Microsoft Office Excel 2007 -

To quickly create a chart on its own sheet in a Microsoft Office Excel workbook, select the chart data, and then press the F11 key. This action generates a chart using your default chart type, which is originally set to be a clustered column chart.

To change your default chart type, on the Insert tab, in the lower-right corner of the Charts section, click the dialog box launch icon to open the Insert Chart dialog box. Select your preferred chart type, and then click Set as Default Chart. You can then click Cancel to close the dialog box without generating a chart. Though nothing appears to have changed, the next time you generate a chart by using the F11 key, you’ll automatically get your new default chart type.

Note: Keep in mind that after you’ve created a chart, you can still change the chart type. To change chart type for just the active chart, on the Chart Tools Design tab, in the Type section, click Change Chart Type.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Windows Vista - Collaborate with Windows Meeting Space

Do you need to connect with a colleague to share ad hoc, real-time work? By using Windows Meeting Space, you can share handouts and work together on applications. You can join or start a meeting where everyone participates or just watches, and it can be done immediately as long as you are all on the same network.

Here’s how to get started:
1. Click Start.
2. Click All Programs.
3. Click Windows Meeting Space. Notice that passwords are required, to offer a degree of security.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Side by Side - 2003 to 2007 Group Schedule

Checking schedule availability for your team in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 means opening a fake meeting request, entering everyone's names, and then navigating the blue bars for an open slot of time. In Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, you can create group schedules to view availability for multiple people and resources, like conference rooms.

1. Click the Actions menu, and then click View Group Schedules.
2. Click New, and then type a name for the new schedule.
3. Enter the names of the people and resources whose schedules you want to view.
4. Click Save and Close.
5. To schedule a meeting or send an e-mail message to the group or an individual, open the group schedule, and then click the Make Meeting list.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Word 2007 - Find Tooltips for Keyboard Shortcuts

If you press and hold the ALT key, tooltips appear above the commands at the top of the page. You can then press the appropriate letter for a simple keyboard shortcut.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 - Share Your Calendar via E-Mail

If you want to share your calendar with colleagues, here’s how:

1. Open your calendar, and then click Send a Calendar via E-mail.
2. Select the period that you want to share (such as today, tomorrow, or the next 7 days).
3. You now have an e-mail message ready to send with your selective calendar details attached. Enter the e-mail addresses of those you want to receive it, and then send the message.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office 2007 System - Preview Formatting Before You Apply It

Need the perfect document design, or the right formatting to ensure that your text, table, or graphic coordinates with the rest of your document? Forget time-consuming trial and error.

In the 2007 Microsoft Office system programs Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, you can preview many types of document formatting before you apply them. Point to an entry in an applicable gallery, such as the Themes gallery to see font, color, and graphic effect formatting changes all at once throughout the document, or the SmartArt Styles gallery to preview a variety of formats for your SmartArt diagram.

Live Preview is available for Document Themes in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as Quick Style Sets in Word, Table Styles in all three programs, and many graphic formatting galleries (such as Picture Styles or Shape Styles). Note that Live Preview is not currently available for Chart Styles.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 - Upload Files in Advance

When you’re using Microsoft Office Live Meeting to host a meeting, you can upload the documents that you want to cover in the meeting to a Microsoft SharePoint site in advance, and then tell everyone invited where those documents are. That way, anyone who can’t attend the meeting because of other commitments or network problems can still see the documents. Upload the documents as soon as they’re ready: Put them on a SharePoint workspace that everyone can access. A day (24 hours) before the meeting, send e-mail to all the invitees with a link to the files. Even those who can't attend will then have the benefit of seeing the meeting documents.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Excel 2007 - Apply Multiple Conditional Formats to the Same Cell(s)

To apply more than one conditional formatting rule to the same cells, select the cells, and then apply each new rule that you need. However, to prioritize the rules for the exact result you want, use the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager. To do this, on the Home tab, in the Styles section, click Conditional Formatting, and then click Manage Rules. In the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager dialog box, you can use the Move Up and Move Down arrows to reorder rules, which determines what formatting appears in front. You can also select the Stop If True option to stop executing further rules in cells for which the selected condition is true.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office 2007 - Maximize Your Screen Area by Hiding the Navigation Pane

You can minimize the Navigation Pane by pressing the « button on the title bar in the Navigation Pane. Whenever you need to access another mail folder from the folder list, click the Navigation Pane area. The folder list will appear temporarily, and then disappear after you've chosen your folder or selected another Microsoft Office Outlook feature.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007 - Shortcut to a SharePoint Meeting Workspace

To quickly open an existing Microsoft SharePoint meeting workspace from your calendar view (without having to open the appointment), right-click the meeting item in your calendar, and then click View Meeting Workspace. The SharePoint Meeting Workspace associated with your selected meeting will open directly in a Web browser.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Groove 2007 - Synchronizing Your Own Computers

If you have multiple computers, you can set up your Microsoft Office Groove 2007 account on each of them to keep a synchronized copy of key workspaces and files on each computer.

