Archive for March, 2011

March 29th, 2011

HP Pavilion DV7-4167CA – Review

I was looking to retire and replace my old Acer Laptop and was guided to look and eventually purchase the HP Pavilion DV7-4167CA.

This was a beautiful laptop!

  • 1.70GHz AMD Phenom II Quad-Core Mobile Processor P940
  • 6GB DDR3 RAM
  • ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 Video Adapter
  • 500GB (7200RPM) Hard Drive
  • LightScribe Blu-ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD±R/RW Double Layer
  • 17.3” LED Display
  • 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
  • 802.11b/g/n WLAN
  • 4 USB ports
  • HDMI port
  • 5-in-1 media card reader
  • and more… (DV7-4167CA Specifications)

It was easy to get setup and ran beautifully! Truly a delight to work with.

BUT! I did encounter 1 MAJOR issue. The biometric finger printer reader conflicted with MS Access’ security?! Since, MS Access is a major part of my business, and nor HP, nor Microsoft have yet to come out with a fix for this problem which seems to be well known and I could not perform my work. I ended up having to reluctantly return the laptop.

I would grade this laptop as an 8.5 out of 10 even with this issue, since it will not impact most potential buyer’s. That being said, I am very disappointed by HP to not have a fix for this, considering I can find posts going back quite sometime reporting this problem with their biometric security feature. At the end of the day they lost a customer out of it!

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March 28th, 2011

Telemax Multi Port Dock (TXDOCK) – Review

I was looking for a Docking Station for my laptop and was wanting one that could connect a secondary monitor. The Telemax Multi Port Dock (TXDOCK) appeared to fit the bill perfectly.

 

Inputs

  • 4 USB Ports (2 Front / 2 Rear)
  • Ear Phone and Mic Ins
  • Ethernet Connection
  • DVI/VGA Connection
  • Anchor point to attach a security lock

 

Outputs

  • 1 USB Connection to your computer

It was easy to install.

That said, sadly it did not live up to its claims. Once install, Windows 7 slowed down. Furthermore, it crashed my computer 3 times in a row when trying to activate the video connection. I was very disappointed, uninstalled everything and returned it since.

Looked good, but just didn’t do the job!

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March 26th, 2011

MS Excel – VBA – Find Cells with Linked Data

Have you ever had the pleasure of being given a workbook and when you open it it spits out the error:

Workbook contains one or more links that connot be updated.

To change the source of links, or attempt to update values again, click Edit Links.
To leave the links as is, click Continue

What really is annoying is that MS give the user no way to determine which cells are using the linked data, so no way for you to determine if and what to do! (Another poorly implemented aspect of an MS program). Below is a simple procedure that will create a worksheet where it will list each cell in each worksheet that used Linked Data as well as the source of the linked data.

Sub ShowAllLinksInfo()
'Author:        JLLatham
'Purpose:       Identify which cells in which worksheets are using Linked Data
'Requirements:  requires a worksheet to be added to the workbook and named LinksList
'Modified From: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2007-excel/workbook-links-cannot-be-updated/b8242469-ec57-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5?page=1&tm=1301177444768
    Dim aLinks           As Variant
    Dim i                As Integer
    Dim Ws               As Worksheet
    Dim anyWS            As Worksheet
    Dim anyCell          As Range
    Dim reportWS         As Worksheet
    Dim nextReportRow    As Long
    Dim shtName          As String
 
    shtName = "LinksList"
 
    'Create the result sheet if one does not already exist
    For Each Ws In Application.Worksheets
        If Ws.Name = shtName Then bWsExists = True
    Next Ws
    If bWsExists = False Then
        Application.DisplayAlerts = False
        Set Ws = ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets.Add(Type:=xlWorksheet)
        Ws.Name = shtName
        Ws.Select
        Ws.Move After:=ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets(ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets.Count)
        Application.DisplayAlerts = True
    End If
 
