The Mission

At work we have tightened security on mobile Exchange Synchronization. A security policy has been set which requires that we ask each of the 2.500 users to read the new guidelines. Failure to accept the new policy guidelines will result in the user loosing access to the server. To be able to monitor the progress of this work (making sure we know that every user has read and accepted) I was asked to create a chart to graphically display the weekly progress,  number of emails sent, number of accepts etc.  The challenge is that we only record names, and dates for each occurrence (notice sent, reply received, account open or closed).

The task

Create a table that will sort  dates into weeks, update numbers once a week (Fridays) and summarize everything in a line graph.

Preparations

I’ll skip a few steps and re-enter the timeline a couple of weeks into the mission when we have some actual data to process. My main table looks like this:

As you can see it’s a rather long list of dates. Only Cells with content will be counted in the final result.

Creating the Graph Table

I am in need of two sheets: “progress” and “graph”.  My main table is created in the sheet named “Progress”.  To be able to make use of my main data I created a new table (in the sheet “graph”) containing the following Columns: “Week”, “Updated”, “Replies”, “Expected”, “Emails”, “Stopped” and “New This Week”. Since I am going to summarize each week  the “Updated” column is the key to making this thing work as planned.

With the table in place I had to create a formula that will sort the dates into its corresponding week and only count cells containing dates. The formula is quite complex (and there might be other ways of making it work). But here is the one I ended up using:

=SUMPRODUCT(('progress'!$D$2:$D$155<='graph'!B4)*('progress'!$D$2:$D$155<>"")) 

Let’s check out what it does.

• SumProduct = Returns the sum of products of corresponding ranges or arrays. This function allows me to create a snapshot of the status on any given date.
•  'progress'!$D$2:$D$155 = This is the range where we have all the registered dates.
•  'graph'!B4 = This is the comparison date (Fridays)
•  'progress'!$D$2:$D$155<='graph'!B4 = Search for dates up until the date in Cell B4
•  *('progress'!$D$2:$D$155<>"")) = Count only Cells with content (dates)

I used this formula in the columns “Replies”, “Emails” and “Stopped”, only changing the range references (columns) and Comparison Date for each row.

Other Formulas used

In the “New this week” column I use this formula:

=IF(C4<>"";C4-C3;"")

It doesn’t do much except calculating the  ”growth” compared to last week.

The Chart

With the finished calculating table prepared, it’s time to create our chart. Again I’m fast forwarding to the end of my project making the chart a better view.

Insert the Chart

Click the Insert-Ribbon, and choose the line tool. Insert a 2D line chart. If you have the table ready (with or without data), you may select the entire thing before you draw the chart. This will allow Excel to create the graph for you.

Editing the Chart

Should you want to re-size the chart, change or add a column or alter the appearance you can do so at any time. Highlight your Chart and look at the top of your screen -  you’ll notice three green highlighted ribbons, called “Chart Tools”: “Design”, Layout” and “Format”. Here you will find everything you’ll ever need,

The Chart Edit Tool

(named: Select Data) was revamped in Excel 2007. The tool allows you to easy change, add or remove columns (in the left pane) and X-axis data in the right pane. Each Column and row is displayed as separate entries in the list, making it easy to edit them to your needs.

To change layout elements you can select the entire chart or specific elements (like the color or line width) by right clicking.

Re-size and move the Chart

Place your mouse pointer over a chart corner or edge, this will activate the re-size and move tool. Simply drag and drop the chart to re-size or move it.

Add, Remove or change in-data

Editing the chart setup is easy as pie too. Highlight the chart, and click “Select Data”-button found in the Design Ribbon. In the graph that Excel created for you it added the Comparison dates to the X-axis. I don’t want it there, so I’m removing it.

In the Select Data Source window,  you see the X-axis (called: Horizontal) in the right side of the window.

• Click the EDIT-button.
• Change the axis label range from A3:B14 to A3:A14
• Click OK
• Click OK

And that is mostly it.

If you play around with this tool a few minutes you will discover that it’s not as hard as you’d think. Making charts is as easy as ever, perhaps even easier.

What are Building Blocks ?

Building Blocks are re-usable document elements  that you normally would have to copy from another document or re-create on a regular basis and put it in a drag-and-drop library. It can be used to save design elements like logos, headers, signatures, text you type often etc. etc.

