Microsoft Office

If you love suduko, check out this Microsoft Excel blog, courtesy of Joseph Chirilov

Today’s author, Charlie Ellis, a Program Manager on the Excel team, shares a spreadsheet he built in Excel for solving Sudoku puzzles. The spreadsheet can be found in the attachments at the bottom of this post.

For those of you who don’t already know, Sudoku is a type of logic puzzle (that I was completely addicted to about three years ago) that requires you to place the numbers 1-9 into a grid obeying certain rules (lots more information on Sudoku is available on the web).

A while back, a fellow PM on the Excel team, Dan Cory, wrote a spreadsheet for solving Sudoku puzzles using Excel formulas and made it available on Office Online (here). Dan’s spreadsheet was great in that, unlike many of the Sudoku solving spreadsheets out there, it didn’t use any VBA or other scripting to do the work of solving the puzzles, and relied instead on the iterative calculation feature of Excel. It’s quite cool and has been a popular download, but one thing about the spreadsheet that I wanted to see if I couldn’t improve upon was just how complicated it is. In fact, Dan made every single cell its own different formula, and he ended up having to use VBA to create the formulas because maintaining and debugging it without VBA to write all those different formulas in an automated way was impossible.

As soon as I saw Dan’s spreadsheet, I wanted to make my own version of a Sudoku solver that not only used only formulas, but also one where the formulas were relatively understandable and there were a small number of distinct formulas. It turned out to not be that tough to build, but I think I learned a fair amount trying different approaches to the problems of making an iterative model like this one perform well and at the same time be reasonably maintainable and understandable. I think it might even have turned up a reasonably useful way at looking at abstraction within formulas given the Excel formula language. I’ve always wanted to blog about the process of creating this spreadsheet and about how iterative formulas work to show the power of Excel’s formula language, because it illustrates the usefulness of circular references and iterative calculation, and because I just think it’s an incredible amount of fun so here goes. Lots of people have created more powerful solvers, many as spreadsheets, some using just formulas, but I wanted to try to explain how you can go about creating a solver and hopefully share some formula tricks that people find useful.

From the Office blog: a great way to avoid a security breach is to click the Office Button (the orb in the upper left hand corner of Word 2007), click Prepare, click Encrypt Document, and enter your password.

The nitty-gritty details from David LeBlanc’s Web Log:

Let’s start with the worst of it – XOR. You may note that I consistently refused to ever say “XOR encryption”, preferring the more accurate “XOR obfuscation”. Not only is it the worst way to protect a document, but it was horrible to try and explain. We did all sorts of silly things to make this hard to figure out, it did nearly nothing to actually protect the data, but it sure was no fun to try and document in a normative style. I believe this obfuscation dates back to around 1994. Here’s some pseudo-code to show you the sheer horror of it all – this is from one of the two password verifier approaches:

FUNCTION CreatePasswordVerifier_Method1
PARAMETERS Password
RETURNS 16-bit unsigned integer
DECLARE Verifier AS 16-bit unsigned integer
DECLARE PasswordArray AS array of 8-bit unsigned integers

SET Verifier TO 0×0000 SET PasswordArray TO (empty array of bytes)
SET PasswordArray[0] TO Password.Length

APPEND Password TO PasswordArray
FOR EACH PasswordByte IN PasswordArray IN REVERSE ORDER
IF (Verifier BITWISE AND 0×4000) is 0×0000
SET Intermediate1 TO 0
ELSE
SET Intermediate1 TO 1
ENDIF

SET Intermediate2 TO Verifier MULTIPLED BY 2
SET most significant bit of Intermediate2 TO 0
SET Intermediate3 TO Intermediate1 BITWISE OR Intermediate2
SET Verifier TO Intermediate3 BITWISE XOR PasswordByte

ENDFOR
RETURN Verifier BITWISE XOR 0xCE4B
END FUNCTION

If this makes sense to you, and you want to know kre, click either of the links above.

From Olya Veselova’s blog: If you are not familiar with creating Outlook tasks flags from OneNote notes and synchronizing them, you can read about the basic here: OneNote and Outlook task syncing.

This post is about using OneNote and Outlook task sync for in team shared notebook. (What’s a shared notebook?)

