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Writing recursive programs in VBA

Posted by Andy Brown on 20 February 2012 | no comments
In certain cases in VBA (displaying the contents of folders, listing hierarchical data) writing a program which calls itself is by far the easiest way to go - this blog gives worked examples of 3 such recursive programs.

This blog is part of our Excel VBA training series of blogs.

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How to Edit all Records in a SQL Server 2008 Table

Posted by Andrew Gould on 16 February 2012 | no comments
This blog explains how you can get access to all of the records in a SQL Server 2008 table when you try to edit them, rather than just the top 200.

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Tags:   SQL / Tables and columns

Calculating Age in SQL with a User-Defined Function

Posted by Andrew Gould on 16 February 2012 | no comments
A common requirement in SQL queries is calculating a person's age. The expression you need to do this accurately is relatively long, so why not replace it with a user-defined function? This blog shows you how!

This blog is part of our complete SQL Tutorial.

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Tags:   SQL / Calculations   |   SQL / Functions

Changing Settings in SQL Server Management Studio

Posted by Andrew Gould on 16 February 2012 | no comments
If you've spent time in the SQL Server Management Studio application you'll probably have noticed that it's not the most user-friendly environment for writing SQL queries. This blog explains how to change a few settings to make your query writing just a little easier.

You can find many more articles like this in our complete SQL tutorial.

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Tags:   SQL / SQL programming

SQL Server Tutorial

Posted by Andrew Gould on 13 February 2012 | no comments
This article provides a comprehensive tutorial in Microsoft SQL Server, taking you from the basics of writing SELECT statements all the way through to creating complex stored procedures.

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Tags:   SQL / Selecting data   |   SQL / WHERE criteria   |   SQL / Calculations   |   SQL / Joins   |   SQL / Grouping   |   SQL / Stored procedures   |   SQL / Transactions   |   SQL / CTEs, subqueries

Dates and Times in SQL Server

Posted by Andrew Gould on 13 February 2012 | no comments
Dates and times can be the most frustrating data types to work with in SQL Server. Learn everything you need to know about the way dates work with this handy blog series and enjoy happier times!

This blog is part of a larger tutorial on SQL Server, which you can read here.

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Tags:   SQL / WHERE criteria   |   SQL / Calculations

Passing arguments to subroutines in VBA

Posted by Andy Brown on 09 February 2012 | no comments
To become an efficient programmer, you need to stop writing one long subroutine and start writing lots of small ones instead - and to do this, you're going to need to know everything there is to know about passing arguments.

You can find more articles on this subject in our Excel Visual Basic tutorial blog.

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Linking to ADO databases with VBA

Posted by Andy Brown on 06 February 2012 | no comments
Learn how to write VBA macros to add, edit and delete data in Access, SQL Server and other databases, using something called ADO.

This blog is part of both a complete Excel VBA tutorial and a complete SQL tutorial.

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Tags:   Excel / Excel Visual Basic   |   VBA macros / References

Making Reporting Services reports refresh automatically

Posted by Andy Brown on 30 January 2012 | 1 comment
A little nugget of information - how to arrange it so that a report written using SQL Server Reporting Services will keep refreshing automatically, to display the latest data.

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Copy, rename, delete and move files and folders

Posted by Andy Brown on 23 January 2012 | no comments
By referencing the unintuitively named Microsoft Scripting Runtime object library you can write VBA code to access files and folders on your hard disk. This blog explains how, and gives a couple of worked examples.

This blog is part of a complete Excel VBA tutorial.

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Reading and writing to/from a text file using TextStreams

Posted by Andy Brown on 13 January 2012 | 2 comments
The easiest way to work with text files in VBA is using TextStream objects - this blog explains how they work.

This blog is part of a complete Excel VBA tutorial.

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How to choose files and folders in VBA

Posted by Andy Brown on 13 January 2012 | no comments
To make it easier for users of your VBA systems to choose files, you can show FileDialogs on screen. This blog explains what these are, and how to customise them.

This blog is part of a complete Excel VBA tutorial.

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Linking to the Microsoft Scripting Runtime library

Posted by Andy Brown on 13 January 2012 | no comments
In order to work efficiently with files and folders you first need to create a FileSystemObject. This blog explains how to do this!

You can find more articles on this subject in our Excel VBA blog.

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Custom Tables in Microsoft Project

Posted by Andrew Gould on 13 January 2012 | no comments
If you find yourself constantly deleting and inserting columns every time you create a new project it might be time to consider creating a custom table that you can share between projects. This blog shows you how to do exactly that!

This blog is part of a complete guide to customising Microsoft Project.

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Tags:   Project / Custom fields

Custom Views in Microsoft Project

Posted by Andrew Gould on 13 January 2012 | no comments
If you find that you have to continuously rearrange the preset views every time you create a new file in Microsoft Project, why not try creating your own custom view? This blog explains how to do exactly that!

This blog is part of a complete guide to customising Microsoft Project.

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Tags:   Project / Custom fields

Custom Reports in Microsoft Project

Posted by Andrew Gould on 13 January 2012 | no comments
Reporting on progress is an essential part of running a successful project. It's a shame that the preset reports in Microsoft Project are so limited. This blog explains how to create your own custom reports so that you can see the data you need.

This blog is part of a complete guide to customising Microsoft Project.

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Tags:   Project / Reporting

Customising Microsoft Project

Posted by Andrew Gould on 12 January 2012 | no comments
There are many things that you can customise in Microsoft Project to mould it to the way you work. This blog summarises the main useful things that can be customised along with links to detailed articles explaining how to modify each one.

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Tags:   Project / Reporting   |   Project / Custom fields   |   Project / Views of Project

Creating references programmatically in VBA

Posted by Andy Brown on 03 January 2012 | no comments
Did you know that you can create and manage references from within VBA code? This article gives you ideas on how to do just that.

This blog is part of a complete online VBA tutorial.

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Tags:   Excel / Excel Visual Basic   |   VBA macros / References

Importing Bank Holidays into the Outlook Calendar

Posted by Michael Allsop on 03 January 2012 | no comments
A quick guide to adding public holidays to the Calendar in Outlook 2010.

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Tags:   Outlook / General topics

Ten Useful Applications That You Can Get For Free

Posted by Andrew Gould on 15 December 2011 | no comments
As Christmas 2011 approaches we thought it would be a nice idea to list some geeky gifts that you can give to yourself. And the best thing is that they're all completely free!

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Tags:   Musings / Random musings
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