Using Building Blocks

Windows comes with a large Building Blocks library that you may start using right out of the box. Looking through this library will give you an idea of what you may use the library for. In this quick guide I’ll show you how you can create your own Building Block and how you can re-use it in a later document. First, let’s access the library:

1. Open Word
2. Click the Insert Tab
3. On the far right end you’ll see the Quick Parts Icon,
   
   Click the little arrow.
4. Choose “Building Block Organizer”:
   

Now you will see all the available Blocks stored in the building Blocks Library (as seen in the image above). To use one of the existing elements, choose one from the list, and click: Insert

Create your own Building Block

This tool will only be really useful once you start creating your own. Doing so is almost too easy:

Let’s for this example create a “Quote Box” containing one of my favorite Quotes. Satisfied with the design as I am (for pretend sake) I decide to store this layout for later use.

1. Highlight the element you want to save.
   
   Click the arrow under the Quick Parts Icon
2. Choose: “Save Selection to Quick Parts Gallery”
   
3. In the dialogue, Name your item, choose a category and which template to save it in. Except for the name and category I created, use standard settings.
   
4. Click OK

Make use of it

Later on when you want to retrieve your “Building Block Item” click the Quick Parts Menu (again). All your recent Building Blocks will appear directly in the pull-down menu. If not, open the Building Blocks Organizer, locate it and press Insert.

In my last article (An Explanation of the Pros and Cons of Using RAID on Your Computer), we discussed the problem of heat build-up during the very hot Auckland summer months and how a RAID 5 configuration with 4 disks can sustain the failure of a single disk. RAID protections provide one part of what should be an overall strategy to protect your data and your computer from heat.

In this piece we divert a bit from our standard hardware/software fare and look at the computing environment as a whole. We will postulate that a tidy workspace is, in fact, a happy workspace and suggest a few tricks to make your work-space more productive and more comfortable.

The three biggest factors driving the design of my workspace are heat, noise and clutter. If I can minimise these three and maximize my computing power and productivity (all within family budget constraints, of course), I will have archived the objective.

The three primary physical components available for modification are the room, the cabinet and the PC (also referred to as the Box or Tower).

The Room:

The ideal design would be a copy of a corporate computer room with climate control, raised floor and glass interior walls. Your computers would be rack-mounted and networked throughout your house with a patch panel to distribute computer services to every room.

If you’ve got the resources, and your wife will let you do it – please do.

The rest of us are probably stuck with a home office which is usually a converted bedroom, and we don’t have a lot of latitude for change.

My office has several problems that affect my productivity.

• It gets messy
• It gets hot
• and It gets noisy

As I get older I find it more and more important to keep my resources organised. So much stuff had accumulated in my office that I was spending more time looking for a resource than I was actually using it. Problem area #1 was first on my hit list. It is also made up of several components:

• Tools and parts and papers lying about
• Wires connecting the various bits of equipment
• Three out of five times the part or tool I needed was elsewhere

Number 1 has been the easiest to tackle with a quick fix. I’ve instituted a “no shop work” policy and banned all of my “project” tools back to the workshop in the garage. Additionally, I’ve developed an exit strategy that requires me to tidy up the office each night so I can hit the ground running in the morning.

To reduce the clutter and improve the look of the room a good part of the project was dedicated to removing or hiding all the visible wires.

Capping:

Ok, I confess, this picture is a bit staged and I wish I’d taken more pictures of the mess before blasting through with a clean-up, but you get the idea and probably have a scene like this of your own very much like it.

Capping is a square pipe tacked against the floorboard with a snap-on cover. Just tack the 3-sided part against the wall where you need it, run the wire inside, and then snap on the cover. Not quite as tidy as running the wire through the wall, but you need special tools and know-how to accomplish that. Capping is sold in a variety of sizes.

A big advantage to capping is that the cover can be removed and the wiring reconfigured to meet changing conditions.

Under the Carpet:

Depending on the size of your wire and size of the gap between the carpet and the molding, a thin wire can often be hidden in that space. Speaker wire is a good candidate for this, coaxial wire less so.

The wire can be pushed into the gap with almost anything that isn’t sharp (don’t use a fork for example). A chopstick is my tool of choice, there are more dangerous options …

Whenever you need to go under the carpet, always stay as close to the wall as possible – even the thinnest speaker wire will produce a lump.

Over the Roof:

In some circumstances a wire on the roof might be the best plan. The wire obviously needs to be of a grade that can withstand outdoor conditions, and any joins require extra weather- and water-proofing. Just be sure to tack it down securly. The tacks (below) are a good option as is hot glue or silicon. Don’t want the wire making any noise on a windy night.