Summary: If you create a list of team tasks in a OneNote shared notebook, you can make them into Outlook tasks and assign them to team members. The nice thing in OneNote 2007 B2TR is that these tasks will keep synching with the OneNote shared notebook for any of the team members who have the task in their Outlook (assigner, or assignee) and the notebook open.

When is this useful?

Your team may want to keep track of particular project tasks in one place - on a page in in the shared notebook with the rest of project materials (ideas, reference materials, drafts, comments, etc.). This is often done for a list of action items from meeting notes (e.g. recurring status meeting), or just a list of work items for the team. Each team member responsible for a particular task can still have the task in their own Outlook and manage it in whatever way they like managing their Outlook tasks. But the task will also sync with the shared notebook if they have it open. So the other team members can see that the task has been done when they review the shared notebook page.

Ho to do it:

Let’s say there is a list of team tasks for next week. I have already created an Outlook task for myself, and now I want to create the task for Dave:

put the cursor on the task note for Dave and select Task > Custom:

In the Outlook task inspector that comes up I click Assign Task:

The task now appears in my Outlook, but it is also sent to Dave.

When Dave marks the task complete, I also get a message. And the task disappears from my To-Do Bar, because it is complete.

Since my OneNote is syncing with Outlook, this fact is also reflected in the OneNote shared notebook for the whole team to see:

Note that I can even delete the task that I created for Dave from my Outlook. As long as Dave has the task in his Outlook and has this shared notebook open, his OneNote will sync with the task status and the whole team will be able to see that the task is complete.

From Microsoft Outlook Team Blog: You’ve seen several posts on the Outlook Team Blog focused on ways to help you more effectively manage your incoming e-mails and appointments in Outlook. Office Labs has also been exploring some innovative methods to help people manage the vast amounts of information they receive on a daily basis.

To help alleviate this information overload, Microsoft Office Labs released Email Prioritizer last week on www.officelabs.com. The prototype – inspired by Microsoft Research’s “Priorities” project – is an add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 that was built by the Office Labs development team here in Redmond. Email Prioritizer provides a “do not disturb” button that temporarily pauses new email arrival from ten minutes up to four hours. Email Prioritizer will also assign priority ratings of 0 to 3 stars to incoming mail to help users focus their attention on the most important email messages.

While we encourage you to test out our prototypes, they are unsupported concepts with no plans for inclusion in any products. Please direct any feedback you have on Email Prioritizer to Office Labs at emailpfb@microsoft.com.

Thanks!

* Email Prioritizer is a plug-in for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 (running on Exchange Server) that helps you manage email overload. This concept test provides a “do not disturb” button that temporarily pauses new email arrival, and prioritizes email with a 0-3 star rating system. We hope this prototype helps you focus on the emails that are most important to you.

Low-cost and no-cost survival tactics require a “business-as-usual mindset.”

According to Rieva Lesonsky, former editor of Entrepreneur and blogger for Microsoft Office Live Small Business (http://smallbusiness.officelive.com), entrepreneurs can use this time to cut back in certain areas and strategically invest in other areas, such as marketing. “It may seem counterintuitive, but increased marketing and sales activity can be an effective way to bolster your business and weather economic storms,” Lesonsky said. “In fact, marketing is a key component to your small business’ survival.”

So what should current and aspiring entrepreneurs do during these tough times? Lesonsky offers the following advice:

• Keep overhead low. Entrepreneurs should take a hard look at their expenses and scale back on nonessentials. Some big cost-cutting areas include business travel, labor and rent. For example: Entrepreneurs can try videoconferencing instead of traveling to a meeting; consider forgoing pricey office space and work from home instead; and re-examine their staffing plan to ensure they have the right amount of coverage for their current level of business, keeping overtime costs to a minimum.

• Make noise. In this economy, competitors are likely cutting back on marketing spending too. This provides an opportunity for entrepreneurs to get their marketing message out in a potentially less cluttered environment, and possibly at a better rate too. In addition to traditional forms of advertising, entrepreneurs can take advantage of low-cost digital marketing tactics, such as creating a blog, building an audience with Twitter, staying on top of their ratings through online review sites such as Yelp, and creating company pages on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

• Have a strong online presence. Increasingly, consumers are using the Web to find businesses of all sizes, so it’s really crucial that small businesses be visible online in order to compete. Today, there are a number of low- or no-cost options to help entrepreneurs establish a professional Web presence without the expense of hiring a designer or Web master. Microsoft Office Live Small Business (http://smallbusiness.officelive.com) provides entrepreneurs with a free Web site and hosting, a custom domain name and business e-mail free for the first year, low-cost e-commerce and online marketing tools, and free business management tools.

