J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

Visitor Stats

The Pointy Haired Dilbert blog had its Best month ever.

In June, he had 95,300 visits, 75,287 unique visitors, and 239,325 page views. I ran a report for this site to see how it compares:

Note to other Excel bloggers: If you use Google Analytics, post your June numbers for comparison.

New Feature Coming: Chart Doctor

I will soon be starting a new feature at this blog called Chart Doctor. You send me sick or injured charts, and I describe how to fix them up.

Just kidding. It's a reference to the most recent controversy in the world of Excel blogging. See Jon Peltier's post: Would the Real Dr. Chart Please Stand Up?

Another Excel Blog

The world can never have too many Excel blogs, so I'm pleased to welcome the newest one: Bacon Bits.

This blog is dedicated to anyone using Excel and Access to analyze data, create applications, or generally make a living. Come back often to enhance your Excel and Access skill-sets. Who knows - tomorrow may be the day when a post from this blog will save your job.

Bacon Bits might seem like an unlikely name for an Excel blog -- until you realize that it's by a company called DataPig Technologies, which is run by Microsoft MVP and fellow book author Mike Alexander.

Here's the only photo I have of Mike, taken at an MVP Summit in Seattle:

He kind of resembles Jay Leno -- but funnier.

I've added the Bacon Bits RSS feed to my master list of Excel Blog Headlines, so now it's official.

No Wonder People Hate Microsoft

Like most users, I hate it when software is installed on my system without my permission. It seems that Microsoft has now joined the ranks of the scummy stealth installers: Microsoft Update Quietly Installs Firefox Extension.

That's right. Microsoft is now mucking around with software from their competitors -- and doing it without even telling you.

A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.

Earlier this year, Microsoft shipped a bundle of updates known as a "service pack" for a programming platform called the Microsoft .NET Framework, which Microsoft and plenty of third-party developers use to run a variety of interactive programs on Windows.

I'm here to report a small side effect from installing this service pack that I was not aware of until just a few days ago: Apparently, the .NET update automatically installs its own Firefox add-on that is difficult -- if not dangerous -- to remove, once installed.

Annoyances.org, which lists various aspects of Windows that are, well, annoying, says "this update adds to Firefox one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities present in all versions of Internet Explorer: the ability for Web sites to easily and quietly install software on your PC."

I just checked and, sure enough, this unwanted add-on is installed on my system.

Notice that I can disable it, but the Uninstall button is disabled. Uninstalling this add-on requires a registry edit, and a few other actions. Microsoft doesn't ask your permission to install it, but they are kind enough to tell you How to manually remove the .NET Framework Assistant for Firefox.

I don't know how long this add-in has been installed on my system, but I didn't notice it until I read the article.

Microsoft must have an entire department that does nothing but think of ways to annoy their customers.

Data Query Tip

Found at Microsoft's support site: XL97: Data Not Returned from Query Using ORACLE Data Source.

Symptoms: When you try to return data from Microsoft Query 97 to a Microsoft Excel 97 worksheet, the spinning globe icon (which signifies that a query is processing) may appear for a long time, and then the query returns no data to your worksheet.

And here's one of the suggestions:

Move Your Mouse Pointer

If you move your mouse pointer continuously while the data is being returned to Microsoft Excel, the query may not fail. Do not stop moving the mouse until all the data has been returned to Microsoft Excel.

NOTE: Depending on your query, it may take several minutes to return the results of your query to the worksheet.

I haven't tried it.

Office 2010 Leaked

The technical preview of Office 2010 has been leaked, but I do not have a copy.

Ars Technica has some screenshots.

One of the images consists of each tab in the Excel ribbon. Everything looks identical to Excel 2007, with the exception of the Insert ribbon.

New items are:

• A Screenshot control in the Illustrations group. I assume this will let the user save all or part of a worksheet as a graphics file.
• A Sparklines group with three commands: Line, Column, Win/Loss. Obviously, Excel 2010 will support Sparkline charts.
• A new Filter group, with one command: Slicer. I'm not sure if this is a native command, or a command added by the "gemini" add-in.

Another change is that the big round "Office button" has been replaced by a smaller rectangular button, directly to the left of the Home tab.

How To Pronounce It

Another new site: Office 2010 The Movie.

I had to spend 50 seconds to download and install Silverlight, and another 33 seconds to watch the movie. But now I know how to pronounce Office 2010. Ladies and gentlemen, it's...

"Office Twenty-Ten"

That is all.

Official Office 2010 Blog Launched

For those interested in Office 2010, Microsoft launched a new blog today: The Microsoft Office 2010 IT Blog.