Exterior wiring will eventually need to extend back into a room, a terminating plate (like the one shown above) is easy to install and gives the work a professional look.

Power Leads:

Mounting a power board on the back of a unit or on a nearby wall can give the appearance of order and the excess cable can be gathered and secured above the floor with cable ties, rubber bands, whatever, but a word of caution here, don’t wind up a big length of mains extension wire and leave it on the floor – it becomes a magnetic coil, heats up and bursts into flames.

Power leads emit radiation that can interfere with voice, data and video communication. As a general rule it’s best to keep the two types of cable separate. If you must run the two together and you get interference on the com lines, investigate shielded com lines as an alternative.

Many power boards have mounting holes on the back side of the board. In my experience these holes are very hard to line up correctly. Instead I’ll drill through those holes as they seem to be located in positions that avoid any internal wires and mount the board with screws drilled in from the front. Be sure to counter-sink the holes so that the top of the screw is flush with the board face and doesn’t interfere with any plugs.

Vanity Panel:

Basically it’s a large sheet of material that acts to cover the ugly stuff behind it

If you’ve run wiring through your desk some wires may hang down and look at bit messy, you can tidy these wires behind a panel to hide them from view. If you put this panel on hinges or make it easily removable you will still have plenty of flexibility should an equipment change be required.

You can do the same thing with walls

an inexpensive noticeboard did the trick here. I re-wired the power lead on my “Cent-o-Meter” to feed directly into the box eliminating the plug, and pinned the USB lead on my Weather Centre behind the board so it doesn’t show up quite so much.

Capping on Steroids:

In my particular situation a large number of cables must be run from the desk where my keyboard mouse and monitors are to the computer cabinet where my 2 PCs live crossing a space of clear carpet about a metre wide.

The solution shown below is a section of white square box down pipe attached to the wall with 2 screws. The shot above gives some indication of the wiring that would otherwise be exposed. A curtain rod is used to thread the cables from one end to the other.

In this picture you can also see another important tool in cable management – the white tags indicating what is at the far end. They are a bit pricey – $4.00 (US) for a pack of 24 but they can save you time and frustration when you are tracking down a fault in your system.

Cable Tidies:

There is a variety of gizmos available to help you in this effort. Number one is a pieces of 2 – 4 meters plastic tube split down the middle, into which a special installation tool can placed that will enable you to cover and contain a collection of wires. One big wire is easier work with (and looks better) than a bunch of smaller wires.

Number 2 is simple and free, although perhaps best suited to storing unused cables.

Number 3 – This “handcuff” looking device works like one too to clamp a number of loose cables in a single large thread.

Number 4 – These holders are fixed to the desk or the wall and hold a group of wires in place.

Number 5 – Velcro. Fairly expensive, but very re-usable

And lastly, Number 6 comes from the garden store. It’s a simple spool of light wire with a built-in cutter at the base. Intended for flowers, the wire does a good job on quick, temporary jobs.

Having a clean and tidy workspace may not be for everyone – it requires a little more work and a bit of discipline and may not, in the end, enhance your productivity. I’ve worked under my new regime for about a month now and I think I’m a bit more productive, but I know it keeps my wife happy and I find thinking about going in to my office to work a more pleasant experience.

But I won’t claim a final victory now. As with the currently accepted scientific theory: it’s only true until it’s not. In our next episode we’ll look at heat and noise.

In our next chapter we’ll take a look the storage cabinet and modifications to the PCs – both designed to improve system cooling.

Setting up a second (third, fourth … ) account in Outlook.

Adding several accounts to your Outlook 2010 is a simple task. Using them and switching between them is also very easy. What you DO need to decide before adding several accounts is, which will function as your main account, and should the accounts use the same PST-file (the database storing your emails) or should you use separate PST-files ?

Functionality will be the same, no matter what you choose.

In the last section, I will give my thoughts on pros and cons using one or two PST-Files.

Adding more Accounts

1. Click the FILE tab (the yellow one)
2. Click the ACCOUNTS-button and then the Account-Link popping up underneath it.
3. Follow the steps found here.

Choose between the two

1. Start writing a new Email
2. In the top left corner you find the From, To, CC-buttons.
    

   Notice that the FROM-button now has a little arrow attached to it.
   Clicking it will allow you to choose which account to send from

If you have decided to use several PST-files, you may also choose which account to use by simply highlighting the appropriate InBox in the account/folder listing, before opening a new Email Document. Outlook will choose the account corresponding to the InBox selected.