• “Hire” customers. Entrepreneurs can turn satisfied customers into a word-of-mouth referral engine for their business. They can consider offering referral fees or free services to encourage customers to refer new clients. Entrepreneurs can also ask customers to provide testimonials that can be showcased on the company Web site and marketing materials.

• Always negotiate. Entrepreneurs should keep in mind that everything is negotiable. When other businesses are cutting back, entrepreneurs are in a better position to negotiate for lower rates, better ad placements, lower telephone rate plans or other discounts such as on office supplies.

These and other small-business tips from Lesonsky can be found on the Office Live Small Business blog at http://www.myofficelivecommunity.com.

hot fixes the Accesscommunity might find useful. Hot fixes are now available for the following Microsoft Office Access issues:

Access 2003

An Access 2003 project (.adp) stops responding when in table Datasheet view, you delete all child rows from a parent row and then delete the parent row. This issue applies only to an Access 2003 project.
A database in .mdb format in Access 2003 SP3 stops responding when you try to delete a parent record from a table in Datasheet view and the Datasheet view uses a sub-datasheet that is expanded to show the related child records.
The hot fix for these Access 2003 issues can be obtained through the following article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956722

Access 2007

In Access 2007, you create a query that does not contain a parameter. When you export the query to a Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet, the Enter Parameter Value dialog box opens.
When you open a chart object in Access 2007 on a computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, you see a blank chart.
After you upgrade Access 2003 to Access 2007, operations on existing forms have slow performance.
You cannot use the SetValue macro in the click events of a Button control to set the Locked property of a Check Box control in Access 2007.
You have a printer that has a staple feature. When you print an object in multiple copies in Access 2007, all the copies are stapled as one unit. However, you expect that each copy is stapled individually.
The hot fix for these Access 2007 issues can be obtained through the following article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956054

How can I use it?
There are dozens of ways to use Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta for work, school, and home projects.

For Work:

Access documents when away from your desk
Save documents and access them from any computer
Stay productive at home, an Internet café, library, airport, etc.
Share documents with others

Gather feedback on a document, report, or presentation
Share with people who can’t access your corporate network
Prepare for a meeting
Share the agenda, minutes, and action items
Post meeting handouts or presentations

For School:

Organize a study group
Work together on assignments and share notes from class
Keep a shared schedule and task list for your group
Keep track of important school information
Manage schedules from sports to registration deadlines

Track your GPA and progress toward degree requirements
Coordinate with club or team members
Post and manage schedules (for sports, clubs, etc.)
Share lists of who brings what (no more e-mails back and forth)

For Home:

Organize an event
Use for a party, camping trip, even a wedding
Share to-do lists, timelines, budgets, directions
Save your information and keep track of favorite things
Access important passwords, frequent flyer numbers, etc.
Create Top 10 lists of your favorite films, restaurants, books, etc.—and keep them private or share with friends and family

Prepare for a trip
Plan for the trip with travel budget and packing list templates
Share your itinerary, contact info, and important documents with colleagues or family

What is a workspace?
A workspace is an online place where you can save, access, and share documents and files. Use it to group related information for work, school, or personal projects. Sharing is easy – all you need is a person’s e-mail address and you can invite them to your workspace. You decide if they can edit or simply review. You can access your workspace from any computer with an Internet connection and a Web browser. Who is it for?
Anyone who uses Microsoft Office can benefit from this service. If you answer ‘yes’ to any of the following questions, this service is for you:

Do you save information on a flash drive or send yourself documents via e-mail to work on later?
Do you need to access work files when away from your office?
Do you need to access school documents when away from your desk (at the library, home on break, etc.)?
Do you share documents via e-mail and then manually merge all the comments later?
Do you use e-mail to coordinate and share information with your sports clubs, PTA, study group, etc?
Are you planning an event and coordinating with multiple people or vendors?

