Microsoft Office

Issues fixed include:

You experience slower performance than you did in previous versions when you share a database file over a network.
You may notice your database file increase in increments of 4 KB without any user interaction when the database is open.
You may see a sub-form become blank after you set the main form’s recordset. You may also receive the following error: “Run-time error 2467 – The expression you entered does not exist”.
When you make a change in a code module in an Access 2007 database under source code control, the changes are not saved if you do the following:
Close the Visual Basic Editor without saving the changes
Check the Object back in
Use the Get Last Version feature to view the latest changes.
These fixes are available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960307.

Access 2007 helps you effectively track, report, and share information in a manageable environment, to make more informed business decisions. With a library of pre-built tracking applications (database solutions) and the Microsoft Office Fluent user interface, Access 2007 does not require deep database knowledge or programming skills. Information can be shared through Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services lists, where it can be audited and backed up easily.

Quickly get started tracking information
Start working immediately with the results-oriented features in Office Access 2007:

Prebuilt solutions. The new Getting Started screen includes a variety of prebuilt database solutions. Use these applications right out of the box to track contacts, events, issues, assets, tasks, and more — or treat them like templates, and enhance and refine them to accommodate the kind of information you want to track or the way in which you want to track it. As other application templates become available from Microsoft Office Online, they will be advertised in the Getting Started screen.
Office Fluent user interface. Office Access 2007 has been updated with a fresh look that makes it easier to create, modify, and work with tracking applications (Access database solutions). The Office Fluent user interface (UI) is context-sensitive and optimized for efficiency and discoverability. From the nearly 1,000 available commands, the Fluent UI displays only those relevant to the task you are performing at any given moment. In addition, the tabbed windows view and a new status bar, scroll bars, and title bar give applications built on Office Access 2007 a very modern look.

From Office Hours Blog: These are the days of 2.0. By 2.0, I mean the social, interactive, connected, communicative, feedback-oriented nature of the Web nowadays. But it goes beyond the Web; it’s the 2.0 life.

What’s the 2.0 life?
To me, these are the hallmarks of the 2.0 life: it’s participatory, it’s instantaneous, it’s diffuse. It changes how the game is played. If my Inbox is a giant catcher’s mitt, then the 2.0 life is a vast cocktail party, without the fancy clothes. The conversations are everywhere, all the time.

If you’re like me, you probably wonder where people find the time to follow so many bloggers, subscribe to so many feeds, watch so many videos, and blog about their profession and their latest vacation — complete with photos, which other people tag with metadata. And they’re doing all this while they’re Twittering, IM-ing, and writing on the walls of their friends. They have lots of friends.

It seems to me that these people not only read every page on the Web, they post comments about what they read. Inexplicably, they even have time to read BOOKS (an antiquated technology), and then they post reviews. Then they rate the reviews that others post. Oh, and they’re still sending as much e-mail as ever. Some of it even lands in my Inbox.

Is anyone getting any work done?

Retooling for 2.0
The 2.0 life is all about making connections: connecting people with each other, with information, and with goods and services. The technology of 2.0 — the RSS feeds, wikis, instant messaging, blogs, social networking sites — all these things clamor for my attention and burden me with information overload. Yet, these things are also the tools that today’s information workers need to do their jobs.

SharePoint is for blogging
I’m in the infancy of my 2.0 life. When I stumble upon a great idea, I still fire off e-mail to my immediate colleagues. Then I remember our team has an Idea Exchange blog, and the next time I have an idea I post it there instead.

From Database blog on About.com: o, you’d like to learn more about Microsoft Access 2007 and you don’t know where to begin. I’ve selected five of my favorite introductory-level Access books for your perusal.

1. Microsoft Access 2007 Step by Step
“”Microsoft Press
Microsoft Press’ foray into the world of Access tutorial books makes you wonder why they don’t have the same team working on their product documentation. This book should be included in the box when you purchase Access. Unfortunately, it’s not. Similar to the product above, this book offers and illustrated look at the program’s features.

2. Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Access 2007
“”Que
This is my absolute favorite Access reference book. I’ve ranked it number three because its 1460 pages are jam-packed with technical detail that might intimidate the beginner. However, if you’re a brave soul looking for a book that will grow with you, Roger Jenning’s book is the best choice.

3. Microsoft Access 2007 Bible
“”Wiley
Another 1400+ page tome that offers an amazingly complete reference to the entire Access product. This book is often used as a textbook in Access courses and it includes a free CD-ROM that enables you to easily follow along with the examples. There’s also a 32-page QuickStart guide to get you up and running quickly.

