Blog
I will blog on this page about computer
related topics like Microsoft®,
Access, Java...as well as post things of personal interest.
I will try to keep the blog as current as possible, so
please check back every now and then. Entries are in order
from newest to oldest from top to bottom.
December
2007 - RibbonX : Customizing the Office
2007 Ribbon released
As mentioned earlier this year I had the oustanding
chance to work with Robert Martin, Ken Puls and Teresa Hennig
on a new book that mainly focuses on Ribbon customization
in Office 2007. The book has been released to the general
public and is available and the usual bookstores (Amazon,
BN, Borders...). As pointed out before, if you want to get
the most of the 2007 edition or want to start tackling XML
and advanced customization techniques,
then this might be a book for you. Here is a short description
from Amazon and a link
to Wiley's site.
<Quote:>
* As the most radical change to the Office interface in its history, the Ribbon
replaces the traditional menu bar and toolbars and requires a new set of
skills for customizing
* Instructions and examples demonstrate how to customize the Ribbon using VBA,
XML, Access, Excel, and Word
* Covers the relevant aspects of security, such as trust centers and digital
certificates
* Packed with real-world code examples that readers can immediately apply
* Features helpful references
</Quote>
December
2007 - Microsoft Office Service Pack 1
released
As anticipated Microsoft has released the first
service pack for Microsoft Office 2007. The link to the download
page can be found on the Office website:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/default.aspx
Here is the direct link:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9EC51594-992C-4165-A997-25DA01F388F5&displaylang=en
Here is the description from the download page:
<Quote:>
The 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1 delivers important
customer-requested stability and performance improvements,
while incorporating further enhancements to user security.
This service pack also includes all of the updates released
for the 2007 Office suite prior to December of 2007. You
can get a more complete description of SP1, including a list
of
issues that were fixed, in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article
936982: Description
of the 2007 Microsoft Office suite Service Pack 1.
Service Pack 1 will install even if a publicly available
update has already been installed on your computer.
SP1 also includes stability improvements developed as a
result of user input from the Microsoft Online Crash Analysis
and from Microsoft Product Support feedback.
</Quote>
As mentioned in the above quote more
details about specific fixes within the SP can be read in
MSKB
article 936982.
November
2007 - Christmas Village 2007
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter! |
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
Wie oft hat schon zur Winterszeit
Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen! |
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid will mich was lehren:
Die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
Gibt Mut und Kraft zu jeder Zeit!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid will mich was lehren! |
Traditionally each advent season we buy one new
addition to the Department
56 collection and bring the Christmas
village to life. Over time
the village has grown to a full sized town with suburbs,
which leads to problems like traffic congestion, arsonists
(which the fire department has to deal with), drunken homeless...
;) You can see it in the below
pictures.
November
2007 - Birthday Cake Adventure #2
Ahoy! Me buxom beauty made me an awesome cake
this birthday voyage. Arrrrrr...as ye can be seein' th' boat
includes a sea dog figure,
kraken, booty chest, jolly roger...
It tookst th' lass' three days t' complete all on th' lass'
own. This be th' lass' second cake after th' Thomas
th' Tank engine one earlier this voyage. Enjoy th' pictures.
November
2007 - Contributor for RibbonX : Customizing
the Office 2007 Ribbon
A couple weeks ago I've finished contributions to RibbonX
: Customizing the Office 2007 Ribbon. The book will
be published by Wiley in January 2008. The authors are Robert
Martin, Ken Puls and Teresa Hennig and it was an honor and
pleasure to have worked with them. The book covers Ribbon customization
as well as other topics relevant to the new Office 2007
release mainly demonstrated with Word, Excel and Access. So
if you
want to
get the most
of the
2007
edition or want to start tackling XML and advanced customization
techniques, then this might be a book for you. Here is a short
description from Amazon:
<Quote:>
* As the most radical change to the Office interface in its history, the Ribbon
replaces the traditional menu bar and toolbars and requires a new set of skills
for customizing
* Instructions and examples demonstrate how to customize the Ribbon using VBA,
XML, Access, Excel, and Word
* Covers the relevant aspects of security, such as trust centers and digital
certificates
* Packed with real-world code examples that readers can immediately apply
* Features helpful references
</Quote>
November
2007 - Expert Access
2007 Programming released
Rob Cooper's and Michael Tucker's Expert
Access 2007 Programming book has been released.