1. From the File menu, click Use Account on Another Computer, and then save the account file to your desktop by clicking OK in the dialog box.
2. Transfer the account file to a second computer through an e-mail attachment or a removable storage device.
3. On the second computer, install Groove 2007. In the Account Configuration Wizard, click Use a Groove Account you have already created, and follow the instructions to select your saved account file.
4. Your workspaces will appear in the Launchbar labeled as Not on this computer. Double-click each workspace to download it from your other computer.

Note: Your Groove administrator may have set policies for your account that restrict you from adding it to other computers.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Excel 2007 - Customize the Appearance of Conditional Formats Such as Data Bars, Color Scales, and Icon Sets

When you need conditional formatting in your Microsoft Office Excel 2007 worksheet, try one of the new data visualization options, including color scales, icon sets, and data bars. You can apply these formats with just a click from galleries of preset options, or customize your own conditional formatting rules.

To access the new conditional formats, on the Home tab, in the Styles section, click Conditional Formatting, and then point to Data Bars, Color Scales, or Icon Sets. Or to create a custom rule for one of these formats, at the bottom of the Conditional Formatting menu, click New Rule. In the New Formatting Rule dialog box, select the rule type Format all cells based on their values to use the new data visualization tools. In the lower half of the box, you can then choose among data bars, color scales, and icon sets; specify conditions for each formatting type; and customize colors for data bars or color scales.

Note: In Excel 2007, it’s also possible to edit existing conditional formatting rules. To access existing rules for editing, at the bottom of the Conditional Formatting menu, click Manage Rules.

This tip was retrieved from Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

SQL Server 2K Paging

Hi all, for this tip I'll use Microsoft Northwind database.

The question here is: A have a lot of data and need to page it via SQL Server, how can I do it?
Sounds complicated but is simple.

All you need is two variables to determine the range you want to page and which row the paging will start.
The result can be ordered by many columns, so we need to create an identity column that will keep a sequential number wich will be used to unique identify each table row.

CREATE PROCEDURE GetProductsByRange_Pr
-- Var used to indicate which row will start to count
@RowStart INT,
-- Var used to determinate how many rows will be returned
@PageSize INT
AS

-- Create a temporary table to keep products to be paged
CREATE TABLE #TempProducts(
ID int IDENTITY,
ProductID int
)

-- Insert the rows in the previous created temp table
INSERT INTO #TempProducts (ProductID)
 SELECT ProductID FROM Products

-- Retrieve data from temp table
SELECT
 T.ID,
 P.*
FROM
 #TempProducts T
 INNER JOIN Products P ON T.ProductID = P.ProductID
WHERE
 T.ID BETWEEN @RowStart AND (@RowStart + @PageSize) - 1

Then you call your procedure:

-- Get 10 rows starting from row number 1
exec GetProductsByRange_Pr 1, 10

-- Get 10 rows starting from row number 11
exec GetProductsByRange_Pr 11, 10

-- Get 10 rows starting from row number 21
exec GetProductsByRange_Pr 21, 10

Thanks for read!

See yaa!

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 - Find Out How Much Storage Space Your Mail Is Occupying on the Server

Hi all, the tip today is how to find out how much storage space your mail is occupying on the Server .

1. On the upper menu bar, click Tools.
2. Click Mailbox Cleanup. A dialog box appears.
3. Click View Mailbox Size. In the dialog box, you can now view the details of locally used storage.
4. On the Server Data tab you can see how much space is left on the server. The amount of space shown will be cumulative if folders contain subfolders.

This tip was based on Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

see ya!

Andre Baltieri
andre.baltieri@insidedotnet.com.br

Microsoft Office Power Point 2007 - Reduce File Sizes by Changing Image Formats

Hi all,
As I'm receiving a lot of tips about Office 2007, I'll post it here, to share with you.. I'll start with the tip: Reduce File Sizes by Changing Image Formats

The Compress Pictures button in Microsoft Office PowerPoint can often reduce your .ppt files by up to 50 percent. But that can still leave you with large files, especially if your images have been created from .png files. You can save even more space by changing them to .gif or .jpg formats. (Note: The .png format is more flexible than the other file formats. Flattening to .jpg or .gif reduces flexibility.) Here’s how to reduce file sizes:

1. Save your PowerPoint file as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which creates an .htm file and a folder of the same name. This folder will contain all the images from the presentation.
2. Open the folder, and sort it by size to reveal which files are the largest.
3. Locate the largest images in your presentation. They may have been scaled, so they might look smaller than the saved image.
4. In PowerPoint, make sure that the image isn't grouped.
5. Select the image.
6. On the Picture Tools menu, in the Adjust section, click Compress Pictures.
7. Right-click the image, and then click Save as Picture.
8. From the Save as type menu, select .jpg or .gif (if you need to use transparency effects), and then save the image.
9. Delete the original image from your presentation, and reload the saved image at its original place.
10. Regroup the images if necessary.