4. Access 2007 for Dummies
“”Wiley
You don’t have to be a dummy to appreciate Access 2007 for Dummies. This book, written in the world-famous Dummies style provides readers with a gentle introduction to the world of databases and Microsoft Access. It’s chock full of examples and sure to please the novice user.

5. Rational Guide to Access 2007 Templates
“”Mann Publishing
Zac Woodall’s book provides an excellent introduction to creating and sharing Microsoft Access database templates. It’s a wonderful reference for anyone who needs to occasionally or regularly design or develop Access templates.

From OneNote Blog: Every so often I’ll get a question from someone who has a need to find pages that have embedded files in them.
The reasons vary, but when you need that information, it is hard to get with OneNote 2007. The same question was facing me last week as we were testing notebooks on SharePoint, and I was thinking of creating a tool to identify those pages. I remembered someone posting the same question to the newsgroup many months ago, and figured if anyone else wanted this, I would give it away. Lo and behold, as I was in the process of adapting Nani’s Table of Contents powertoy to my needs, I got an email forwarded to me from someone who wanted the same functionality. And finally, about a year and a half ago, Kathy Jacobs, a OneNote MVP, asked if we ever used our powertoys to test with, and this is a great example of a tool we use for testing turned into a powertoy. Talk about getting a lot of bang for the buck.

Before I describe how this works, I want to point out this is an internal tool which I hope you find useful. It has a bare bones UI, and I did not try to optimize much to make it optimized for speed. It’s a tool that solves one specific problem and is aimed at people that need that particular bit of functionality.

To install it, click the download link below. Unzip the file and run setup.exe. Then when you start OneNote, you will notice a button named “FDO” in the toolbar, like this:

FDO stands for “File Data Object.” This probably only means anything to us, but I wanted to point it out to be complete.
If you click the FDO button and it turns gray and gets disabled, check this out to ensure you have the .NET programmability support for OneNote installed.
It’s not fast, and if you have a large-ish section (30 pages or more), it may take a minute or more to finish.

Most of us spend a third of our day at the office — and that’s not counting the commute. Apply these energy-saving tips in the workplace to reduce stress on yourselves and on the planet.

1. Turn off the lights. Remember to hit the switch on your way out for that well- deserved lunch break. The energy savings from 10 million employees turning off unneeded lights for 30 minutes a day is enough to illuminate 50 million square feet of office space.

2. Get off mailing lists. The last thing you need is another office supply catalog or credit card offer on your desk. Before tossing out junk mail, call the company’s toll- free service number and ask that your name be removed from the mailing list. Have online retailers e-mail you instead. Almost half of all catalogs are never opened, yet nearly 62 million trees are destroyed and 28 billion gallons of water are used to produce them every year.

3. Put your monitor to sleep. Whether it shows off your vacation photos or a cool 3D animation, a computer screen saver is not at all designed for energy efficiency. It’s intended to save your screen from “burn in,” not to save energy. Because monitors are responsible for more than one-third of a computer’s energy consumption — even with screen savers — the best way to conserve energy is to set the monitor to sleep or power off when you’re away for an extended period. If you’re gone for 5-10 minutes, enjoy one of CI’s screen savers. Any longer than that, put the monitor to sleep.

4. Use the stairs. Your brain gets exercise all day, why not exercise your body? Get your heart pumping by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. It’s good for your health, and it saves electricity.

5. Make your printer’s toner last. Being cheap is a first date no-no, but it’s okay to be frugal at the office. When printing rough drafts or documents for internal purposes, change the printer’s settings to economy mode and avoid color if possible. Econo-mode uses up to 50 percent less toner and prints twice as many pages as other higher quality settings. Duplex printing also uses half the amount of paper.

6. Provide incentives for commuters. Free food and a year-end bonus are nice perks, but to really make workers happy, help ease their daily commute. The government rewards businesses that encourage their staff to carpool, bicycle, or walk to work under the Commuter Choice Program. Telecommuting and flexible work hours can also save employers by reducing absences and job retention costs.

7. Recycle and reuse paper. Americans toss out about 35 million tons of paper each year. Buck the trend and start recycling — not only standard white printer paper, but all of the magazines, manila folders, and colored post-it notes that decorate your space. If it tears, it can be recycled. Recycled paper manufacturing generates 74 percent less air pollution, and saves trees, water, and energy. To salvage papers that are printed on one side only, flip them over and use for incoming faxes.

