text box-- that sets off an action when you click it. The action might be a sound, a movie, or an animation, such as text becoming visible on the slide."


Combine animation techniques to create stunning PowerPoint slides
By Ellen Finkelstein
"Indeed, with the addition of motion paths, new trigger effects and the ability to add two animation behaviors to one object, PowerPoint has become capable of creating sophisticated animations that rival complex animation software."




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Thursday, January 07, 2016

Just Say No to Be

To be, or no to be


E-Prime aims to eliminate all forms of the verb "to be". (Try that with your next report.)

"E-Prime comprises standard English with all forms of the verb 'TO BE' deleted; its use prevents forms of the verb 'TO BE' creating erroneous and irrational generalizations in language and thought."
  • John is lethargic and unhappy.
  • John is bright and cheerful.

  • John appears lethargic and unhappy in the office.
  • John appears bright and cheerful on holiday at the beach.

The result may appear wishy washy, but more accurate.
Also see:
E-Prime Tutorial 
A Laymen's View



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Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Toggle Object Views

Use the keyboard


When you are putting a database together you often want to switch between views of Access objects to see the changes.

For instance, you'll switch the view to examine a Table in Design view and then back to data view. It is can be faster to switch between views using keyboard shortcuts, rather than the View menu.

You can cycle through the views of an open object using the period

Ctrl + .

or comma

Ctrl + ,

shortcut keys.
These shortcuts can be used with tables, queries, forms, reports, and data access pages.



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Tuesday, January 05, 2016

BCC, not your old CC

Avoid header spaghetti


There are three parts to the Address section of an email message:
  • To:
  • CC:
  • BCC:
CC used to stand for Carbon Copy, but no one knows what carbon paper is anymore so it is now referred to as Complimentary Copy. BCC is for a blind copy. Recipients will not see that stringy pasta list of names. Here are a few links to more information.

About.com:
Sending an Email to Multiple Recipients - Cc: and Bcc:

Hamra.net:
Use BCC field when addressing mass mail

Actrix.co.nz:
Using the CC and BCC Fields in E-mail

While the recipients can't see the Bcc list, you can see the list in messages you SENT:
"To see the Bcc addresses for messages that you sent, open the message from the Sent Items folder, then choose Actions>Resend This Message. If you don't see the Bcc box, choose Find>Bcc Field to display it. Another method you can use in the Sent Items folder, is to choose View>Show Fields and add the Bcc field to the current view. You may not be able to see all Bcc recipients that way if the list was a long one.
Slipstick.com:
 To view Bcc addresses for sent messages



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Monday, January 04, 2016

More CSS

Can't get enough


Demonstrations, Layouts, Menus


This site provides a wealth of examples about how to use Cascading Style Sheets.

Poke around and then come back when your project calls for something different.
"Because my site deals with experimental CSS that is exactly what you get JUST CSS, no javascript or any other programming language has been used in any of the demonstrations."
CSS Play by Stu Nicholls



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Sunday, January 03, 2016

Intro to Excel

English Excel


The UCL (University College London) site for the High Energy Physics Group of the Department of Physics & Astronomy, has an introduction to Excel e-book on this page. It's the material used in a 10 week course.


"This web page contains material for the computing and data analysis elements of the first-year PHYS1B40 Practical Skills course.

The main elements of the course are:

Analysis of data and treatment of uncertainties of measurement (Data Analysis) - discussed in lectures and illustrated by exercises using Excel

Use of spreadsheets (Excel) for

Analysis and presentation of experimental data
Mathematical modeling, simulation, analysis and problem solving
Introduction to computer programming by means of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)


Here are some links to the topics covered topics:

Excel

Data Analysis
Visual Basic



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Saturday, January 02, 2016

Readability Evaluation

What grade are you?


Word has a built in tool to determine the level of reading difficulty of a document.

To see the statistics:
  1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab
  2. Select the Check grammar with spelling check box
  3. Select the Show readability statistics check box, and then click OK
  4. On the Standard toolbar, click Spelling and Grammar
  5. In 2007, click the Office button in the upper left corner. Click Word Options. Choose Proofing and When correcting spelling and grammar in Word.
When Microsoft Word finishes checking spelling and grammar, it displays information about the reading level of the document.

Each readability score bases its rating on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence.
Flesch Reading Ease score Rates text on a 100-point scale; the higher the score, the easier it is to understand the document. For most standard documents, aim for a score of approximately 60 to 70. The formula for the Flesch Reading Ease score is: 206.835 - (1.015 x ASL) - (84.6 x ASW) where: ASL = average sentence length (the number of words divided by the number of sentences) ASW = average number of syllables per word (the number of syllables divided by the number of words)
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score
Rates text on a U.S. school grade level. For example, a score of 8.0 means that an eighth grader can understand the document. For most documents, aim for a score of approximately 7.0 to 8.0.
The formula for the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score is:
(.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) - 15.59
Readability
Measuring the reading age of books and other reading matter.

Wikipedia.com:
 Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
Support.Microsoft.com:
Frequently Asked Questions About Proofing Grammar

I am working on a law review article dealing with readability. We have found a problem with Microsoft Word's Flesch-Kincaid formula - it does not appear to be accurate. We took a sample text of slightly over 100 words, and ran the check. We then changed the word "report" to statement" (with everything else unchanged) and Word indicated a higher grade level. However, the grade level should not have been affected, since "report" and "statement" are both two-syllable words. It looks like Word is somehow incorporating number of characters in each word into it's Flesch-Kincaid score, which it should not. Any idea what the problem might be?


You're right, Word handles the formula a little differently.
BTW, they say the sample s/b 200+ words for reliability.

and:
Wikipedia




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Friday, January 01, 2016

Nite Tide

(Uxoricide)


Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys
ASIN B00004UDE3
Hightone Records August 15, 2000


Nite Tide
About the Artist
"Hailing from Anaheim, California, Big Sandy (neé Robert Williams) draws from a number of influences--country, western swing, rockabilly, doo wop, R & B, and jump blues. The best Big Sandy songs are the sexy ones about seduction, innocent on the surface and a little dirty underneath. The retro appeal of the band is equivalent to a Model T or Vargas bombshell"



Recording Description
Groovin', jumpin', hot rods, Rock-a-billy.
One of the cuts -- When Sleep Won't Come (Blues for Spade) -- refers to the uxoricidal "Spade" Cooley.

Also see:
The Old Corral, b-westerns, Inc

Contents
  1. Night Tide - Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
  2. Between Darkness and Dawn
  3. Tequila Calling
  4. When Sleep Won't Come (Blues for Spade)
  5. If You Only Knew - Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
  6. Give Your Loving to Me
  7. In the Steel of the Night
  8. Man Like Me
  9. Hey Lowdown!
  10. My Time Will Come Someday
  11. I Think of You
  12. Nothing to Lose
  13. South Bay Stomp
  14. Let Her Know





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