I had the honor of being one of the tech editors
for the book and it really came together to a great piece
of work. If you are an intermediate Access programmer
and want to learn more about common developer practices
as
well
as new features of Microsoft Access 2007 and Windows
Vista then this might be a great book for you. Here is
a description from Amazon:
<Quote:>
Expert Access 2007 Programming shows experienced developers
how to create professional-level Access database applications.
The authors--software engineers on the Access development
team at Microsoft--show how to apply software engineering
methodologies to Access application development. The book
is organized to cover all phases of Access development.
The authors demonstrate techniques for creating Access controls,
forms, and reports that help streamline development and produce
more user-friendly applications. They also cover such overlooked
areas as custom deployment and documentation. The book contains
many useful code examples designed so they can be used with
minimal modification.
</Quote>
October
2007 - Dobby the lobster
Despite several failed attempts to preserve the dog’s
dignity by not dressing him up in a weird Halloween costume
my wife decided that he will be Dobby the lobster this year.
The result of our pumpkin carving can be seen below, too.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
October
2007 - Retrieving File Size of Attachment Value
This recently came up on UtterAccess. A member
wanted to know how to actually retrieve the file size of
an attachment stored in the new attachment data type. As
with other examples before we can use DAO to achieve this.
Here is some sample code that was tested using a form which
is based on a table housing an attachment field.
On Error GoTo Err_AttachSize
Dim db As DAO.Database
Dim rsParent As DAO.Recordset2
Dim rsChild As DAO.Recordset2
Set db = CurrentDb
Set rsParent = Me.Recordset
rsParent.OpenRecordset
Set rsChild = rsParent.Fields("AttachmentTest").Value
rsChild.OpenRecordset
Debug.Print Round(rsChild.Fields("FileData").FieldSize
/ 1024, 2) & " KB"
Exit_AttachSize:
Set rsChild = Nothing
Set rsParent = Nothing
Exit Sub
Err_AttachSize:
MsgBox "Some Error occured!", Err.number, Err.Description
Resume Exit_AttachSize
End If
As you can see we create a recordset based on the form.
Then we create another recordset to work with the multi valued
attachment field and retrieve the field size of the attachment
that was currently displayed. Hope someone finds this useful.
October
2007 - Taiming the Griffon Coaster
So we recently went to Busch Gardens Europe
to fill my wife's yearly roller coaster urge. Busch Gardens
Europe is one of our favorit theme parks and they just recently
opened a brand new floorless diving coaster. It's an amazing
ride called Griffon. If it isn't enough to know that the
first drop is 205ft high at a 90 degree angle with speeds
up to 71mph, then you might enjoy the fact that it actually
stops for several seconds at the top of the hill before it
releases you. If you are familiar with the park you might
know the legendary loch ness monster ride. The second drop
on the Griffon is higher then the first one on that ride.
The ride is really smooth and it feels like you are gliding
through
the
air
(hence
the
name
Griffon
I
guess). If you are interested you can read/see more about
it at any of these sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffon_(roller_coaster)
http://www.griffoncoaster.com/
http://coastercritic.blogspot.com/2006/08/busch-releases-griffon-coaster-details.html
If you plan on going to Busch Gardens and might
want to find discount ticket prices then send me an email.
Throughout the years I've discovered several ways to get
your hands on them.
August
2007 - Another
example of working with the Attachment DataType
This recently came up in a question on UtterAccess.com
This is an additional sample to the Attachment DataType
tutorial in the Tutorials section.
What if you wanted to move existing attachments from an
attachment field in one table to an attachment field in another
table?
For this example I created two identical table designs with
only an ID Primary Key field of type AutoNumber and an Attachment
data type field. In the one table I added several files as
attachments in datasheet view. The Attachment field in the
other table will stay empty for now since we want to move
files into it.