Several Signatures

If you automatically want to add signatures to your new emails, you can set Outlook to use different Signatures for different accounts. Here’s how.

1. Start a new Message
2. Click the Insert Ribbon
   
3. Click the Signature Button
4. Choose Signatures from the drop down menu
5. In the Signatures Dialogue window,  Add and design a new signature

Connecting each signature to a different account

Setting this up, may not be very intuitive to you (Another Note to the Outlook developers). But it is rather simple one you know how.

In the right hand side of the Signatures Window there are three pull-down menus titled “Choose Default Signatures”. It would be fair to assume you choose these settings while creating your Signature, but that’s not it. They have no relations to the Signature creation what so ever. They really should have been put in a separate dialog window. But that’s another discussion.

After creating all of your signatures they will appear in the pull-down menus.

1. In the first pulldown menu, choose which email account to attach a signature to
2. In the second choose which signature to use (if any) when starting a new Email
3. In the third one, choose which signature to use (if any) when replying to an email

The settings are stored immediately and you do not need to close the Signature Window until you’re all done.

Using One or Two PST-files ?

The following reflects my experience. You may experience it differently, and if so please feel free to add your own comments on the matter.

Choosing one PST-file may slow down performance when the one file get large. On the upside, you will only have one set of folders to worry about (one inbox, sent box, deleted items etc.). You will also not need a large monitor to see all inboxes at once in the folder/account listing.

Choosing two PST-files may increase your security and performance as the files will be smaller. Backup and deleting an account will be easier. You get more control over each account. On the downside, you will need a large monitor to be able to see each inbox in the folder/account listing, and you are not able to choose which folders to display in the listing except from expanding (or collapsing) the entire account folder (NOTE to the developers; add this functionality in the next Office)

Background: the Warning Signs

Summers can get pretty hot here in Auckland. The average temperature for this time of year is 24 degrees Celsius (that’s 75 degrees Fahrenheit to North Americans) with 99% humidity so it’s no simple matter to keep a computer cool.

Your computers resources are not infinite and each time a new program is called, a portion of the total resource is used and as we chew through the systems resource we eventually reach a point where the resources are no longer sufficient for the proper functioning of the system.

At that point many things can happen starting with “nothing” happening to a full on “Blue Screen of Death” forced re-boot.

In most cases no error message is produced, or the message that is produced has nothing to do with the actual problem that may be discovered later. What we notice is that the system starts acting “weird”. Commands don’t get executed, we lose icons, a simple file copy takes 3 times as long as it should … and at some point we make the decision to shut everything down and start again fresh with a reboot.

Some time ago (more than a year) I found that I had to re-boot my systems far more often on hot days than on cool days.

Eventually it dawned on me that at least some these faults might be the result of overheating.

I asked my wife if we could turn her sewing room into an air-conditioned computer room with hardware racks and a raised floor – but she said “No”. Women – go figure.

My fallback plan “B” called for the installation of more internal fans into my boxes, and while this seemed to alleviate the faults, it also made the room a lot noisier.

In an effort to reduce the office noise levels I had a cabinet built to house the four computers I had at the time. I included several ventilation holes that I hoped would be sufficient.

The result was a large desk-shaped oven. The multiple 6-inch vent holes weren’t nearly enough to extract the trapped heat so it just got hotter and hotter. I had to take off the cabinet doors and even the PC covers and direct a large office fan directly into the cavity to bring the operating temperature down to a safe level. In the end, for a time, the office was hotter and noisier than ever. (more about this in our next article)

I mention my heat problems because for a long time I attributed all of my “un attributable” faults to it. In particular, the one that bugged me the most was the loss of my RAID array.

The first time I noticed it was a bit of a shock given that the drive holds all my data and my “backups” discipline is a bit loose, but after some investigation and a few reboots it became clear that the array hadn’t disappeared, it had only failed to mount.

I’ve configured this PC with 2 partitions – the boot drive (“C:\”) is a separate physical HDD so the system boots up fine, it just has no second partition which is a virtual drive made up of 4 physical drive and combined by RAID to a single “D:\” drive.

No error message was produced and in fact, the report from the HighPoint RAID management system told me that the array was “Normal” apart from the number 2 disk running a bit hot.

In order to recover the folders I had to power down the box and reboot at least once, and sometimes more, to get the virtual “D:\” drive back on line.

I sent off a note to the HighPoint group via their support web page and got an email back saying their support guy was on vacation and gave me an alternate address to contact. No reply came back from the alternate email.

