Microsoft Expression 2 on sale for 50% off - limited time offer – hurry!

There’s a great deal going on now at the Microsoft Online Store. All Expression 2 products are on sale for 50% off. This is a great deal – Expression Web 2 normally sells for $299.95 – it’s on sale now for only $149.95. Also, buying Expression 2 now will enable you to get Expression 3 at upgrade pricing when Version 3 is released - there will not be a free upgrade/grace period option. This offer is US only.

Multithreading: using the volatile in your C# code

Today we’re only going to talk about the volatile keyword. The volatile keyword can be used on the declaration of a field, transforming it into a volatile field. Currently, you can only annotate a field with this keyword if it is:

• a reference type;
• a pointer type (unsafe code);
• one of the following types: sbyte, byte, short, ushort, int, uint, char, float or bool;
• an enum with a base type of byte, sbyte, short, ushort, int or uint.

As we’ve seen, volatiles ensures that proper fences are applied when someone access that field (ie, reading means having an acquire fence and writing ends up injecting a release fence). As you know by now, load and store reordering can happen at several levels and you might be wondering if using the volatile is enough for ensuring that fences are applied on all levels. Fortunately, the answer is yes, and the volatile keyword  is respected by the compiler and by the processor.

Ok, so when should you use this keyword? Well, probably an example is in order, right? Lets take a look at the following code which shows the code I’ve written in the past for lazy loading:

class Lazy {
  private SomeObject _object;
  private Object _locker = new Object();
  public SomeObject SomeObject {
    get {
      if (_object == null) {
        lock (_locker) {
          if (_object == null) {
            _object = new SomeObject();
          }
        }
      }
      return _object;
    }
  }
}

What is your opinion? Do you see anything wrong (btw, suppose SomeObject is a reference type with some properties). I’ll return tomorrow and we’ll come back to this discussion. Keep tuned!

DHCP cmdlets

Documentation on TechNet states that there are cmdlets for managing DHCP servers on Windows 2008 R2.  This appears to be an error as there is no sign of them after installing DHCP.

Migrate from Exchange Public Folders to Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite

---

You know what I don't get?  If public folders are 'widely used' I've never fully understood why Microsoft is indeed so anti-public folders.  Is it scalability in large envirornments?  Security issues?  I've never fully understood why they don't support well at all something that even in their own words "is widely used".

Excel on a Mac - My Experience

Okay, let's take Excel 2008 off the table, it ships VBA-less; this is a deal-breaker for me. Note, this is simply my thoughts based on my brief experience, i.e., if you enjoy using Excel on your Mac, more power to you. And this is my take on an out-of-the-box interface, itself, not attempting to set up Jet Connections, etc...

I conducted a poll at MrExcel.com, to see if people with PC vs. Mac Excel experience preferred one to the other. The turn-out was underwhelming, but the majority does appear to favor the PC, and can be found, here:

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=353557

I had never worked with Excel on a Mac, until recently. I do pro bono consulting for the Women's Professional Billiards Association (WPBA), and my contact, on their Board of Directors, uses a Mac. Right, so I was off to North Carolina to provide training and some non-trivial project-work, on a Mac.

Nice enough looking machine; however, there were a couple of things that were driving me batty while trying to simply work with Excel on a Mac.

No right-click. I knew before I even jumped on this thing that it's not available, but that didn't stop me, it's engrained in my brain. Perhaps I didn't realize just how much I right-click? Quick sort? Quickly set some Column Widths? Paste Special? Forget about it, you're going to the menu. I can't recall why I was attempting to right-click so much, but I must have done it 10 times in an hour. This being the working definition of insanity - attempting the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

There's probably a simple fix for this, a key combination perhaps, but we didn't know it: the F-keys don't work? I like my F-keys too, apparently. I know I tried to use F2 and F9 while auditing some Worksheet Functions, and nothing. The one F-key combination that did work was Alt-F11, more on this in a moment.