To visually simulate the file movement I created a form
based on the first table and then created a form based on
the second table. I moved the second form onto the first
form as a subform. Your setup might look like in this picture:
In the on click event of the button on the
main form I used the following code:
On Error GoTo Err_SaveImage
Dim db As DAO.Database
Dim rsParent As DAO.Recordset2
Dim rsChild As DAO.Recordset2
Dim rsForeign As DAO.Recordset2
Dim rsForeignChild As DAO.Recordset2
Set db = CurrentDb
Set rsParent = Me.Recordset
Set rsForeign = Me.frmAttachReceive.Form.Recordset
rsParent.OpenRecordset
rsForeign.OpenRecordset
Set rsChild = rsParent.Fields("AttachSample").Value
rsChild.OpenRecordset
rsForeign.AddNew
Set rsForeignChild = rsForeign.Fields("AttachReceive").Value
rsForeignChild.AddNew
rsForeignChild.Fields("FileData") = rsChild.Fields("FileData")
rsForeignChild.Fields("FileName") = rsChild.Fields("FileName")
rsForeignChild.Update
rsForeign.Update
Exit_SaveImage:
Set rsChild = Nothing
Set rsParent = Nothing
Set rsForeign = Nothing
Set rsForeignChild = Nothing
Exit Sub
Err_SaveImage:
If Err <> 0 Then
MsgBox "Some Error occured!", Err.Number, Err.Description
Resume Exit_SaveImage
End If
The result can be seen in this next image:
I hope someone will find this useful.
August
2007 New Tutorial about the
Email Data Collection Feature
I added a new tutorial to the tutorials section
about the new and impressive Email Data Collection feature
in Access 2007.
<Quote>:
Today we will have a look at yet another great new feature
introduced in Access 2007. Have you ever been in the situation
of needing to send or retrieve information into your Access
application from clients who are infrequent users of your application
and not directly connected to it at any point in time? I have
been there and done that and can say from experience that your
options as a developer are pretty limited. The simplest but
yet still long winded workaround was normally to export internal
application data to an Excel workbook or text file and sending
that with emails as attachments. After the external user reviews,
edits, updates, or adds data they would reattach the file to
a new email and send it back, which started a whole new problem
of importing everything back into the application. As with
many other things Access 2007 makes our life so much easier
with an internal feature for data collection through emails.
</Quote>
August
2007 Birthday Cake Adventure
- 20 lb Fondant |
$60 |
- ingredients for 12 sheet cakes |
$50 |
- 19h work at $20/h |
$380 |
- seeing the glowing expression of your 3 year old
nephew |
priceless |
So my wife had wanted to do a large sized birthday
cake for the longest time and finally took the opportunity
to do so for our nephew's 3rd birthday celebration.
After a couple weeks of research, ingredient and material
shopping we started the cake adventure on Friday evening.
After 5 hours we called it a night. On Saturday we put in
14 hours straight and finished up the cake (see pictures).
It is completely edible and was a great hit with everyone
at the party on Sunday.
In case you are not familiar with the motif. It is supposed
to represent Thomas
The Tank Engine, which seems to be a
hit with 2-5+ year olds right now.
August
2007 New Tutorial about the Rich Text Feature
I added a new tutorial to the tutorials section
about the new, native Rich Text feature in Access 2007.
<Quote>:
In this tutorial we will have a closer look at the new
Rich Text feature introduced in Access 2007. I had made
brief comments about it in prior tutorials so it is time
to introduce more details. This tutorial will be a little
shorter just based on the content amount but we will go
through some general information about the Rich Text feature
as well as manual and programmatical usage samples.
</Quote>
August
2007 New Tutorial about
the Attachment DataType
I added a new tutorial to the tutorials section
about the new Attachment DataType in Access 2007.
<Quote>:
In this tutorial we will look in detail at the new Attachment DataType introduced
in Access 2007. We will go through examples demonstrating the usage of the new
DataType and illustrate why it might benefit developers. Furthermore, we will
work with manual as well as programmatical implementations of the Attachment
DataType.
</Quote>
2007
Runtime finally available
The 2007 Access Runtime is finally available
as a free
download.More about the release at Clint's
blog.
Access MVPs
join me in our own FaceBook group!
I created a group for us on FaceBook so we are represented
there as well. Feel free to join if you are already a member
of FaceBook or even if you aren't. You can find the group
here.
For
Simpsons fans: Simpsonize yourself
Check out how you would look in the yellow simpsons world
at http://www.simpsonizeme.com.