I used the support page to request an update on the status of my fault report and shortly thereafter I got an email saying that my trouble ticket had been updated. I logged back in to the support site only to find that the “update” was my own query asking them for an update.

Around this time I’d been posting my problem off to my various forums and one kind reader wrote me to point out that if I really wanted to back up a 1.5Tb RAID array, I’d need a 1.5Tb backup disk to do it. He was right of course, but it was a depressing kind of right – there is a good measure of fault tolerance built into the RAID software, but it is fault “tolerance” not fault “proof”. If you lose a second disk before you can replace the first fail, you will lose the array.

The lack of progress on this issue and a growing frustration with the supplier drove me to consider an article on “the failure of raid technology and its suppliers”. Fortunately a lucky-un-lucky break intervened.

“We had to destroy the village in order to save it”

Have you ever had an intermittent fault on a system that you couldn’t pinpoint, but you knew it was in a particular subsystem, so you just whacked the subsystem with a hammer to get the whole thing replaced?

Fortunately for me, fate held the hammer this time.

As disk failures go, the “head crash” (see Wikipedia) has to be one of the most dramatic. It’s a catastrophic hardware fault that occurs when a read-write head (works like the needle on a turntable) comes into contact with the surface of the disks platter which is spinning around at 7200 Rpm.

On February 1st, a noise that sounded very much like a high-speed dentist drill came screaming from my PC. Checking the RAID Management page I could see the number 2 drive had indeed failed. (I’ve put a sound file on my web site if you want to hear it Barracuda Head Crash.wav)

Securing a replacement drive (a Western Digital) I had a go at getting it integrated into my system but the first attempt failed miserably (“no available drive found”). After figuring out that the drive had to be formatted first it only took only a minute to install, and then another 8 hours to mirror the drive back in the array restoring my system to peak performance.

Since February 1, and with additional system cooling modifications, both servers have run well although I still can’t close the cabinet doors. My confidence in RAID technology is solidified, and I’m very happy to re-recommend a RAID 5 solution for any situation that requires a large logical drive for optimum disk utilization and data protection with a lower cost of ownership profile than simply doubling the number of disks.

One down, One to go

Bolstered by the success with the disk failure I pushed ahead for a solution to the disappearing drive problem and sent another email off to HighPoint. I got a note back directing me to their Chinese web site to download the latest drivers, BIOS, and web management tools. It sounded like a fob to get me off their backs, but those basic steps – even if they never seem to work, must be undertaken in order to move on to the next step.

On March 1, I found the driver, bios, and application files on their web site and they were, indeed, different from the ones I’d obtained earlier from their US web site (why didn’t they just update the US files themselves?)

I installed the 4 new files and I guess it must have worked — 4 or 5 reboots since the install and not a missing drive in sight!

I won’t claim a final victory however. As with the currently accepted scientific theory: it’s only true until it’s not.

Uninstalling applications is never as seamless a process as installing them. Although Windows PCs come with a built-in utility, the Add or Remove Programs utility, that allows users to easily uninstall various applications and software, it usually fails to do the required job when you need to uninstall certain applications, such as McAfee Antivirus suite or DirectX.

Incomplete uninstallation may cause errors and complications on the system. Leftover processes of a previously installed program may interfere with other running processes and cause application errors, as well as performance related issues, such as frequent software crashes and system slow downs. This is why it is absolutely essential that when you remove a program you ensure that all its associated processes, files, and registry entries are also permanently deleted.

With the help of two examples, McAfee antivirus suite and DirectX we discuss how to uninstall programs that may not get completely removed using the Add or Remove Programs utility.

Before we discuss this, let’s see how to use the Add or Remove Programs utility to uninstall applications, such as Microsoft Office 2007.

Uninstall Office 2007 using Add or Remove Programs

Uninstalling programs using the Add or Remove Programs utility is simple, as this example shows.

1. Click Start and then click Control Panel to open its corresponding window.
2. Double-click Add or Remove Programs.
3. Locate and select Office 2007.
4. Click Uninstall.

In the following section, we discuss how to completely uninstall applications, such as McAfee Antivirus and DirectX that the Add or Remove Programs utility may fail to remove.

Uninstall McAfee

When it comes to removing antivirus suites, the Add or Remove Programs utility is often found to be wanting. This may be because of the fact that such programs place their files and entries deep into the system and the Add or Remove Programs utility fails to remove them completely.