8. Purchase 100 percent post-consumer waste, chlorine-free paper. Take note when buying paper — the higher the percentage of post-consumer waste, the larger the amount of recycled material is contained in the paper stock. This means that 100 percent post-consumer waste paper is made entirely from recycled products. Also, chlorine used for bleaching is one of the biggest polluters in the paper-making process. Choose non-chlorinated paper, which has the same quality as the bleached variety.

9. Recycle and reuse office supplies. Do as Mom says and clean your plate, literally. Washing and reusing the plastic dishes and cutlery you get with take-away food is an easy way to cut down on waste at work. Better yet, pack your lunch in reusable containers and pocket your hard-earned dollars! Skip the paper (or worse, Styrofoam) cups and refill your travel mug at the nearby coffee shop instead. It may even get you a discount. Besides aluminum cans and glass bottles, there are many other supplies stashed in and around your desk that are recyclable, such as batteries, printer cartridges, DVDs, CDs, and more.

10. Curb phantom electricity. Many appliances still consume energy even when turned off. Items left plugged into the wall, such as a cell phone charger or laptop adapter, can leak more than 20 watts of power. In the United States alone, “phantom electricity” emits roughly 12 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Avoid this by plugging office equipment into a power strip and turning it off at night and on weekends.

Templates can store styles, AutoText entries, AutoCorrect entries, macros, toolbars, custom menu settings, and shortcut keys. Loading a template makes it available as a global template that you can use while you work with documents based on any other template.

Add-ins are supplemental programs that you can install to extend the capabilities of Microsoft Office Word by adding custom commands and specialized features. An example of an add-in program might be a program designed and distributed by your company’s IT department to highlight company names in any document you open on your computer.

Load templates or add-ins
When you load a template or add-in, it remains loaded for the current Word session only. If you quit and then restart Word, the template or add-in is not automatically reloaded.

Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Word Options.
Click Add-Ins.
In the Manage list, select Word Add-ins, and then click Go.
Click the Templates tab.
Under Global templates and add-ins, select the check box next to the template or add-in that you want to load.
If the template or add-in you want does not appear in the box, click Add, switch to the folder that contains the template or add-in you want, click it, and then click OK.

Unload templates or add-ins
To conserve memory and increase the speed of Word, it’s a good idea to unload templates and add-in programs you don’t often use. When you unload a template or add-in that’s located in your Startup folder, Word unloads the template for the current Word session but automatically reloads it the next time you start Word. When you unload a template or add-in located in any other folder, it is unavailable until you reload it. To delete a template or add-in from Word, you must remove the template or add-in from the Templates and Add-ins dialog box.

Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Word Options.
Click Add-Ins.
In the Manage list, select Word Add-ins, and then click Go.
Click the Templates tab.
Do one of the following:
To unload a template or add-in but leave it under Global templates and add-ins, clear the check box next to the name of the item.
To unload a template or add-in and remove it from the box under Global templates and add-ins, click the item in the box, and then click Remove.

The Remove button is unavailable when the template you select is located in your Startup folder.
When you unload a template or add-in, you do not remove it from your computer — you only make it unavailable. Where you’ve stored the template or add-in determines whether it’s loaded when you start Word.

Make a template or add-in available whenever you start Word
To have a template or add-in available whenever you start Word, store the add-in or template in the Startup folder. By default, the Startup folder is located in one of the following folders:

Windows Vista
c:\Users\user name\AppData\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Microsoft Windows XP
c:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP
If the location of the Startup folder has changed, you can find it by doing the following:

Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Word Options.
Click Advanced.
Under General, click File Locations.
Save the template that you want available when you start Word to the location that is listed for Startup.

President-elect releases recorded message on Christmas Eve

President-elect Barack Obama offered appreciation to the U.S. military on Christmas Eve in a recorded message and then asked children of uniformed troops if they had their wish lists ready.

Obama and wife, Michelle, made their early morning trek to Marine Corps Base Hawaii just northeast of Honolulu as they had done during the last three days. After about an hour at the base on Wednesday where he went inside a gym for a workout, he walked over to greet more than 60 people who waited for him. The president-elect shook hands while onlookers took pictures with their cell phones and digital cameras.

“You guys got your Christmas list?” Obama asked one person standing in the makeshift ropeline. He asked another: “Hey man, what’s going on?”

Earlier in the day, his aides released a recorded message of appreciation to the military “serving their second, third or even fourth tour of duty.”

“This holiday season, their families celebrate with a joy that is muted knowing that a loved one is absent, and sometimes in danger,” Obama said in the message, set to air Saturday morning. “In towns and cities across America, there is an empty seat at the dinner table; in distant bases and on ships at sea, our servicemen and women can only wonder at the look on their child’s face as they open a gift back home.”