I found myself missing normal keyboard keys. There is no Delete key, there is, but it functions like a Backspace. The Mac's keyboard is missing other keys, too, like End? Someone help me out here (I only did this for 2 hours). It's missing a key that I use a lot for scrolling, must be End...

And for my favorite drain-bamager... Like I said, Alt-F11 works, nice. So I get back into the Project, add a Module, I am ready to rip. When I write a lot of code that interacts with complex Worksheet data I tend to jump back and forth between the front and back end of Excel quite a bit; here's where the fun really begins.

So I flip back to the Worksheet, look my data, flip back to the Project. The Project's still open, but the Module's gone. Where did that thing go? At this point, I feel like I'm watching Eddie Murphy's 'Delirious', where Eddie's old man calls the family dog, Cocoa, and that dog is outta there. Where the [bleep] is that dog going?! "The dog is stupid, Eddie!"

I'm messing around in the Project Explorer, I can't get this thing to maximize? Fine, I kill the VBE, and step into the procedure from the front-end. Again, more working definition of insanity, I repeat said view flip; it's gone again. My contact says, "I bet I know where it is." She cursors over to the left side of the screen, in the VBE, and this magical, vertical task bar appears from out of nowhere. If you cursor down to the very lower-left of the screen, at this point, there's your Module. I would have never found that thing!

Performance was fine, other than an issue with Variant Arrays, but the interface almost drove me insane - or, maybe it did. Not quite like a fish being out of water, but it was just different enough where every few minutes or so I found myself wondering "Wait a second, here. What?"

Granted, I'm very new to that interface, so I was probably guilty of some Mac-Newb gaffers.

Dell Driver Download Manager & Slipstream'ed Vista SP2

I have problem with Dell’s Driver Download Manager which Dell released earlier this month (see my Rant on Dell Driver Download Manager on my blog).  I’m off to fresh install a slipstream’ed Vista SP2.  To do’s after doing that are noted on my other blog.

Windows Server Virtualization Validation Program and Support Wizard

Microsoft has launched the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP). 

SVVP is open to any vendor that delivers a machine virtualization solution that hosts Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows 2000 Server Service Pack 4 (SP4)and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and subsequent service packs. The virtualization solution can either be hypervisor-based or a hosted solution. The program enables vendors to validate various configurations so that Microsoft customers can receive technical support for Windows Server in virtualized environments.  The list of vendors currently includes:

• Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Citrix Systems, Inc.
• Novell, Inc.
• Oracle, USA Inc.
• Red Hat, Inc.
• Riverbed Technology, Inc.
• Sun Microsystems
• Unisys Corp.
• Virtual Iron Software
• VMware, Inc.

Perhaps more importantly for you, when designing infrastructure, you now have an easy reference for determining whether or not a product or application is fully supported using Virtualization...and not just Hyper-V.  The list of virtualization technologies currently includes:

·       Hyper-V

·       Cisco WAAS Virtual Blades 4.1

·       Novell SUSE Linux Ent Server 10 SP2

·       VMWare ESX 3.5 Update 2, 3, 4

·       VMWare ESXi 3.5 Update 3, 4

·       VMWare vSphere 4

·       Citrix XenServer 5, 5.5

...validated against Windows 2000 Server SP4, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 and your choice of architecture (x86, x64, or IA64).