Most Antivirus software manufacturers, therefore, release an uninstaller tool for their line of products. It is best to use such uninstaller tools – these tools are typically distributed from the software manufacturer’s website for free – to remove antivirus software. In case the software manufacturer does not provide an uninstaller tool, you may use a reliable professional uninstaller tool.

To remove McAfee, first remove the software using the Add or Remove Programs utility – the same way as you uninstall any other application. Next, visit McAfee’s official website and download MCPR.exe, which is the uninstaller tool for McAfee products. After you have downloaded the MCPR.exe file on to your desktop, double-click it to run the uninstaller tool.

Uninstall DirectX

DirectX is an application that is built-in to your Windows system. An attribute peculiar to DirectX is that it cannot be uninstalled using the Add or Remove Programs utility, as the application does not appear in your installed programs list.

If for some reason you need to remove the version of DirectX installed on your computer then simply remove the DirectX entry from the registry and Delete the DirectX folder.

Important: Before making any changes to the registry, always back up the registry first. You can make registry backups either manually or by using a reliable registry maintenance software.

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and press Enter.
2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\DirectX
3. Delete all the keys for DirectX.
4. Right-click the Directx folder in left-pane and click Delete.
5. Restart Windows.

Note: It is not possible to completely remove DirectX from the PC as it is an integral part of the operating system. The above steps uninstall the upgraded version of DirectX from the PC and reinstall the default DirectX version for your Windows operating system when the PC is restarted.

James Ricketts is a writer whose work can be seen at Instant-Registry-Fixes.org. To find out more about his work or to contact him, please visit Instant-Registry-Fixes.org.

In this article you will discover a neat way to summarize data across Excel sheets without having to reference each of them. This technique will work even if you add a new sheet.

Defining a Range of Sheets

Consider the following example: The fictitious expense reports for the equally fictitious XYZ Widget Company’s various offices. Each sheet in the workbook contains the expense data for each of the company’s offices. Below you can see the expense data for the New-York office:

The Expenses workbook holds a similar sheet for the Chicago and LA offices.

Now, let’s create a total expense report in the worksheet called ‘Country Wide Expenses’. The sheet already exists, but we have to actually fill it with data:

We’ll use the SUM function to add the contents of the corresponding cells on each sheet by doing the following:

• We’ll select cell B5
• Then we’ll type in =SUM(
• We’ll click on the NYC Office worksheet tab and Excel will add ‘NYC Office’! to the formula in the formula bar
• We’ll then click on cell B5 in the ‘NYC Office’ sheet and B5 will be added to the formula, so now, the formula bar will show: =SUM(‘NYC Office’!B5
• Finally, while holding the Shift key, we’ll click on the ‘Chicago Office’ tab; this will insert a range of sheets into the formula which will be shown in the formula bar in the following way:

=SUM(‘NYC Office:Chicago Office’!B5

• We’ll finish up the formula by closing the parenthesis and pressing the Enter key

Excel will return to the ‘Country Wide Expenses’ sheet, and this is what we get:

What we did here was to create a range of cells across sheets. Pretty neat isn’t it?

Excel uses the colon sign – : – as the range marker; if put between two cell references, Excel will consider the reference to be for all the cells in the range. For example, A1:B3 contains 6 cells: A1, A2, A3, B1, B2 and B3. But when the colon sign is found between worksheet names, the range covers all the sheets between the names, so in our case, the range includes cell B5 on all the office expenses sheets (as we selected the first and last one).

Drag to Fill

All that’s left is to use the same formula to fill up the table:

• We’ll grab the fill handle and drag it to the right so it will cover the 12 month columns of the table
• Then we’ll grab the fill handle again and drag it down so it will cover the whole table

And so we’re done in about a minute of work:

Summary

In this article we’ve dealt with using ranges across worksheets which is a very powerful but rarely used technique. It is also important to remember that this technique is not limited to the SUM function; it works with every Excel function that handles ranges. You can use it to average data, find the lowest or the highest number across sheets and much more.

About the Author: Joseph Reese is the founder of Excel-Formulas.com an Excel consulting firm.Head over to his website if you want to improve your performance with Excel.

Thanks to freewaregenius for pointing these out to us.

And the newcomers are…

WinX DVD Author

Our good old friends over at Digiarity has since last decided to release their DVD authoring software as Freeware. This suite does not only convert any movie to DVD, but also allow you to author or re-pack a DVD with themes, chapters and everything you’d expect from a payware program.

As always, Digiarity promises high-quality and High-Speed – and in my opinion, they do deliver.

