Category Archives: tips&tricks

Word Mail Merge fails to see MS Access data source

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transfertextWe have an Access database that has been used for years as a data source for merging Word documents.? A button in the Access app would run a MakeTable query and then launch Word, which would open a document that looked to the table as a data source.

Two weeks ago, the mail merge documents began refusing to see the data source.? I read all of the tips about using Internet Explorer’s security settings to put the network path in the Intranet or Trusted Sites zones.? That actually helped on some machines, but not most.

My solution was to use the VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) function “TransferText” to export the table to a text file on the local hard drive.? I then reconfigured all of the merge documents to look to that local file.? The basic instructions can be found here.

VNC to Mac OS 10.5 from Windows

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I’ve been trying for a while to get the Mac “Screen Sharing” to work. I want to control the Mac from a Windows Vista machine. Even though Screen Sharing is just a VNC server, my RealVNC client would seem to connect for a split second and then the connection would go away.

I finally found the solution: in the VNC client (vncviewer) options, set the encoding to “Hextile” and the color level to “Full”. Now it connects fine!

vncviewer settings

iTunes lost my music library

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Hoping that this will help someone who experiences this in the future, I thought I’d briefly write up what happened when I switched my Windows machine from one domain to another, and my iTunes library disappeared.

What happened: My machine had been a member of domain A, and I had redirected “My Documents” and all of its subfolders (noteably “My Music”) to D:\MyDocuments. My iTunes music was in d:\MyDocuments\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music and the corresponding .itl and .xml files were right above that in d:\MyDocuments\My Music\iTunes.

I moved my computer to domain B, knowing that I would get a new profile and a lot of cleanup work. I should have remapped My Documents right away, but I didn’t. I ran iTunes, and it had to do some reinstallation under the new user profile. It finally opened, showing an empty music library.

After reading some articles online, I thought I could go into Preferences, Advanced tab, and just point iTunes to d:\MyDocuments\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music. All of the documentation seems to indicate this, but it doesn’t work. It turns out that the pointer in the Advanced tab probably only tells iTunes to look there for the music, but not for the .itl and .xml files that describe the library. iTunes was still looking in my new profile path at a blank set of those files Of course, it took me hours to figure that out.

There are probably two solutions: move the correct .itl and .xml files to the new profile path, or repoint My Documents again so that iTunes finds the existing files in d:\MyDocuments\My Music\iTunes. I chose the second, and it worked well.

By the way, I couldn’t remember how I’d originally remapped My Documents, so I downloaded TweakUI. The only downside was that TweakUI has you individually map My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, etc. The method that I’d used before mapped them all when you remapped My Documents.

Firefox: Open Search in New Tab

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This is a great tip that I got from Tekzilla…

If you’re like me, and you sometimes forget to open a new tab in Firefox before using the search box, this is a very useful tip.

Browse to about:config, find browser.search.openintab, double-click to change it to true, and then restart Firefox for the change to take effect.

Now your searches will open in a new tab!

Reopen Closed Browser Tabs

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Have you ever closed a browser tab and then wanted it back?? This is one of those things that I’ve needed for a long time, and didn’t even think to ask if it was possible.? I just assumed that it wasn’t!

In Firefox 2, there are at least three ways to reopen a closed tab:

  1. Right-click on a tab and choose “Undo Close Tab” to get back the one you closed most recently.
  2. Ctrl-Shift-T (think of it being the opposite of Shift-T, which opens a new tab).
  3. History menu -> Recently Closed Tabs will let you choose from among the last 10 tabs you closed!

In Internet Explorer 7, you could install the IE7 Open Last Closed Tab plugin (which I have not tested).

Finding IT Answers

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Here’s a reminder (primarily for myself) of the places to look for answers when I have an IT problem:

  1. My local knowledgebase of tech answers
  2. My Outlook archives via Windows Desktop Search
  3. Google (what did we do before search engines?)
  4. TechSpot
  5. Technet (since I’m primarily working with Windows machines)
  6. The Windows Secrets archives (I’m a subscriber)
  7. My del.icio.us bookmarks
  8. My browser favorites

Windows Mobile Feature Comparison by Version

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Thanks to Rod Trent at myITforum.com for pointing out this comparison (from Microsoft) of the various versions of Windows Mobile. The table has 61 rows of various features, and then shows which versions of Windows Mobile 5.0, 6.0, or 6.1 (with touch screen or without) have the feature.

Windows Mobile feature comparison

I only recently learned that you get fewer features if your phone doesn’t have a touch screen! And I’m supposed to know it all.

Now I just need to find a comparison between Palm Activesync and what you get with Windows Mobile…

Calculate Rate of Return When You’ve Added or Removed Money

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At the beginning of each year, I like to calculate the rate of return of each of my accounts for the previous year. If I haven’t added to or subtracted from an account, that’s as easy as (gain or loss) divided by initial investment. So, if I started with $10,000 and ended up with $12,000, my return was $2000 / $10000 = 0.20, or 20%.

But what if I added $1000 at some point during the year? Depending on when I added the $1000, it would be contributing various amounts to my return. This is where Excel’s XIRR function becomes very handy (other spreadsheets have it too). The XIRR function is used to determine the rate of return with irregular payments (IRR can be used if the payments are on a regular schedule).

I found a good explanation of calculating investment rate of return here, but really like Allen Wyatt’s ExcelTips article on the XIRR function. He explains how you use the function–really, you just need to remember that money put in the account is expressed as negative numbers, and money pulled out of the account (or remaining at the end) is a positive. You give the XIRR function the dates and amounts for the start, payments/withdrawals, and ending value, and it gives you a rate of return.

Notice in the following example how I started with $10,000, added $1000, and ended up with $12,000. Depending on when I added the $1000, the return varied from 10.1% to almost 10.4%.

XIRR function

Allen Wyatt has WordTips and ExcelTips that are searchable. Check out www.vitalnews.com.