The list of Microsoft Products is fairly comprehensive and will continue to be updated as needed.  It includes all items below:

·       Application Virtualization 4.5 (App-V)

·       BizTalk Server 2000

·       BizTalk Server 2002

·       BizTalk Server 2004

·       BizTalk Server 2006

·       BizTalk Server 2006 R2

·       Certificate Server

·       Commerce Server 2007

·       Dynamics AX 2009

·       Dynamics GP

·       Exchange 2000 Conferencing Server

·       Exchange Server 2000

·       Exchange Server 2003

·       Exchange Server 2007

·       Exchange Server 5.5

·       Forefront Client Security

·       Forefront Intelligent Application Gateway 2007 (IAG)

·       Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG)

·       Forefront Security for Exchange (FSE)

·       Forefront Security for Sharepoint (FSSP)

·       Host Integration Server 2006

·       ldentity Integration Server (MIIS)

·       ldentity Lifecycle Manager (ILM)

·       ISA Server 2000 (Standard or Enterprise)

·       ISA Server 2004 (Standard Only)

·       ISA Server 2006 (Standard or Enterprise)

·       Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

·       Microsoft Dynamics NAV2009

·       Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005

·       Office Communications Server 2007

·       Office Groove Server 2007

·       Office SharePoint Server 2007

·       Office Project Server 2007

·       Search Server 2008

·       SQL Server 2000

·       SQL Server 2005

·       SQL Server 2008

·       System Center Configuration Manager 2007

·       System Center Data Protection Manager

·       System Center Essentials 2007

·       System Center Operations Manager 2007

·       System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

·       Systems Management Server 2003 (SMS)

·       Visual Studio Team System 2008

·       Windows HPC Server 2008

·       Windows Server 2000

·       Windows Server 2003

·       Windows Server 2008

·       Windows Server Update Services 3.1

·       Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Let's walk through the wizard using Dynamics AX 2009 as our example product (i.e. - we want to virtualize Dynamics AX but are unsure of the supportability of our proposed configuration).

Step 1: We select our product and any version variable necessary (the Version field will display SP revision level, etc., depending on the product chosen).

Step 2: Select your proposed virtualization technology and the OS Version and architecture that the guest system will run.

Step 3: Your Summary Support Statement is produced. 

While this wizard won't serve as the last word in Virtualization Support, it will prove useful in determining the basics of support for any of these products.

Happy Virtualizing!

--Ryan

CodeDigest.Com - Article,FAQ's, Code Snippets - June 2009

CodeDigest For the Month 7\2009
CodeDigest.Com is a very young site(just 1 and a half year old) and this month marks as a benchmark in the growth of CodeDigest.Com! This month we have entered into the top 1,00,000 sites listed by Alexa.Com. Thanks to all our supporters! New Articles Published
Custom Paging for GridView using LINQ LINQ stands for Language Integrated Query. LINQ is a data querying methodology that provides querying capabilities to .Net languages which have similar to SQL query syntax. Moving forward, we will build custom paging for GridView control using LINQ to SQL classes.
DatePicker Control in ASP.Net Most often we will get a requirement to capture date input from the users. Normally, we can do this with a textbox and asking user to input the date in a particular format using a help text near by the textbox. This article will help us to build this control ourselves and also some of the other options available.
BizTalk - Errors and Warnings, Causes and Solutions The following article will discuss on the common errors and warning that we face when using BizTalk and their resolutions.
Customize User Controls with Smart Tag feature in Windows Forms This article explains how to create a usercontrol with a Smart Tag(Task List) attached to it.
Beginning Windows Presentation Foundation Project This article by Jayaram Krishnaswamy introduces the reader accustomed to working with the traditional graphic user interface in earlier versions of VB to Windows Presentation Foundation. Importantly, it introduces the reader to the XAML's declarative format and what it means in the design interface of VS 2008.
Beginning Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Service Development and Consuming it SOA is an architectural design pattern by which several guiding principles determine the nature of the design. Basically, SOA states that every component of a system should be a service, and the system should be composed of several loosely-coupled services.WCF is the acronym for Windows Communication Foundation. It is Microsoft's latest technology that enables applications in a distributed environment to communicate with each other. Read more...
C# Arrays-Explained What is an array?In simplest terms, an array is an organized collection. It can be a collection of anything. The important thing to remember is that it is a collection. This example uses an array of system.drawing.color.colors to change the background color of a windows form.
Working with static and dynamic arrays in C# Arrays are an extremely important part of any programmer's code library. There are static and dynamic arrays. This article discusses these two types of arrays and includes examples of each.
How to Open File Dialog in C#? This article demonstrates using the windows API FileOpen Dialog to get a user's file selection.
Populating RadioButtonList Using jQuery, JSON in ASP.Net One of my previous article Building Cascading DropDownList in ASP.Net Using jQuery and JSON discussed about constructing cascading DropDownList control using jQuery and JSON. One of the user [Shah] has commented that his requirement was to populate a RadioButtonList instead of a child DropDownList control. Read more..
GridView Style Edit Update in Repeater Control Using jQuery and Ajax Repeater control is one of the light weight control when compared to the other databound controls. It provides more flexibility on the layout of data displayed and the control itself will not render any additional HTML like GridView and DataList control do. Repeater control as such will not provide edit/update functionalities for the data. In this article, we will overcome this difficulty and provide an edit update feature similar to GridView control using the powerful jQuery library and Ajax.
New Codes Published
Get Website IP Address in ASP.Net
Disabling Theme Set in Web.Config in a Page
Prevent Web.Config settings inheritance in ASP.Net
Setting Media property for StyleSheets When Using Themes in ASP.Net
How to create a simple JOIN LINQ query to fetch data from 2 entities?
New FAQs Published
What is the difference between ASP.Net AJAX ScriptManager and Ajax control ToolkitScriptManager?
Last Month Winners
Winner:balamurali balaji Silver Mini LCD Projection Clock Contribution Done:Write one article or 2 Code Snippet or 3 FAQs