Another way to compress the images is to use an image editing tool like Microsoft Digital Image Suite. This tool gives you more image compression options and can save you yet more space.

This tip was based on Microsoft Daily News Tips and Tricks

Some .NET Framework Best Pratices

Hi all, here are some .NET Framework Best Pratices for you...

Optimizing performance with built-in types
The runtime optimizes the performance of 32-bit integer types (Int32 and UInt32), so use those
types for counters and other frequently accessed integral variables. For floating-point operations,
Double is the most efficient type because those operations are optimized by hardware.

Garbage collection
Garbage collection occurs only when needed or when triggered by a call to GC.Collect. Automatic
garbage collection is optimized for applications where most instances are short-lived, except for
those allocated at the beginning of the application. Following that design pattern will result in the
best performance.

Boxing and unboxing
Boxing and unboxing incur overhead, so you should avoid them when programming intensely
repetitive tasks. Boxing also occurs when you call virtual methods that a structure inherits from
System.Object, such as ToString. Follow these tips to avoid unnecessary boxing:

• Implement type-specific versions (overloads) for procedures that accept various value types.

It is better practice to create several overloaded procedures than one that accepts an Object
argument.

• Use generics whenever possible instead of accepting Object arguments.
• Override the ToString, Equals, and GetHash virtual members when defining structures.

Version Compatibility
To ensure proper versioning behavior, follow these rules when modifying a custom
class from version to version:

• Never remove a serialized field.
• Never apply the NonSerializedAttribute attribute to a field if the attribute was not applied to the field in a previous version.
• Never change the name or type of a serialized field.
• When adding a new serialized field, apply the OptionalFieldAttribute attribute.
• When removing a NonSerializedAttribute attribute from a field that was not serializable in a previous version, apply the OptionalFieldAttribute attribute.
• For all optional fields, set meaningful defaults using the serialization callbacks unless 0 or null as defaults are acceptable.

Waiting forever
Instead of using overly long millisecond timeouts for infinite timeouts (where you are willing to wait
as long as it takes), you should use the Timeout class’s static Infinite property.

Working with files
Applications running in the Internet and LocalIntranet zones do not receive the FileIOPermission,
and as such, cannot directly access files. They do, however, have FileDialogPermission. Therefore,
assemblies in the Internet zone can open files by prompting the user to select the file using an
OpenFileDialog object. Assemblies in the LocalIntranet zone can also save files by using the Save-FileDialog object. To access files without FileIOPermission, call the ShowDialog method of either
OpenFileDialog or SaveFileDialog. If the user selects a file, you can use the file handle returned by the OpenFile method to access the file.

Use SecurityAction.RequestOptional assembly declarations
There are whole books about writing secure code, and you should always follow secure coding
best practices. We’re just human, though. Sometimes, you might simply forget to validate an input or to use strong typing. Other times, you might be rushing to finish a project and just get careless.
Using SecurityAction.RequestOptional assembly declarations is the one security best practice that you should always follow. These declarations take very little time to write because it’s just a couple lines of code, they’re easy to debug because the runtime will throw an easily identifiable exception, and they offer protection for every line of code in your assembly. As an assembly grows in size, this projection decreases some.

Avoid redundant demands
Most classes in the .NET Framework use demands to ensure that callers have the permissions
required to use them, so also calling Demand is redundant. For example, if you’re reading a line
from a text file using a StreamWriter object, the object itself will demand FileIOPermission. Generally, use demands to protect custom resources that require custom permissions.

When not to implement IIdentity
This code shows how to implement a custom identity based on IIdentity. However, if you want to add properties to a Windows logon while still using the Windows token or other Windows security properties, base your custom identity on the WindowsIdentity class instead. The same applies for IPrincipal and WindowsPrincipal.

Choosing a symmetric key algorithm
Use the Rijndael algorithm whenever both the encryptor and decryptor are running on Windows
XP or later operating systems; otherwise, use Triple DES. Out of all symmetric-key algorithms supported by the .NET Framework, the U.S. government–approved Rijndael algorithm is considered the most secure. This algorithm supports 128-, 192-, and 256-bit keys. Another reason to choose Rijndael is that it is the only implementation that is natively supported by the .NET Framework. The other algorithms must make calls to unmanaged code.

Avoiding optional parameters
There are many reasons to avoid Visual Basic’s optional parameter feature, although this is an area that’s frequently disputed. The primary reason to avoid them, in my opinion, is that they aren’t supported in all .NET languages. Developers who didn’t know Visual Basic and were trying to translate the code would have a difficult time—they’d wonder why something worked in one context and not the other. Similarly, many argue that optional parameters are remnants of the previous non .NET Visual Basic and, as such, should be avoided.

StringBuilder objects are preferable to String objects in P/Invoke calls
When using Platform Invoke, use a StringBuilder object instead of a String. A StringBuilder is a
reference type with no atypical behavior and is needed because of the way P/Invoke internals
work.

These tips are from 70-536 - Application Development Foundation book.

See yaa!