J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

A Break From Excel

After finishing up the last round of Excel 2010 books, I took a much-needed break from Excel. That explains the lack of recent blog posts.

For some reason, I got all excited about Windows desktop gadgets. That's kept me out of trouble for the past few weeks. I made two gadgets:

Office Recent Files - This gadget isplays a handy list of recent files for Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Requires Office 2007 or Office 2010. I couldn't figure out how to read the Windows registry using Javascript, so I ended up using VBScript almost exclusively. I was surprised to see how nicely these two scripting languages work together.

SLAG - Simple Little Audio Gadget - I found a few music-playing gadgets, but I don't like any of them. So I made my own. It uses the Windows Media Player database, and the code is written in Javascript.

If you're running Vista or Windows 7, give them a try and let me know how they work. Gadgets aren't compiled, so you can see exactly how they are written.

1. By Yard. Comment posted 08 July, 2010 5:05am

   Hi, great little gadget, thanks.
   
   In V2.0 maybe you could include:
   
   the option to have multiple lines of text, e.g. artist AND track
   a mute button
   
   BTW, are you aware of the most common meaning of the word "slag" in the UK? (Not sure if it's the same as in the US, so not sure if the 'joke' is intentional)
2. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 08 July, 2010 5:37am

   Yep, I'm aware of that meaning in the UK. It doesn't really matter, though. It's not like this is a real product.
3. By Yard. Comment posted 08 July, 2010 5:44am

   I have no problem with it - just being a good neighbour and pointing it out!
   
   Wonder how such a name might actually impact sales if it were a real product?
   
   I expect if I googled it, I'd find a brand of bread in Hungary called Slag. Or something else amusing.
4. By RobM. Comment posted 08 July, 2010 2:08pm

   At least it's not a "Simple Little Utility Tool"!!
5. By Jason. Comment posted 11 July, 2010 3:58pm

   John, how come you don't post any excel tutorial videos? It would be nice to see the master in action.
6. By John Walkenbach. Comment posted 11 July, 2010 4:58pm

   I'm not a huge fan of video instruction. Seems pretty inefficient to me.
7. By AlexJ. Comment posted 14 July, 2010 10:11am

   Actually, John, I think there are certain times that video is irreplaceable - I learned how to arrange multiple data fields in a pivot table from a video by Debra Dalgleish. The written explanation didn't help at all - with the video, got it right away.