Volviendo a AjContab

Hace ya un tiempo que vengo pensando en reflotar AjContab:

http://www.ajlopez.com/ajcontab/

Encuentro este mensaje viejo, en la lista de Arquitectura del MUG de Argentina

http://www.mail-archive.com/arquitectura@mug.org.ar/msg00504.html

AjContab es un viejo ejemplo que daba en mis cursos de .NET 1.x, hace unos años. Debería reescribirlo, en ASP.NET 2, VS2008, tal vez ASP.NET MVC? Veré. Pero en estos días habia tweeteado:

http://twitter.com/ajlopez/status/2258288758

La idea es tener:

- Múltiples Tenants
- Múltiples Empresas
- Múltiples Planes de Cuenta por Empresa
- Múltiples Ejercicios
- Usuarios y Roles
- Minutas/Asientos
- Reportes como Balance, Libro Diario, Libro Mayor

Al escribirlo en PHP/MySql, podría colocarlo fácilmente en línea. Me serviría como ejercicio de repaso de PHP, y comenzaría a tener un proyecto con Ajax, Javascript, JQuery quizás? Trataría de codificarlo liviano, para no ponerle demasiada arquitectura o parafernalia al principio. En todo caso, eso lo dejaría para la versión .NET o Java.

Será interesante ver cómo los usuarios reciben la idea de tener un sistema así en la web. En el Proyecto Medusa (que mencioné hace poco, en Generación de código con AjGenesis para Mere Mortals Framework), está incluido el desarrollo de un sistema contable en web. AjContab me serviría para afilar las uñas en el tema de poner este tipo de aplicaciones andando.

En cuanto tenga algo publicado, escribo por acá. Keep tuned! :-)

Sugerencias? Bienvenidas!

Nos leemos!

Angel “Java” Lopez
http://www.ajlopez.com
http://twitter.com/ajlopez

Excel dates counted differently and a reliable way of working out the day of the week

Following my recent post about 40,000 days, I got a couple of emails telling me that Excel disagrees about when the 40,000th day is. And this is true – Excel counts Day 40000 as July 6th 2009, not July 7th.

Unfortunately for Excel users, they’re wrong. And it’s down to the fact that Excel thinks that 1900 was a leap-year, when we all know it wasn’t. You see, leap-years only fall on the century year if the year is divisible by 400. So 2000 was a leap-year, but 1900 wasn’t, and 2100 won’t be either.