With step-by-step wizard built-in, even novice can easily convert and burn MKV, M2TS, M4V, MP4, FLV, MPEG, MOV, RM, RMVB, H.264, AVI to DVD, etc. Equipped with fast and powerful decode encoder engine, this free DVD burner software takes less than one hour to create a full 4.3 G high quality DVD, while delivering 100% excellent audio and video effects.

Download WinX DVD Author

Chasys Draw IES

This program is soon to be one of my favourite programs. On a daily basis, when working with high-quality graphics, I turn to the master of all; Photoshop. The problem is that Photoshop is much too heavy for my netbook, which I carry with me all over. Chasys Draw IES is a suite of image editing tools featuring a powerful bitmap editor that supports Photoshop style layers and plugins, giving me a lightweight program with the powerful functionality of which I have come to expect and need.

The whole suite is UAC aware and is designed to take advantage of multi-core processors, touch-screens and pen-input devices.

Expect to see a full review on this later

Download Chasys Draw IES

BufferZone PRO

I’ve earlier told you about Sandbox programs like Sandboxie and TimeFreeze. The BufferZone Pro is the ’PRO’ version of Trustware’s virtualization/sandboxing program. As with any Sandboxing program, it works by isolating running processes from the rest of the system, making it virtually impossible for the running programs to make changes to your system.

BufferZone Pro does NOT support 64-bit architecture, but they claim to introduce this feature sometime in 2011.

Download BufferZone Pro

Download BufferZone Pro

• What is an Easter Egg?
• What an Easter Egg is Not
• Easter Egg Examples

What is an Easter Egg?

Easter eggs, in software, are deliberately added and not not just “glitches” (see more about that below.) Often these Easter eggs are added by programmers for a joke, to get some attention, or to add some flair to the software you’re using.

A classic example of an Easter egg is a hidden menu on DVD or an animation in a piece of software that can only be seen by pressing certain keys.

What an Easter Egg is Not

There are some common misconceptions with the term “Easter Egg.” An Easter egg is not:

• A bug in a program.
• An imposed restriction.
• A hack in a program made by the end user.

For example, it has been claimed that not being able to create a folder, in Windows, with one of the following names is an Easter egg:

PRN, AUX, CLOCK$, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9

This is not an example of an Easter egg. This is a restriction, that dates back to DOS, to protect certain file names being used that are reserved by the operating system:

Although the first error message (seemingly, still, not updated with Windows 7) makes you think you’ve found an Easter egg (or glitch) in Windows, the second error message states otherwise.

Another commonly confused Easter egg is the ability to generate random text in Microsoft Word. Try this:

1. Open Microsoft Word

2. Type =rand(20,9)

This will create twenty paragraphs with nine sentences each (taken from the Microsoft Help files):

Still, not an Easter egg.

Enough of that though, you’re here to learn about some real Easter eggs…

Easter Egg Examples

Here are some examples of the best Easter eggs I’ve found/heard about in software over the years. Please share others, you know about, in the comments.

Picasa: Teddy Bears

In Google Picasa, press CTRL+SHIFT+Y. Watch the teddy bears rain down on your screen.

Firefox: The Book of Mozilla

If you’re a Firefox user, open any version and type about:mozilla in the address bar. You’ll get a quote from “The Book of Mozilla”:

Firefox: about:robots

Open Firefox and type about:robots in the address bar:

vim: :Ni! and :help!

In vim, if you type

:Ni!

in normal mode, vim shows the error message

Do you demand a shrubbery?

If you type

:help!

vim, reassuringly, says

Don’t Panic!

Source

Excel 97: Flight Simulator

Want to see the credits of Excel 97 in a flight sim-like fashion? Didn’t think so, but you’re welcome to try anyway. If you’re using Office 97 or have access:

1. Open Excel 97 (this doesn’t work in later versions.)
2. On a blank worksheet, press F5.
3. Type X97:L97 and press Enter.
4. Press the Tab key once.
   
5. Hold down Ctrl + Shift and left-click the Chart Wizard toolbar icon.

Click here for a screenshot if you don’t have Excel 97. Otherwise, try it for yourself as a fun surprise.

uTorrent: Tetris

In uTorrent, click Help > About uTorrent. When the About dialog appears, press T on the keyboard to play Tetris.

Are These Easter Eggs?

Here are a few I’ve found, over the years, that I’m on the fence about. What do you think?