    'Now start looking of linked data cells
    Set reportWS = ThisWorkbook.Worksheets(shtName)
    reportWS.Cells.Clear
    reportWS.Range("A1") = "Worksheet"
    reportWS.Range("B1") = "Cell"
    reportWS.Range("C1") = "Formula"
 
    aLinks = ActiveWorkbook.LinkSources(xlExcelLinks)
    If Not IsEmpty(aLinks) Then
        'there are links somewhere in the workbook
        For Each anyWS In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets
            If anyWS.Name <> reportWS.Name Then
                For Each anyCell In anyWS.UsedRange
                    If anyCell.HasFormula Then
                        If InStr(anyCell.Formula, "[") > 0 Then
                            nextReportRow = reportWS.Range("A" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Row + 1
                            reportWS.Range("A" & nextReportRow) = anyWS.Name
                            reportWS.Range("B" & nextReportRow) = anyCell.Address
                            reportWS.Range("C" & nextReportRow) = "'" & anyCell.Formula
                        End If
                    End If
                Next    ' end anyCell loop
            End If
        Next    ' end anyWS loop
    Else
        MsgBox "No links to Excel worksheets detected."
    End If
    'housekeeping
    Set reportWS = Nothing
    Set Ws = Nothing
End Sub

I can’t take credit for this procedure, but thought it was the type of thing that could help a lot of people. The original source/post is provided should you wish to check it out further.

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CategoryMS Excel VBA Programming | CommentNo Comments »

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March 25th, 2011

Montreal Cell Phone – Public Mobile – Review

I’d been holding off getting a cell phone for quite some time now, mainly because I thought most companies were simply ripping off their clients and I was not interested in a 2-3yr contract…

I looked into Public Mobile in 2010, but sadly they still were not in my area (West Island of Montreal).

Well, they are now (2011)! I took the plunge and have no regret so far. What was advertised has been the reality in my experience. No hassel. I pay 24.95 a month for unlimited 24/7 phone and text within Canada and the USA + voicemail… Show me another provider that offers this at that price! You won’t be able to, I looked. My calls have been clear and I have never yet had a call drop on me.

So far, so good!

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CategoryProduct Reviews | Comment8 Comments »

March 14th, 2011

Samsung SyncMaster BX2440 LED Monitor Review

I was looking for a monitor which could rotate Landscape/Portrait for my programming needs and a secondary monitor for my laptop. So i went looking and hit all the normal stores: Best Buy, Future Shop, Bureau En Gros, MicroBytes. I was very surprised that I only managed to find 2 monitors which had this capability. A few years back, most offered this option…

From a technical standpoint, the SyncMaster BX2440 had everything I was looking for:

  • Decent resolution: 1920×1080; Full 1080p resolution
  • LED technology with power saving features
  • And it could rotate

In a general sense this is a nice monitor:

  • It is large. Actually, at 24″ it is huge, but that means no more squinting!
  • It has a beautiful quality of image, nice and bright display
  • It was easy to setup and configure. Actually there was no real need to do anything since it is a plug & play monitor. Although I did choose to install the specific drivers that came with it rather than relying on the generic plug and play, but that was merely my personal choice.

However, the main reason I made this purchase was to have the flexibility to rotate my screen at a whim to easy my programing process. Sadly, I have been greatly disappointed by this. Yes, you can set up your monitor in either Portrait or Landscape orientation. However, you cannot change the orientation on a whim, as you have to unplug the monitor, rotate it and then replug it?! Now which brilliant engineer (and I say this with the upmost respect as I myself am an Engineering graduate) was unable to foresee this problem! No really, they go to the point of allowing a user to rotate the screen but then don’t position the connection to avoid clearance issues? And no one caught this during the design or testing phases!!! In my humble opinion, if you are considering this monitor because it rotates, don’t. No seriously, don’t! I know there aren’t many options, but put your money into a monitor which will enable you to work properly, rather than frustrate you endlessly as this one does (me). Heck find one online and order it. I know at my old company, we had beautiful HP monitors that rotated easily, it may be worth looking to see if HP still has such monitors. And one can always hope the store will start to carry a few more such monitors.

Also, hopefully Samsung will resolve this MAJOR design booboo in their next monitors.

 

Update: 2011-09-02

Well I’ve had the monitor for several months now and I am sad to report that it has recently started to have issues. The monitor flickers different ‘hues’ on the screen. I will be working when all of a sudden the screen will go yellowish. I can still work, but all the colors are yellowed. Then a short period will go by and everything will return to normal. And back and forth we go all day long!