Current, the blog has one post -- which doesn't say much except that they are all incredibly excited to start talking about the new version of Office.

I've added its RSS feed to my Excel Blog Headlines page.

(via Ed Bott's Windows Expertise)

Still More Fan Mail

And the fan mail keeps pouring in. I think this is the third one this year:

Jose writes:

Hi John,

I just wanted to say thanks to you for your Excel book. I purchased your "Excel 2007 Bible" after purchasing two previous Excel books from other authors. Your book is far superior in allowing me to understand Excel.

I currently work for a major accounting firm and knowing Excel in the accounting industry is crucial. My Excel skill before purchasing your book was probably a 1 (on a 1-10 scale), but after going through the first five chapters and chapters 11 and 12, I can comfortably tell you that my knowledge in Excel has increase dramatically. Hopefully, by the time I'm done with the book, I will be able to stay in pace with some of my co-workers.

I wrote you this e-mail because I feel that you have contributed in some way to my career, and I want to thank you for it. I know some people don't give you credit for the hard work you do in creating such a great book. Thanks once again.

Thank you for the kind words, Jose.

VBA Coding Contest

Put your VBA coding skill to use, and win valuable prizes: Office Palooza Coding Contest.

OfficePalooza is a two-week event (April 20 - May 1, 2009) that is open to just about everyone around the world.

The first day of OfficePalooza we're going to present you with a set of challenges, and you'll have to use Microsoft Office 2007 Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to solve those challenges. When you think you've solved a challenge, follow the instructions on the challenge page and send in your solution. It's that simple.

One of the Experience Challenges is to create a hangman game. Hey, I've already done that -- twice. Here's an old one that's a free download: Hangman Game. And here's a much better one that's included with PUP:

Office 2010 News

I guess it's official. The upcoming Office 14 will named Office 2010.

How will you pronounce it?

• Office Two-Thousand-Ten, or
• Office Twenty-Ten

The second pronunciation has one less syllable.

Also: Microsoft promises public beta of Office 2010.

Microsoft has denied rumours that it will not run a public beta programme for its forthcoming Office 2010 suite. A company spokesperson said that Microsoft will follow its regular development pattern, and allow the public to get their hands on working beta copies of the office applications package.

"Although we are not disclosing a date for the public beta, there definitely will be one. This development cycle for Office is no different than in years past, " the spokesperson said.

"In the third quarter of this year, Office 2010 will enter technical preview, which is an invite-only programme, and this will be followed by a public beta where millions can try out Office."

I wish they'd hurry up so I can get started on my book revisions.

Barbecue Worksheet

I'm not sure if this spreadsheet grill is real. If not, it should be.

It solves a serious problem: Remind campers of office work.

Notice that the widths of columns A and G have been reduced to accommodate the handles.

(Thanks Arvana)

PUP Customer Names

Today I processed some Power Utility Pak orders, and noticed that three in a row were placed by people named David. So I became curious about the most popular names of people who purchase PUP.

The top 20:

1. John (3.81%)
2. Robert (3.22%)
3. David (2.67%)
4. Michael (2.59%)
5. James (2.14%)
6. Richard (1.63%)
7. Mark (1.46%)
8. William (1.44%)
9. Paul (1.27%)
10. Thomas (1.14%)
11. Charles (1.12%)
12. Peter (0.94%)
13. Steve (0.82%)
14. Gary (0.80%)
15. Tom (0.76%)
16. Jim (0.76%)
17. George (0.75%)
18. Stephen (0.70%)
19. Frank (0.69%)
20. Steven (0.67%)

Notice that these are all male names. The first female appears in the list at #94, Karen -- who happens to be tied with Susan. Sandra, Patricia, and Elizabeth aren't far behind.

New Tip: Searching For Words

I posted a new tip today, a VBA function that answers the question: Is A Particular Word Contained In A Text String?

I wrote this function to solve a practical problem. At my other blog, I've been posting lists of songs that contain a particular word. I have my music list in an Excel workbook, but none of the built-in tools are able to let me search for a particular word without getting false hits. For example, if I search for the word friend, I'll also get song titles that contains friends, friendly, friendship, and so on.

The ExactWordInString function, listed in the tip, solves this problem and lets me identify only the songs that contains the exact word I specify.

My Interview

Chandoo, at Pointy Haired Dilbert post this: Interview with John Walkenbach on Excel and Banjo Charts

Here is the interview with John Walkenbach. John is famous excel personality. He has authored 50 excel books, numerous articles and has one of most popular excel related sites - spreadsheetpage.com.

I wore my treasured Excel error shirt: