Couple of years ago I’ve faced with unpleasantness when I’ve upgraded couple of Windows 98 workstation to Windows XP: FoxPro 2.6 applications simple consumed so many system resources that everything is hit: printing takes longer than usual, network traffic throughput is reduced since processor does not have free time to deal with these issues, it’s mainly occupied with currently running MSDOS session with foxpro application within. Some recommendation was to adjust idle sensitivity settings on shortcut but it does not solve the problem: depend of settings you can choose between two extremes: to confess all resources to foxpro process, or to take them from it (in which case foxpro application is running very slow - almost useless).

My doubts are there is related to different kind of multitasking provided with Windows XP comparing to older in Windows 98 which suit FoxPro applications better then new one. If you start more than one foxpro process on one machine - it will be good as dead.

I’ve found a solution on this site:

http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~Fpd26OnWin2000

It is small utility which you need to start before foxpro appliaction and no more Windows hang up!

However, later I was checking this site and download link was broken, so I will provide you with version I’ve previously downloaded: click here for download. (I’m not providing you warranty of any kind for this download, take it on your own risk)

Several months have passed since I’ve become a proud owner od Western Digital My Book 750Gb External HDD which came in blue carton box (this version shipped with eSata, 2xFirewire and 1xUSB ports). Initially it was or I choosed to format with FAT32 file system since there were no requirements for some security issues and that was reason to discard NTFS option. After two months I’ve realised what mistaqes it was. Due to 2Gb file size limit I was unavaiable to store my several vmware virtual machines on this drive, they required more additional work (to split virtual hdd into files of 2gb) and after this there were no problem with my virtual machines.

However, situation with DVD images (ISO, NRG and other formats) never cames to solution (other than split image using winrar into segments less that 2Gb and integrate them on target machine - this clearly is not within top 10 solution). Due to lack of judgement in small moment of time I choosed to use Microsoft Windows XP Command Prompt Tool CONVERT.EXE.

Here is command prompt capture:

c:\>convert g: /fs:ntfs

The type of the file system is FAT32.

Enter current volume label for drive G: my book

Volume My Book created 3/21/2003 11:59 AM

Volume Serial Number is 071A-3DEC

Windows is verifying files and folders…

File and folder verification is complete.

Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

  732.393.152 KB total disk space.

     372.736 KB in 789 hidden files.

      77.248 KB in 2.410 folders.

 528.984.032 KB in 22.849 files.

  202.959.104 KB are available.

       32.768 bytes in each allocation unit.

   22.887.286 total allocation units on disk.

6.342.472 allocation units available on disk.

Determining disk space required for file system conversion…

Total disk space:              732572001 KB

Free space on volume:          202959104 KB

Space required for conversion:  1009711 KB

Converting file system

Conversion complete

…and that’s it! Phew this was close… I didn’t know what time consumption to expect, and there were no information of what percentage is completed during this process. For my 750Gb it took 5-10 minutes to complete process successfully. My Book was attached to IBM T43 notebook with Windows XP and 1Gb RAM memory.

For the last several months I’ve been trying to find apropriate solution to track my money incomes and expenses, together with budgeting… I’ve been tested several solution but if they were good enough there were not free, otherwise they have lack of functionality… I’ve spend some times on some spreadsheet documents I was able to download and try to adjust them to my needs… Even I made them suit my needs, it was only for the limited time due to lack of spreadsheet design and logic… I have had difficulties to reconcile with fact in case when I borrowing money to my friends, I’m the one who should record this transaction and later remind them to pay me back… And I’m not making any profit in that! It was too much… Then I’ve decided to look for some online solution and on third attempt I’ve discovered Buxfer!

I’m very impressed with Google’s online services like Gmail, Calendar, Document… They were all very functional and easy to use. First thing I’ve noticed on Buxfer is similarity to Google design: look and fill is the same together with price - it’s completely free of charge. You can register yourself with Google account.

If you ask your “money borrowing friends” to register them self with this service, they will never forget money they owe you, nor you will forget they settlement. Entered transaction which include Buxfer users on both sides automatically show up to related user. You can with just one click remind friends on amounts they overdue.

I dont know for you, but I will never again lend some money to frends which does not have Buxfer account.