What’s more, this has been a problem for ages, and it was a conscious decision to introduce the bug. Essentially, Lotus 1-2-3 thought 1900 was a leap-year, and to be consistent with the market leader of the day, Microsoft treated 1900 as a leap-year too. And nowadays, we have a situation where backwards compatibility is more important. Today, if you have an application which knows that day 40000 is July 7th, then you’d better not treat your date that same way in Excel (or vice-versa).

The thing that I find really amazing with this is that Excel tells me that Feb 29, 1900 was a Wednesday. But it didn’t exist – so what happened that week? Actually (and you can check other calendars for this, including Windows’ one), Feb 28th was a Wednesday, and Excel gets the day of the week wrong for the first 59 days of its calendar.

I know you don’t care, but perhaps you should – in case you ever write an application that needs to know what day of the week it is.

Working out the day of the week is really trivial. For instance, in SQL Server, you can generally ask for the DATEPART(dw,…) of the date in question, and get a number back, telling you what day of the week it is. It’ll tell you 1 for the 1st day of the week, 2 for the 2nd, and so on.

Which is great, until you find that someone in your organisation says that Sunday is the first of the week, but someone else insists that it’s Monday. In the movie industry, I think Thursday is the first day of the week. So then, when is the 5th day? In SQL we have @@DATEFIRST, which helps a lot, but a method I like to use is to count the number of days since a known Sunday (or whatever), and take the “mod 7”. If that’s zero, I’m an exact number of weeks since that known Sunday. It works nicely, and it’s simple enough for everyone to understand (and it works regardless of location or other changeable settings).

But if you had picked your “known Sunday” in early 1900 using Excel, you’d’ve got it wrong, and your data might not work if you push your system out to SQL later (so pick something later – like 1901). I recently dealt with a date dimension that someone had put together in Excel and imported into SQL – if this data had gone back to 1900, then there would’ve certainly been errors in it (for a start, the import wouldn’t’ve worked because SQL would’ve complained that Feb 29, 1900 wasn’t a valid date).

My preference with date dimensions is to use a lot of computed columns, and only ever populate a single field. It works nicely, and it’s almost no effort to extend the table to include extra dates when required.

The path <path> is already mapped in workspace <workspace>

i was getting the following error:

The path <path> is already mapped in workspace <workspace>

Here's  how i solved it.

Theres another way to do it through command line

Weekend reading

• What services do I need at my disaster recovery and backup location for my Exchange Server environment, other than mailbox servers?
• Offline Address Book Generation Fails on a Server That Is Running Exchange 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication
• Using Mobile Device Manager 2008 server roles in Exchange 2007
• Creating Meeting Workspaces in MOSS 2007 and Outlook 2007
• High level Exchange 2010 architecture
• Exchange 2007 OWA via ISA RSA – Authentication Delegation
• Now Available – Antigen and Forefront server security service packs!
• Some Thoughts on FBA (part 1)
• Comparing PowerShell Switch Parameters with Boolean Parameters
• Protecting Exchange Server 2007 Distribution Groups from Spam
• Exchange Server 2010 and Windows Mobile 6.1/6.5 Videos
• What to Do If You Lose Quorum (Server Clusters: Majority Node Set Quorum)
• Placement of the File Share Witness (FSW) on a Geographically Dispersed CCR Cluster
• Global Address list shows the legacyExchangeDN instead of the email address
• Exchange 2007 SCW and Windows 2008 SP2?
• Kudos to the Exchange Documentation team
• OWA Exchange 2010 New look and Features and Improvements
• VIDEO: Update-Safelist
• Moving from MDaemon to Exchange Server 2003/2007 (Part 3)
• Setting up a Windows 2008 cluster where nodes reside in a disjointed DNS namespace…
• Spotlight on Exchange 2010: Voice Mail Preview - Part 1: Introduction

HP G60

I am currently using a HP G60 laptop.  Runs Windows 7 very well. I created a dual boot environment so I could install Windows 2008 R2 and to my pleasant surprise found Hyper-V runs on it.  Need to enable virtualisation in the BIOS but apart from that slight hiccup it installs and works very well.  Once I get the RTM version it will be time to finally abandon Virtual PC.