 

Sadly this is turning out to be another bad purchase recently.

 

UPDATE 2011-11-29

I have to take back my previous Update comment and appologize as I was mistaken.  Further testing has revealled that the monitor is not at fault, but rather my KVM switch has failed me.  That said, this experience still enabled me to test out Samsung’s warantee/service and I was very impressed at how easy it was to request service.  Everything can al be done online in a matter of a couple of minutes and they gave me a UPS waybill so I could send it back to them for servicing free of charge…  In the end, I didn’t need to because I was able to determine the true culprit, but never the less, it showed Samsungs dedication to customer satisfaction.  A lot of companies could learn from them (BELL perhaps!)!

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March 13th, 2011

FMS Total Visual SourceBook Review

FMSTotal Visual SourceBook

What I wouldn’t have given to be aware of this add-in when I was starting out as a developer! Seriously, this add-in would have saved me hundreds, if not thousands, of hours searching online, posting to forums, to find out how to code what I needed to do. Beyond which, it provides the user with a standardized set of procedures, instead of trying to piece together countless routines found here and there as you search online.

Just yesterday, I needed a particular routine and instead of searching online, as I always have done until now, I opened the TVSB, performed a quick search, exported the appropriate code into my module and was back at work in a matter of 1-2 minutes, if that!

 

So what did I think of the TVSB?

Cons:

  • I wish it could be somehow directly integrated within the VBE as done with certain other add-ins rather than a separate popup application. Have some type of integrated toolbar with a drop down category/procedures/… select the procedure and BAM there is. AND, I’m not saying it is hard to export the procedures from the SourceBook the way it is currently setup. That said, even though it would be nice, I myself am not sure how it could be accomplished.
  • My other issue is that their code uses Early biding which I try to avoid normally as it can causes reference issues. So their code is a nice starting point, but I would convert most of the classes, procedures,… into late binding for my own purposes. Over the course of several years, I have learnt that Late Binding avoids reference issues and this outways (in my opinion) any performance benefits Early Binding presents. At the end of the day, each developer has their own opinion and experience with regards to this aspect of programming, so feel free to make up your mind on this aspect yourself. To learn a little bit more about the pros and cons of Early Binding vs. Late Binding take a look at Early vs. Late Binding
     from the Word MVP site, it is a short overview of the issue.

 

Pros:

  • Easy to install
  • Can be integrated to work in a team environment (untested)
  • Easy to navigate and work with
  • It is very intuitive
  • Came with a user manual! Just this to me put this application above most others!!! Although, in this case, a manual is not necessary.
  • The code itself, is well categorized so you can find things quite easily just by noising around.
  • Effective search tool enable one to quickly search through the repository.
  • Extendable. You can add your own code (procedures, modules, …) to the repository so you can build upon what is already there.
  • Good export utility (export directly into your module, to a file, …)
  • Customizable – You can configure the Error Handler and other elements to suit your programming methodologies.

Put simply, the FMS Total Visual SourceBook (TVSB) is a simple to use, powerful work tool that can easily accelerate the development process of any developer and give you a leg up on your competition.

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CategoryMS Access General Information, MS Access VBA Programming, MS Excel VBA Programming, MS Word VBA Programming, Product Reviews | CommentNo Comments »

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March 12th, 2011

ACER Aspire 7745G Review

My first, and only other laptop, was an Acer. It was a great machine and carried my business for 4+ years without any issues! So, I decided, again, to trust the company which had provide such a valuable machine to me my first time out and bought an ACER Aspire 7745G.

From a technical standpoint this machine should suit the average user without any problems, plenty of RAM, Hard drive spave, Video Ram, … Here are the basic specs:

  • i5-430M processor, 2.26Ghz
  • 8Gb RAM
  • 1000Gb Hard Drive
  • 1Gb Radeon Video Card
  • 17.3″ Monitor
  • Blue-Ray DVD
  • …

Sadly, however, I have not been enjoying this laptop as I did my original one! Here are the Pros and Cons:

 

Pros

  • It run very quite
  • It has a beautiful, large screen
  • Pleanty of USB ports
  • HDMI port
  • Blue-Ray Drive (for the entertainment buffs out there)
  • BlueTooth