Below is what it created for me :)
Special
40% discount on The Rational Guide To Microsoft Office
Access 2007 Templates
Book description:
<Quote>:
Microsoft® Access 2007 uses templates to create tracking
applications, offering a rich user experience for entering,
managing, and reporting on data for targeted scenarios. In
The Rational Guide to Microsoft® Office Access 2007 Templates,
Microsoft Program Manager Zac Woodall shows how to design,
create, and share Access templates.
Topics include customization, personalization, branding,
and working with SharePoint. Advanced topics include template
file anatomy, template collections, enterprise templates,
generating templates without running Access, and integrating
templates with add-ins.
</Quote>
To read a sample chapter of the book click here (PDF
format).
If you want to purchase this great
book then click the image provided below to receive a special
40% discount of the original $24.99 list price (only $14.99).
July
2007 - New Tutorial about the Navigation Pane
I added a new tutorial to the tutorials section
about the new Navigation Pane of Access 2007.
<Quote>:
In this tutorial we will look at the new Navigation Pane
introduced in Access 2007. Next to the new Ribbon interface
discussed in earlier tutorials the Navigation Pane adds a
lot to the overall new interface of the development environment.
This should be a stepping stone to navigating and customizing
the Navigation Pane as well will have a detailed look at
it.
</Quote>
July
2007 - Finishing Technical
Editing on book
I just finished a tech editing job on Rob Cooper and Michael
Tucker's Expert
Access 2007 Programming. Rob and Michael have done a
great job with this piece and I personally cannot wait for
its release later in the year. Any developer who wants to
spice up their Access applications design/functional/feature
wise should consider looking into it. It is also a great
introduction to features of Access 2007 and Windows Vista.
July 2007
- Clint/Eric blog about 10 reasons people love UtterAccess
After amounts of research Clint
Covington, Lead Program Manager on the Access team, has
compiled a list of 10 reasons why people love UtterAccess
Forums. He has done a great job in capturing the spirit of
the UA
community. The post can be found at the Access
blog or by visiting the home page of www.utteraccess.com.
Thank you Clint, Eric and the rest of the Access/Microsoft
team who have regularly supported UtterAccess throughout
the years.
July
2007 - New Ranking System Puts Terrapins Second in Comp-Science
<Quote>:
The University of Maryland has the second-best computer science
department in the United States.
Surprised?
Based on a new department ranking system that considers how
many articles a faculty has published, as well its level of
participation in professional conferences, the Terrapin CS
department outranks most of the usual vaunted suspects, including
Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and the University of Illinois.
Caltech? Thirty-forth place, well behind the University of
Texas at Dallas (29th)--who knew?--and just one position ahead
of Par-Tay Central, the University of Arizona. MIT, natch,
held on to its No. 1 perch.
Publication-based rankings have been done in the past, but
the new approach is much more sophisticated, according to the
authors of an article in the June issue of the Association
for Computing Machinery's monthly magazine, Communications
of the ACM.
The method was co-developed by a software engineer from
Google and expands upon the number of journals that can easily
be
considered, the authors said. The article noted that the publication-based
approach also sidesteps the pitfall of basing rankings on subjective
opinions about a given program. Nevertheless, the authors noted
that publication-based ranking "should probably serve
as one quantitative indicator in a more comprehensive methodology."
...
</Quote>
CampusTechnology
June
2007 - Access Runtime/Developer Extension got recalled
After releasing the 2007 Access runtime version
as well as the ADE (Access Developer Extension) the Access
team has recalled both components to do some further work.
The news can be read at Clint
Covington's blog.
June
2007 - Tutorial on how to
get started with Java posted on UA
With the addition of the Java/C# forum at UtterAccess.com I've
decided to put together a quick tutorial on how to get started
with Java. It is only a small introduction to the technology
but should guide anyone if they want to get started. You can
find the tutorial here.
Feel free to post any questions/comments in the forum.
June
2007 - Dobby Cam
The most recent addition to our family is a Mini-Dachshund
puppy. As a litle experiment I installed a webcam. You can
see Dobby during the week from 8am to 1pm (EST). Access the
Dobby-Cam here.
March
2007 - Microsoft MVP Global Summit (Seattle/Redmond Washington)
I
had a fantastic time during the 2007 Microsoft global MVP
summit in Seattle, WA. I posted a review with tons of pictures
here.
Thank you Microsoft® for putting on this industry wide
unique event and allowing us MVPs to interact with the people
that design/develop the products we love to use in every
day life.
|