Here comes the overview of Buxfer features:

• Automatically download transactions from your bank or credit card (mainly for USA)
• Analyze and visualize where you spend your money (basic but effective)
• Control your spending with budgets and mobile alerts (great)
• Track shared expenses and I-O-Us (e.g., rent, groceries with room-mates) (strong suits of the service)
• Transfer money online and settle your debts
• Access specialized iPhone / Blackberry interfaces “on-the-go” from your mobile device

Buxfer miss:

• Multi currency support (it support only one currency, but I hope this will be solved soon)
• Investment Accounts (every money spending is expense)

Buxfer released a bunch of tools for their users to improve understanding of their expenses, and drill down into transactions to see where exactly money is being spent:

1. Expense Categorization - Look at how much you spent across different keywords, or within different groups. A nice looking pie chart helps you quickly summarize what you are spending most on. Very helpful for getting a quick feel of where the money is going out of your wallet. You can then drill down further into transactions within a particular category.
2. Compare trends in your spending pattern - View daily and monthly trends in the way you spend money. Our innovative technology lets you easily visualize the days and months where you had an irregular spending pattern. Look out for spikes and anomalies in the graph, and simply click on the graph to see which transactions cost you the most.

Due to security issues on previous Wordpress engine, this blog has gone unmaintained for some time. Now it’s upgraded with newest Wordpress 2.5.1 and hosted on powerfull Xeon server by kind staff of Greenfish web design team (thank you guys for supporting my blog site)…

We are ready to go on further…

or on any other data source. Ms Access ability to process large amount of data may come very handy in many cases. Of course, you can perform those analyzes in Excel itself but doing it using Access is both much more comfortable and error-proof. Excel is irreplaceable when you should check less than hundred rows of data but when row numbers came to several hundreds and more possibility to make errors raise exponentially. At the other hand, Access operate with whole columns and it make this job easily as possible. On this post it will be explained how to link Excel on Access, but you can use the vary same method to link Excel on any other data source like text files, xBase, ODBC…

There are two ways to import data from Access to Excel, one is Copy/Paste and second one is by using Import data menu option.

Here come step-by-step instructions:

1. on menu Data/Import External Data/Import Data…
2. on the next dialog Select Data Source, change Files of type (if necessary) and select your Access mdb file
3. on new dialog you can choose any tables or queries from your Access MDB file. Select one and click OK button
4. on Import Data dialog, chose between inserting in Existing worksheet or in a new worksheet and click OK button
5. after few seconds, depending on query speed or quantity of returning data you will get Access query/table in your Excel sheet
6. now, each time you need to refresh those data all you have to do is right-click on rows with Access data in Excel sheet and choose Refresh…

IsError function is used to check for errors in expressions or cells. At first sight most usefull case when you will need to use this function is to suppress division by zero error automatically. If not, you can always check for #DIV/0! cell by cell - but it would be inappropriate use of all this comfortable technology. This can’t be done without IF function which one is described in previous post on this website right here. You can save lots of your time resources and energy just by using combinations these two functions.

The syntax for the IsError function is:

ISERROR([value])

[value] - value or expression that you want to test. This function will return true for the next list of error values:

• #N/A
• #VALUE!
• #REF!
• #DIV/0!
• #NUM!
• #NAME?
• #NULL

For all other values or expression results IF function will return FALSE.

EXAMPLE

Take a look at this example:
=IsError( #N/A) -> return TRUE
=IsError(#VALUE!) -> return TRUE
=IsError(#REF!) -> return TRUE
=IsError(12345) -> return FALSE
=IsError(”Tech on the Net”) -> return FALSE
=IsError(3/0) -> return TRUE

Microsoft campaign for Office Accounting Express 2007 say it is an essential tool for managing your business finances. Whether you’re a small or home-based business, you can use this accounting program to make pen and paper-based tasks a thing of the past. With the familiar look and feel of Microsoft Office, Office Accounting Express 2007 helps you get organized, save time and sell online. Sound nice?

All you need to do is to enter data once so you can save time managing everyday financial tasks. All of your partners data and transactional information is stored in one place so that you can have a complete view of your business. Office Accounting Express 2007 also gives you the tools you need to reach out to millions of potential customers by taking your business online from simplifying sales using eBay to helping making sure that you get paid faster. Third party service required and fees apply for online sales component.

At this time, Office Accounting is designed for US small businesses only, and does not support local requirements of countries outside the US.

With Office Accounting Express 2007, Microsoft proves it’s capable of producing high-quality, free software for the masses. Beneath the clean layout, big icons, and point-and-click interface sits a foundation of solid business features that can benefit almost any company.