 

Cons

  • I have continuous Wireless network issues, where it will drop a connection and then not allow the laptop to reconnect. The only solution being to reboot the computer completly. UPDATE 2013-03-28 -> See a possible solution in my post entitled Acer 7745G Wireless Network Dropping or Not Finding Any Wireless Network Connections
  • I have an issue with extending my display to a secondary monitor and it not always recognizing the secondary monitor. Sometimes it does, and other times it doesn’t
  • Sadly Window 7 does not have drivers for my printer. Microsoft blames the Printer manufacturer, but it is Microsoft that developed a new OS and didn’t ensure existing driver could/would work. Anyways,…, one way or another, I have to go dish out more money to buy a new printer if I plan on ever printing from the machine.
  • I also haven’t been overly impressed with the i5′s turbo boost technology. It seems to create lag time between choosing to execute something and the computer responding…
  • The hard drive response seems slow. I double-click on a folder and you can actually wait for the listing to appear. Heck, my 4-5+ yr old laptop is more responsive than this brand new one?!
  • I find the power cord plug difficult to insert into the receptacle on the laptop. My old laptop was a breeze, this one is actually difficult. If your angle isn’t just right, well…
  • Because the finish is a nice glossy finish, it show every single finger mark!
  • Whereas you used to (my previous Aspire) press Fn+F3 to activate/deactivate the wireless connection, it now simply brings up a pop-up menu to allow you to activate/deactivate the wireless and the bluetooth. So in fact, where Acer had added an extra step requiring you to use the mouse and click everytime you want to activate or deactivate either of your wireless features. What is worse is that they have no excuse, there are plenty of empty Fx keys, that they could have easily assign a seperate button for both the Wireless network and the bluetooth. It may not seem like much, but trust me the more you use it, the more frustrating it becomes!
  • Screen brightness fast keys do not work. You can use the fast keys to lower the brightness, but the fast key to increase the brightness does not work? Have fun finding the windows menu to allow you to restore your brightness (Control Panel -> Display -> Adjust Brightness [Top right-hand] -> Screen Brightness [bottom]).
  • It comes with Windows7. Nothing else need be said!
  • Technical Support -> I finally broke down and called technical support in the hopes of resolving my wireless problem, what a mistake! I spent more time repeating myself than actually fixing anything. Then the support agent sent me to a gateway help page, which by the way did not resolve the problem and he proceeded to terminate the conversation as fast as he could never actually ensuring the problem was fixed in any manner. He was more interested in his call metrics (no call should exceed 2 mins. -> this is factual knowing people having worked as support agents) than actually solving the problem.
    • Why can’t we get proper technical support anymore?
    • Why can’t we get North American Support anymore, rather than dealing with someone half way around the world that obviously does not fully grasp the English language?
    • Most importantly, why is Acer shipping out laptops that have glaring problems!?
  • Another oddity is the fact that if you turn off the wireless adapter or the bluetooth, and reboot, the laptop seems to always reset the connection and turn it back on. So everytime you reboot, you need to reset the parameters again, and again, and again, ….?

It just seems to be off a bit and not what I’d come to expect from ACER. I can’t quite put my hand on it exactly. All I know is next time round, I will be broadening my search outside the ACER realm when shopping for a new laptop.

Very Disappointed!

If I were grading this laptop it would get a 3.5 out of 10, because of the various problems. If it actually worked as advertised it would be more like a 8 out of 10. But the reality of the situation make it a dud and a bad purchase!

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March 11th, 2011

IOGEAR 2-Port USB KVM Switch Review

I finally decided to clean up my desk and part of that included organizing my desk. What better thing then to get rid of a second keyboard and mouse. I ran out to Best Buy, FutureShop and Bureau en Gros and none had any KVM switches?! I ended up at Acces Electronique and purchased a IOGEAR 2-Port USB KVM Switch (for those interested Model: GCS42UW6).

 

Pros:

  • Plug and Play – Nothing to install, nothing to configure
  • No power adapter
  • Easy to setup – Connect you Keyboard and mouse and connect it to your computers, that’s it!

 

Cons:

None.

 

Conclusion:

This product works as advertised! Well worth the price (which wasn’t much in the first place) in my experience.