Extra Files in C:\Windows on Windows XP

If you’re using Windows XP or have access to a copy of it, go to C:\Windows and look for a file named clock.avi. I’ve not seen any use for this file. I’m not entirely sure it’s an Easter egg, but I bet you didn’t know it was there!

Similarly, there is a file named “quotes”. Open My Computer and go to: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\etc, open the file named quotes in notepad then look at the quotes put there by the Microsoft developers.

Win Solitaire Every time

Open Solitaire Press Alt + Shift + 2 while playing and see the cards drop.

Creating a usable Pull-down Menu

If you use Excel on a day-to-day basis filling out forms and information, you might find yourself typing in the same information over and over. Either by typing it in or using copy and paste. When filling in forms you will normally use the same cells over and over (this is where we can use Pull-down Menus). Pull-down Menus can also control your Excel document in different ways like retrieve information or navigate between Sheets and Documents.

Activate the Developer Toolbar (Office 2010 Users Only)

To access the Form tools we have to activate the Developer Toolbar.

1. Click on the Green File Tab
2. Choose Options
3. In the Options Dialogue, click “Customize Ribbon”
4. In the List Window to the right, there is a list of all the available Ribbons.
   Locate the one Called: “Developer” and Check the box next to it
5. Click OK to Save

Creating a Settings Sheet.

First thing I do (when starting a new Excel Project) is to create a Sheet called Settings. This is to keep everything as clean and neat as possible. For this tutorial we will benefit from having a “Settings Sheet” as we get a place to keep the options for our Pull-Down Menu. You should always Index the Options when creating Pull-Down Menu Content. I will explain a bit later.

Create a new Sheet (or Choose an existing one) and Right Click it.
Choose Rename from the context menu,  Name the Sheet “Settings”

1. In the first column type the index numbers from 1 to X (where X is the number of lines needed).
2. In the Second Column, type in the Options (Weekdays for this example)

Now, head over to our form-sheet to add our menu.

1. Click the Developer Toolbar (Earlier Office, look for the FORM Controls)
2. In the Developer Toolbar there’s a menu-item called Insert, click the little arrow underneath to show the Form Controls menu.
3. Click on the ComboBox Control (#2 from left)
4. Draw the ComboBox in place (or simply click where you want it)
   
   Resize the control by dragging the handles in each corner.
5. Right-Click the ComboBox and Choose “Format Control”.
   In the dialogue box, we need to assign which cells from which we will collect the data,
   which cell to store the user choice, and what appearance we like.
6. Place the cursor within the Input Range Fieldbox (click it)
7. Click the Settings-Sheet and highlight the options area (Weekdays)
   
8. Activate the Cell-Link Field (this should automatically open the Form-Sheet) and Type in the CellReference to save the user choice in. In this example we use "B5" (which is hidden by the ComboBox).
   
9. Decide how many lines to display in the ComboBox (I set it to 7) and check the 3D-Shadow option.
10. Click OK
11. Click somewhere outside the ComboBox to activate it

Now when you click the ComboBox the weekdays should be appearing.

Practical use

It looks good right? So how do we put this to good use? If you were to print this form you would see the ComboBox appearing on the print. If you Right-Click the ComboBox and click the Properties Tab. Uncheck “Print Object” to make it invisible on print.

IF you do then the print will look something like this:

The weekday (or user choice) is represented by an index number (in this case #3).

Use ComboBox as LookUp Tool

We can use the index number to look up data corresponding to the user’s choice. If you use the ComboBox to retrieve Customer Names from a list, then we can use formulas to retrieve more data like contact person, address, phone number etc. In this example we will retrieve the Weekday from our Settings-Sheet, making it appear in real text instead of an index number. The procedure for fetching more data is exactly the same.

1. Right-Click the ComboBox and choose “Format Control”
2. Click the Properties Tab and uncheck the “Print Object”.
   
3. Click the Control Tab and Change the Cell-Link to "C5" instead of "B5"
4. Click OK
5. Now format the Text Color in Cell "C5" to white, making it seem invisible
6. With the ComboBox active (Right Click it) move the Combo Box temporarily away
7. Activate ce)ll "B5" and type in the following Formula:
   =VLOOKUP(C5;Settings!B3:C9;2)

   (if unsure how this works you can use the Formula Wizard by clicking the fx-button and choose VLOOKUP)
8. Test the Formula by changing weekdays in the ComboBox
9. When Successful, Move the ComboBox back (step 6) over the Formula field to cover it.

Good luck to ya!

Oh, and if you have any questions about this, feel free to contact me here or in the Forum.