The freeware version covers most imaginable needs a business might have for supportive software. Charge customers’ credit cards or manage your bank accounts, payroll, and vendors. You can create and log invoices, quotes, cash sales, and even refunds. Beyond that, the program provides for the modern business, featuring built-in PayPal functionality–an absolute necessity for e-commerce–and a built-in connection to your Equifax profile for looking up credit profiles. There’s also a letter-writing function with modifiable templates, simplifying your communication with clients and vendor.

Full version comes with more features, such as:

• multiple user profiles
• international currency support
• regional transaction tracking
• fixed asset manager

Since Office Accounting Express is part of the Microsoft Office suite, it includes excellent integration with other member of this suite like contact-list integration with Outlook. Unfortunately, the installation is enormous and time-consuming, and it surreptitiously installs Microsoft SQL Server 2005 which take over 1GB disk space. Secret installations do not instill confidence. The “advanced options” screen during the install process allows users to choose different database managers, if they have alternatives, but the choice isn’t explicitly clear.

Overall, Office Accounting Express is an incredible piece of software for business managers. Comprehensive and obviously affordable, Office Accounting Express is hard to beat for business-software value.

PROS

• It’s free
  But knowing Microsoft, for how long?
• Complete
  The product has all the features you expect in an accounting product, like create quotes and invoices, record expenses, process credit card payments, online banking, and even payroll.
• User interface
  It is simple and very intuitive. Simple to get started and use. Can get speed of use by modifying the entry forms exactly like you want them. You can handle all yours main business scenarios with a few clicks and the product is stuffed with intelligence that helps you not make mistakes. If you use Outlook or Word or Excel, you’ll find this easy to use.
• Integration with Microsoft Office: Word, Excel and Outlook
  Office Accounting Express 2007 has been designed to work smoothly with other Microsoft Office system programs. Its integration with Word enables you to customize any documents like quotes and invoices by using existing or new templates.
  The integration with Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager helps ensure that all financial and marketing information is available centrally, and changes made in any one program automatically show up in the other. Furthermore, Outlook users can view financial information from within Outlook, use Outlook to create invoices, submit timesheets from Outlook, and track time in the Outlook calendar.
  Reports for business insight can be created in Office Accounting Express 2007 and then exported to Excel, with its rich formatting, for deeper analysis and calculations. The analysis pack included with Office Accounting Express 2007 enables viewing financial data in Excel, PivotTable reports, and Microsoft Office Access reports.
• onLine services integration
  Among the integrated online services available with the products are eBay, PayPal, Equifax, ADP Payroll Solutions, Microsoft Office LIVE and various other online banking and credit card processing services.
  Can send an email using Outlook and provide a PayPal payment option.

CONS

• Ability to sell on Amazon and Yahoo should be added.
• It took a while to download but it was worth the wait.
• Long install (does not tell you that you will be installing SQL Server 2005)
• If you want full inventory support, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro version
• Does not support local requirements of countries outside the US

The Pro versions for mature and growing small businesses of up to 25 employees will be available for $149 at the end of January.

Both versions of the product support basic and advanced accounting features and trying the Express version.

The idea-generator for this post is another post about bug in Excel 2007. It is not small bug, it is 10 000 - 65 535 = 34465 of something (dollars or euros perhaps). Anyway, my post is not about Excel. When I heard for this Excel bug I asked some of my in-love-with-microsoft-friends a question: ‘is there some microsoft’s program without bugs?’. There was many answers (there is no bug less software etc…), but one of them says that there is one program that is 100% bug free - NOTEPAD!

This is post about bug in notepad. Yes, that’s right - notepad has bug in Windows XP! I found that bug on one of forums where I spend some of my free time.

Demonstration:
Right click on desktop -> New -> Text Document
Notepad will appear. Write this (for example):

Bush hid the facts

Go to ‘file’ -> ’save’ and choose some file name (bush.txt). Close notepad, and than open saved file with double click… (I’m waiting…)…

WTF? Where is my text?
This bug has nothing with US government, or some conspiracies
The same thing is happened when you write anything in format:

xxxx xxx xxx xxxxx (4 characters, 3 characters, 3 characters, 5 characters).

Some explanations can be found here or here.
OK - we solved the mystery- it is not conspiracy, and there is no program without bugs made by Microsoft.

Maybe we all need to think about using OpenOffice (it is not so powerfull like Ms Office, but it knows basic math operations).

