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December 2003 - Posts

Wednesday, December 31, 2003 12:14 PM

Office 2003: The Year in Review

It’s funny when those “Year in Review” pieces roll on TV around now, how bizarre seems it to me that the annual calendar change makes us look back at the year about to go by. It never ceases to amaze me either how many of the things
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Wednesday, December 31, 2003 12:13 PM

How to keep your job!

It seems like everyone thinks IT is headed offshore or for a job-market implosion - seems like something must give... Here are a couple of reads on that for you to ponder: 1) From the Pragmatic Programmer on what you can do to stay employed. How to Keep
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Tuesday, December 30, 2003 11:24 AM

InfoPath: Deriving Values from Secondary Data Sources

After getting use to working with tools like MS Access, using InfoPath to link data between fields can seem a bit peculiar and even a touch difficult. A common theme in an InfoPath form is to have a value selected in a dropdown list determine the value
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Wednesday, December 24, 2003 4:49 PM

Merry XMas!

... Happy Chanukah! Happy Holidays! No matter what you celebrate this time of year... just remember to celebrate! Peace to all, and to all... a good nite :)
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Monday, December 22, 2003 9:07 AM

Testing... 1.2.3. Is this thing on? (Testing Web Services)

If you are working with Web Services and don't have the luxury of a VS Test page to prove out your results (but really want one), take a look at WebServiceStudio 2.0 from Sowmy Srinivasan of Microsoft. It's a community sample download (uh... means free
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Thursday, December 18, 2003 9:49 AM

Excel XML Toolbox

What I would like to see next is the Excel companion to the Word XML Toolbox ! Would you? If you are working with Excel XML and have some ideas for features please post your feedback here or contact us directly. We are revving up to put pen to paper on
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Thursday, December 18, 2003 9:45 AM

Word XML Toolbox

In Chris' blog today, he boasted about the Word XML Toolbox . And yes... he is the author. He went deep into the features offered and not offered by Microsoft, and extended them in a some very useful ways. If you are working with XML Word, these freely
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Friday, December 12, 2003 4:06 PM

We're Rich!

Oh wait... I don't work there :-\ But this write-up in the Seattle Times breaksdown the remnants of Microsoft stock option payouts to 'softies. Funny when some of them complain that they aren't gonna get rich anymore, they should remind themselves that
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Friday, December 12, 2003 11:07 AM

Applied Insensitivity Training

I don't get how certain things slip out the door in software. Whether it's foul language, images, or simply inappropriate content. It often slips out in developer comments, easter eggs, test data, and the like. Rule of thumb in building software/projects
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Thursday, December 11, 2003 10:52 AM

Wanted: Business Contact Manager

Looking for a Business Contact Manager? No not to hire... but one to help you manage your small business. Wouldn't it be nice to track leads, contacts, customer accounts from right inside of Outlook without having to write something or pay big money?
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Tuesday, December 09, 2003 6:23 PM

Didja miss me?

I have been offline for three days thanks to my ISP provider's (lack of) service.... I'm back but nothing nice to say so I will stay quiet :-o
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Friday, December 05, 2003 8:58 AM

Good Read: Bill Coan on XML

...lot of talk out there about the XML features for the new 2003 release of Office. But a lot of us talking about it seem to take for granted that everybody who would be interested is deeply immersed in XML theory. Simply not true especially in the desktop
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:45 PM

XL Tip: Navigate w/ the XML Task

I read Chris' post for today and couldn't agree more that the XL team dropped the ball on the full XML roundtripping feature for Excel 2003. And I have a list of rants too but I will wait for him to finish his list before I chime in with mine. Instead,
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Wednesday, December 03, 2003 3:43 PM

Am I XML-enabled?

As you (probably) know, the XML features are limited by SKU in Office 2003. I get why MS did this BUT it is really confusing for folks. Standard vs. Professional vs. Small Business vs. standalone? How can I be sure? Well their is a fool-proof check via
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Wednesday, December 03, 2003 2:34 PM

XL Tip: Bookmark to VBA

Often when I am working in Excel with VBA, I need to keep toggling between the UI and code. Well, here is a quick way to create a hyperlink "bookmark" in a spreadsheet to a specific routine in VBA (also good for demoing code): Sub BookmarkVBA() Dim pic
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Wednesday, December 03, 2003 12:05 AM

New Tool FO:Word

Tools firm Antenna House, Inc. is releasing a product, "WordMLToFO Stylesheet" , that will bring WordML into the FO XML standard. They also offer a tutorial on their site to help you understand the technology... Now you can go FO it...
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Tuesday, December 02, 2003 11:40 PM

Cars + Windows =

Just heard this on Jay Leno (Tonight Show)... an easy chuckle at the expense of MSFT: "Microsoft says it has a goal is to see a computer on every car sold in America.... Guess that means that new cars will be able to crash themseleves."
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Tuesday, December 02, 2003 12:01 PM

The password is...

Try this: Open Microsoft Excel Protect the worksheet (Tools | Protection | Protect Sheet...) Enter the following password: "512" Reconfim with the same: "512" Try to edit cells - security is enforced (should give you a protection error/warning) Unprotect
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Monday, December 01, 2003 9:59 AM

Official VSTO Blog

A worthy note for anyone interested in Visual Studio Tools for Office is that the product team has launched a blog to publish and aggregate content about VSTO ( weblogs.asp.net/vsto ). Led by Paul Cornell, the Documentation Manager for Visual Studio Tools
Posted by charles | 0 Comments
Monday, December 01, 2003 9:28 AM

Author? Who me? Nah... how 'bout you?

Everytime I think about authoring a book, I remind myself why I don't... I think a blog is as much as I can commit to... But if it's for you, well-known tech author Mike Gunderloy offers his advice for writers . Good stuff...
Posted by charles | 0 Comments