The Obamas during past years spent the December holidays visiting Obama’s maternal grandmother, who died Nov. 2, before Obama’s historic Nov. 4 victory. The Obamas on Tuesday had a private memorial service for Madelyn Payne Dunham, known to friends as “Toot,” who helped raise him.

Aides said the Obamas would open presents on Christmas morning and have a traditional dinner of ham and turkey in the evening.

By Microsoft Office Live Small Business Blog:It’s certainly not news anymore that credit is tight for small-business owners. But relief may be in sight, The Washington Post reports, thanks to two new initiatives.

First, the SBA has announced it will give banks that provide SBA loans greater freedom in setting interest rates. It is also suggesting that banks allow borrowers more time to make payments, and is encouraging smaller and rural lenders to make SBA loans.

Compared to the prior year, loan volumes for the SBA’s biggest loan program —the 7(a) loan program — dropped 30 percent for the year ended in October 2008.

Second, the Federal Reserve recently announced a $200 billion plan to increase lending to consumers, including SBA loans. This is scheduled to begin in February.

Combined, the two efforts have led to “cautious optimism” that the small-business lending markets, which are nearly frozen, will begin moving again, said Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee.

Here’s what the two new initiatives look like:

Two new initiatives are in the works, intended to offer small businesses some breathing room.

The first comes from the SBA, which has given banks offering SBA loans some leeway in setting interest rates, a rather technical adjustment that is expected to increase lending. The agency has also encouraged banks to give customers more time to make payments and is reaching out to more rural and smaller lenders to encourage more financial institutions to make SBA loans. Though, most banks are looking for higher credit scores when it comes to small business loans these days. In the past 625/630 was an acceptable score, but we’re kind of moved up and are looking more at 650 while some lenders are cutting off at 700

Also recently, as part of an effort to get credit flowing again, the Federal Reserve said that it was creating a $200 billion plan to increase consumer lending, including small-business loans partially guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. The lending is scheduled to begin in February.

Find out how to use Microsoft Word to create a holiday letter to send to all your friends and family as well as mailing labels for a mass mailing. Also learn how to make holiday decorations with Word. Use this self-administered training packet.

After completing this course you will be able to:

Create and decorate a newsletter.
Create mailing labels for your envelopes.
Create some holiday decorations.

This course includes:

Three self-paced lessons and three practice sessions for hands-on experience.
A short test at the end of each lesson; tests are not scored.
A Quick Reference Card you can take away from the course.

The holidays are always a busy time of year. This time, get organized and let Word help you out.

Learn how to create and decorate fantastic newsletters that you can send in a mass mailing to your friends; run a mail merge to create labels for your envelopes; and have some fun making holiday decorations that you can get the whole family involved in.

This course contains details on using mail merge to create labels; for more information about mail merge, see Use mail merge for mass mailings and more.

Introducing DAISY, a technology that promises to revolutionize the reading experience for people who have print disabilities like blindness or dyslexia.

what is a DAISY book? Well the Consortium describes it as:

One or more digital audio files containing a human narration of part or all of the source text A marked-up file containing some or all of the text (strictly speaking, this marked-up text file is optional) A synchronization file to relate markings in the text file with time points in the audio file A navigation control file which enables the user to move smoothly between files while synchronization between text and audio is maintained
In short, the DAISY standard can be converted to a number of outputs including Braille, audio, and text synchronized with audio.

Three goals of interoperability
With the introduction of Open XML as the default format in Word 2007, we introduced the potential to do some really cool things with DAISY and further our commitment to interoperability. When we kicked this effort we had three goals in mind.

Our first goal was to reduce the barrier to creating DAISY XML and increase content availability. Prior to this translator, creating a basic DAISY XML file could be very difficult or costly. We wanted to put this capability in the hands the hundreds of millions of Word users around the world and make it as easy as creating any other document.

We also wanted to provide an additional reference implementation for Developers who want to harness the power of Open XML. This is a really important one to us. We are deeply committed to interoperability and are doing everything possible to prove it. It is an open source project and anyone in the developer community is more than free to use it as a reference or even extend it in to other products and on to other platforms (such as Linux).

Finally, we wanted to increase the visibility of DAISY and the benefit it can offer to a variety of users. The DAISY consortium and the digital talking book format are important activity hubs for users with disabilities around the world. When we talk about accessibility we tend to quickly gravitate to the extremes, such as blindness or paralysis. True enough, we have the most to learn from a technology perspective in these areas. However, we tend to forget that technologies like DAISY can help the hundreds of millions of people around the world with other disabilities such as dyslexia, illiteracy, or even things like vision loss brought on by aging.