P.S.
When you try to write:
bush hid the truth
funny - but, all is normal

P.P.S.
Microsoft is not the answer,
Microsoft is question,
Answer is NO!

ERP developer job has it own advantages. Working directly on increasing level of implantation and watching how successfully it is. Users satisfaction is at the same time my own. It would be haven if it could be like that all the time. Here (but not hereby) I will describe one recent event. Participants are: Developer, Absent Female User, Female User, Male User, Young Female User and Developer.

Manager of one department asked from IT manager to develop slightly different printout of one standard document for her department. Very quickly printout was finished and I find myself with users office to explain them how to use new printout:

Developer: Hello, I came to instruct you how to use new printout in our ERP.

Female User (working on computer of Absent Female User): But that’s Absent Female User job, I’m just her replacement until she get back from vacation.

Developer: I know she is not here but I intent to instruct you how to use new printout option in our ERP, and hopefully you will show to your colleague Absent Female User when she came back from her vacation.

Female User (I have to mention it’s the very same one working on computer of Absent Female User): Actually I’m not working on our ERP at all, you will have to instruct our newest colleague Young Female User… (call Young Female User to come in our office)

Young Female User enter into office.

Developer: Young Female User, I will instruct you how to use new printout option in our ERP.

Young Female User: But, I’m new here, Absent Female User usually doing all stuff related to ERP…

Female User (to Young Female User): Yes, but you are her replacement.

Female User left the office.

Developer (to Young Female User): Please take a seat and I will show you step-by-step how to make this work...

Young Female User: I will take a paper to write down those steps so I could repeat them again by myself.

Developer: That would be good.

After little waiting for paper and pencil, step by step training was done. Young Female User wrote on paper every 3rd step. Not even close enough to repeat them by herself only. Now come the conclusion:

Young Female User: This is completely useless to us. It will only slow down all of us.

Developer: You should discuss that with your manager not with me. It was developed by your manager request.

Young Female User: …

Excel’s VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP function, which stands for vertical and horizontal lookup, is used to search for wanted information stored in sheet which could be in same or different XLS file.

If you have sheet “order” with enlisted items and sheet “prices” with items price list you can search for the prices of ordered items to calculate total amount of order.

If you have sheet “overdue” with enlisted over debt partners for sending warning letter and you have sheet “partner master data” with full partners addresses, you can search for selected addresses using these LOOKUP function.

Next will follow only VLOOKUP example, same examples will be good for understanding how HLOOKUP function work. Notice parameter separator in example bellow is (,) but depending on regional computer setting it could be used (;) instead.

How to write VLOOKUP function

=VLOOKUP(”EXAMPLE ITEM”,E5:Z15,3,False)

• “EXAMPLE ITEM” - this VLOOKUP function is looking for the price of EXAMPLE ITEM
• E5 : Z15 - it is looking for this information in the data table located in cells E5 to Z15
• 3 - VLOOKUP is looking for the price in the third column of the table
• False - indicates that only an exact match to the lookup _value ” EXAMPLE ITEM” will be accepted

The VLOOKUP function returns the results of its search - $22.76

Excel VLOOKUP Function Syntax:

lookup _value
This parameter is the value that is searched for in the first column of the table array. It could be cell reference to a value or a value itself

table_array
Range of data that is searched to find lookup_value. The first column always contains the lookup_values.

It is always a good idea to use an absolute cell reference for the table_array. If you don’t use an absolute reference and you copy the cells contain VLOOKUP function to other cells, there is a good chance you will get error messages in the cells the function is copied to or wrong data since all cells references will be change relative to original cells.

col_index_num
It’s column number of the table_array from which function will return data.

range_lookup
Logical value (TRUE or FALSE) that tells VLOOKUP to find an exact or an approximate match to the lookup_value.

• If TRUE or if this argument is omitted, VLOOKUP will use an approximate match if it cannot find an exact match to the lookup_value. If an exact match is not found, VLOOKUP uses the next largest lookup_value.
• If FALSE, VLOOKUP will only use an exact match to the lookup_value. If there are two or more values in the first column of table_array that match the lookup_value, the first value found is used. If an exact match is not found, an #N/A error is returned.

Excel VLOOKUP Error Messages

• If the lookup_value is not found, function returns the #N/A
• If the col_index_num argument is greater than the number of columns in table_array, function returns the #REF!