Open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

Overview
Users of the Microsoft Office XP and 2003 programs Word, Excel, or PowerPoint—please install all High-Priority updates from Microsoft Update before downloading the Compatibility Pack.

By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able to open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see Knowledge Base article 924074.

Note: If you use Microsoft Word 2000 or Microsoft Word 2002 to read or write documents containing complex scripts, please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925451 for information to enable Word 2007 documents to be displayed correctly in your version of Word.

Administrators: The administrative template for the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint converters contained within the Compatibility Pack is available for download.

System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Service Pack 4; Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista; Windows XP Service Pack 1; Windows XP Service Pack 2
Recommended Microsoft Office programs:

Microsoft Word 2000 with Service Pack 3, Microsoft Excel 2000 with Service Pack 3, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 with Service Pack 3

Microsoft Word 2002 with Service Pack 3, Microsoft Excel 2002 with Service Pack 3, and Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 with Service Pack 3

Microsoft Office Word 2003 with at least Service Pack 1, Microsoft Office Excel 2003 with at least Service Pack 1, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 with at least Service Pack 1

Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003

Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003

Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer 2003

Instructions
To install this download:

Ensure your system is up to date by installing all High-Priority/Required updates on Microsoft Update (required for Microsoft Office XP and 2003 users).

After installing all High-Priority/Required updates with Microsoft Update, download the Compatibility Pack by clicking the Download button above and saving the file to your hard disk.

Double-click the FileFormatConverters.exe program file on your hard disk to start the setup program.

Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation.

To remove this download:

On the Windows Start menu, click Control Panel.

Select Add/Remove Programs.

In the list of currently installed programs, select Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office system and then click Remove or Add/Remove. If a dialog box appears, follow the instructions to remove the program.

Click Yes or OK to confirm that you want to remove the program.

Verdiem’s Edison is a free energy-monitoring application for eco-conscious consumers. You can use it to more actively control your PC’s energy consumption — and subsequently your household’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

Feature Summary

Made for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista PC users, Verdiem’s Edison enhances the operating systems’ existing power settings with increased overall energy savings and provides a consumer-friendly user interface that makes it easy to set up and manage. Endorsed by Microsoft and Climate Savers, Verdiem’s Edison enables consumers to measure, monitor, and manage their PC energy efficiency in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.

Features include:

Scheduling. Identify work and non-work schedules to optimize power schemes based on when your PC is in use or on standby. Settings. Choose from among several options for power savings and settings. Estimated Savings Reports. Find information that shows how PC power settings correlate to money, kWh and CO2 savings. Intuitive User Interface. Drag easy-to-use sliding bars to choose settings and instantly see the power and monetary savings. Clearly marked tabs make the interface easy to navigate.

System Requirements

System requirements for Edison are Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista; 256 MB RAM; Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later; 7 MB free hard disk space. If .NET 2.0 is not already installed, 280 MB of additional disk space is required.

Edison was developed by Verdiem, a company that has helped enterprises the world over reduce energy waste from IT devices. Now Verdiem is bringing Edison into your home—at no cost whatsoever. Download Edison and start saving energy today!

From the “Inside Office Online blog”: Our downward spiraling economy and the increasing number of failing businesses got me thinking about people who are out of work or facing potential layoffs. I’ve been in that position once or twice in my life, so I understand how overwhelming it can feel to have to drag out the resume yet again and go through interviews. One of the qualities Microsoft values in employees is the ability to deal with this sort of ambiguity - to adapt, to change, to do something you may never have done before. It’s the nature of our business - you experiment, you learn, you start something new. Repeat.

Which brings me back to all the people out there who may be in the process of reinventing themselves. It seems computers are ubiquitous in many jobs these days. I’m curious about a few things.

How many of you have enhanced your resume to claim computer skills you had to learn on the fly after you got the job?
What Office programs do you use the most and what tricks have you learned that make you more efficient?
Would it help to have a cheat sheet, for example, of the top 10 Excel skills you should know for almost any office job?
What are the most useful tips you’ve picked up in your job? (Anything counts -from using the sort feature in Excel to formatting a document.)
Did you learn on your own, or did someone you work with show you a special shortcut or trick that has made things easier for you?

Besides just downloading a template and updating your resume, where do you feel you could use some help polishing those skills that will help you move on and move up to the next best thing?