Also gives me a chance to play with James’ Hyper-V library.

ISE on Windows 2008 R2

PowerShell version 2 is installed by default on Windows 2008 R2 Release Candidate (apart from server core). If you go looking for ISE you may not find it as it appears to be an optional feature install.

Easy to install and can of course be scripted from the server manager cmdlets.  That really is the way to configure R2 I think.  Vanilla install then have a set of scripts to install the roles\features you need.  Can’t dcpromo that way but everything else works.

In case you missed fireworks...

A little coding of a remote control

http://www.comcast.com/Customers/Clu/ChannelLineup.ashx?area=0

I'm desiging a remote control... one that categorizes the stations we look at a regular basis.. and I'm using a piece of software to 'code up' the remote control.  Due to the fact that this is an older remote control and the driver for this is not 64bit, I'm having to use VMware to run the software and then download the program to the remote control.

But in seeing this thread on RemoteCentral I may try it again on the native Vista sp2.. I tried it initially on Sp1 and it sometimes worked fine, sometimes didn't....

In case anyone is still looking for a solution for NG TSU3500, I was able to install prontoeditNG using XP SP2 compatibility mode under Vista x64 bit SP2.
When conecting the remote, it is seen as an HID device, but uploads and downloads work fine.

And yes the icons look like an iPhone.  I'm using the template of several Prontos from the Remote Central site to design the remote for our house.  Instead of his and her stations, we have hers, hers, the Dog however doesn't have too many favorite channels other than Animal Planet.  Speaking of iPhones, my Sister got one of the new 3gS models and when they say that you have to recharge after a day... they weren't kidding.

IPhone 3GS owners bemoan its battery life - Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-iphone3-2009jul03,0,2546606.story

They do tell you that if you want to conserve battery life to turn off push, turn off 3g, turn off wireless, turn off.... well you get the idea...

Feeding a driver

Notice: HP ProLiant G5 Servers - Installing the Embedded SATA RAID Controller Driver During an Installation of Windows Server 2008, Windows Small Business Server 2008, or Windows Essential Server 2008 - c01660474 - HP Business Support Center:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01660474

When building a server ... and especially if you are reusing hardware and well.. being ..cheap about it... one thing to check to see if the hardware you are trying to install on has a Server 2008 64bit driver.  Even on the newer low cost hardware that is meant to be used in the low end marketplace, you get to that very first screen where the system has booted up, it goes to find a harddrive to install to and....

nothing...

And without that driver in the right spot right there for that OS to see that embedded raid to then in turn see the drive, you go no where really fast.  The good news is that in this era you no longer have to find floppy disks and feed it to the server, you can now use cdroms or usb flash drives.  But the bottom line is still, you MUST have a driver for that hardware that the drives hang off of, otherwise that Windows Server 2008/SBS 2008/EBS 2008 will not see that system. 

This is why for the SBS 2008 era, the Win2k8 era, heck the Windows 7 era, your best experience will still be with new hardware that has the drivers tailored for that OS.

More posts here -- Business support forums - Works for me: ML110 G5, MS Windows Server 2008 Standard x64, and Embedded SATA RAID drivers:
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?prodSeriesId=3580609&prodTypeId=15351&threadId=1309171&admit=109447626+1246730114966+28353475

(as always, this is only an on premises problem, cloud computing never ever has any issues.)

(Yeah I know ... totally cheap shot, but I couldn't resist)

Some Pretty Bizarre Excel Behavior (Mac-based)

Macs are the rage, right? Stable, intuitive, splashy looking? Unless you're me - I don't use them - perhaps a subject for another day. But, I do have friends who do, and while I give them an ear-load for doing so, so be it.

I recently received a fairly strange email from a friend of mine, using Excel, in an Office 2004 environment:

"I have an excel file open with multiple tabs, but all of the tab titles are blank with the exception of the one on the screen.  It happened after I copied one of them, and now all excel files I open with multiple tabs have the same issue."

Ce qui? Having never seen anything quite like this, I figured, either someone had a long night out on the town, or something freakish happened. My advice? Reboot your machine and try that again.

No good - to my surprise, not only did the issue persist, I actually got a screen-shot of it, here:

I've blurred out the cells' text to protect the innocent, but I didn't play games with Worksheets 2-4 tab names. Notice how they have no names, what-so-ever? Another issue with this Workbook is that the cell-formatting isn't correct in the Worksheets, either.

This is strange stuff. I've heard the song about having dessert on a horse with no name, but snacking while staring at a Worksheet with no name? This is new to me and, apparently, for real.

Not having a Mac close-by, where I could even attempt to replicate this strange phenomenon, I decided to scour the WWW. Oddly enough, while limited, I did get some pings, e.g.,

http://forum.soft32.com/mac/thread-sheet-tabs-ftopict82279.html

"I now noticed that if the file is double clicked to start Excel the blank sheet tabs (not really blank, just white text) will appear as with all subsequent files opened."

And the big one:

http://forum.soft32.com/mac/Text-disappears-worksheet-tabs-ftopict82593.html

"I discovered that it was due to a conflich with Acrobat's PDF Maker plug-in which was in the Excel startup folder. Once I removed it, the problem disappeared."

Spelling and terminology aside, it turns out that the Acrobat Distiller Add-in was the issue, in this case. Once she unloaded that, everything works as expected. Two thoughts:

1. This only appears to be a problem with specific Excel files, although it can daisy-chain to other files in the same Excel instance
2. This isn't to say all Add-ins are bad news, but some might cause problems

Part of me wonders how this Add-in managed to create this scenario? It's not normal, to say the least - is it a neat trick? I've never seen this on a PC, so I assume most readers will never run into this, and your chances of seeing this are probably slim on a Mac, as well.

This is on my top-5 of weird, unexpected, things seen in Excel, before.

Happy 4th of July!

Presenting at BA World

I'm going to be brave over the next couple of months and present a few times at the series of BA World conferences in Australia.  I'm presenting the following at Business Analysts World in Sydney 6-8th July and then in Melbourne 13-15th July on Business Analysts v Architects.  You did know there was a war, right? Here's the adbstract:

There is much tension in all IT shops and all projects about the role of Business Analysts and Architects. The point where the roles meet is subject to much contention, and even anguish in some cases. This issue has been further exasperated by the advent of agile approaches and new design tools that further blur the line between Architects, Developer and Business Analysts. In his presentation, Kevin Francis, who is an experienced Architect and senior manager of Architects, Developers and Business Analysts will examine this issue. He’ll provide best practices in integration between Business Analysts and the rest of the development team in a pragmatic manner that can align with agile. He’ll also discuss the use of tools in enabling this interface.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the points of interface between Business Analysts and Architects from an Architect’s perspective

• Learn the best practices available in the space and the division of labour across the roles

• Review tools available to support the analysis, design and architecture of solutions

I'll post the presentation to my SlideShare page after the conference.

I'm also presenting at BA World in Canberra on September 21st-22nd on Requirements for Sustainable IT Systems.  More details on that to follow later.

Early Bird Registration for Australian Architecture Forum

Just a quick note to let you know that Early Bird registration is open for the Australian Architecture Forum until July 15.  We are assembling a fantastic line-up of international speakers and Open Space participants from across the breadth of the IT landscape.  The conference is looking like better and better value all the time, and it is even better value if you register early.

Hope you can come and join us!