UPDATE (2011-11-28)

Sadly I have been experiencing issue with my LED monitor.  I at first thought it was the monitor, but after further testing I determined the KVM switch is at fault.  So the KVM switch didn’t even last 1 year (actually it didn’t even last 6 months) before I could no longer use the switcheable monitor component of the KVM switch!  I don’t know if I got a dudd or if this is typical, but I will be thinking twice about future purchases with IOGEAR products.

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March 10th, 2011

Microsoft Answer Forum – Take 2 in Review

Below is a post I made regarding Microsoft’s latest update to the Microsoft Answer Forum. I think it speaks for itself. Ultimately, MS seems to have tried to make something visually appealing rather than functional and useful. Let me know your opinion!

 

Disappointing, Another Step in the Wrong Direction

When I heard that Version 2.0 was going to be implemented, I was looking forward to it. I thought MS finally listened to its users and was going to remedy the various bugs in Version 1.0. Sadly this has not been the case. Rather you have choosen to basically throw us a new forum. So we are back at the beginning, again.

Esthetics, well some people will like the colors, layout, …, some won’t… this is a personal question. The site is less cluttered, I guess that is a positive point.

Functionality, now that is another issue.

  • Why is it, yet again, our profiles (signature in my case) did not follow in this new version? And why is the signature field reduced from the last version?
  • Still experiencing latency, poor performance, no response…
  • What happened to inline reply? Now one has to, one by one, enter each post to read it and then reply. Then return to the main page… This is ridiculous!!! MS has taken 10 steps back on ease of use from this stand point.
  • What happened to being able to read the entire post inline. The pop-up feature is a joke.
  • Why the change in the point system? Why have a point system altogether?
  • What happend to posting questions easily? Now I enter a question, no wait that is supposed to be a title!? Confusing! then when I press ask, it brings me to another window… Then I press ask again! and I finally get to a proper windows to enter my question!? WOW!!! Now that is what I call obvious and user-friendly.
  • What happened to the unanswer button? A post has been marked as answered and yet it isn’t?
  • Similarily, what happened to the Propose as an answer button?
  • We still cannot include <code> tags, so so much for addressing user requests.
  • We still cannot insert images, or attach files unless we post them on 3rd party servers and know enough about HTML to code it ourselves (which most users will not).
  • Why is the NNTP Bridge no longer supported?
  • Why is it when you perform a search there is no date information relative to the thread?
  • Why is the page navigation only for 1 page forward or 1 page backward? What happened to a series of page number 1 through say 20? Why can’t I jump 10 pages? Everything has been done to limit our ability to work!
  • Why is it that the filter controls (Forum, Office Version, Office Topic, …) do not appear/work in alternate browsers such as Firefox? IE is no longer the only browser available to users. UPDATE — Now it appears they are working.

On a side note, I must say I was amused how MS’ announcement go over top of the search bar… So in fact, if you don’t know any better, and this being a new version… user will not realize how to manoeuver the site and probably close it!

As an MVP, I enjoy coming to this site to help others. I enjoy the challenge of solving the various questions put forth by others, sadly, MS has made it more challenging to use their new forum then to actually interact and answer the questions.

The entire process of having 2 new versions in 6 months (or so) and making your user adapt, adapt to new layout, change in functionalities show truly poor planning and a lack of respect for your end-user, or let’s be frank your clients.

With the number of exisiting proven forum applications why did MS feel the need to try an create their own? Why have these attempts been done so half heartedly?

Disappointing.

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March 9th, 2011

MS Access – Report – Change a Report’s RecordSource

The following procedure can be used to change the RecordSource of a Report.

'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Procedure : RedefRptSQL
' Author    : Daniel Pineault, CARDA Consultants Inc.
' Website   : http://www.cardaconsultants.com
' Purpose   : Redefine an existing report's recordsource
'             Requires opening the form in design mode to make the changes
' Copyright : The following may be altered and reused as you wish so long as the
'             copyright notice is left unchanged (including Author, Website and
'             Copyright).  It may not be sold/resold or reposted on other sites (links
'             back to this site are allowed).
'
' Input Variables:
' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
' sRptName    ~ Name of the Query to redefine the SQL statement of
' sSQL        ~ SQL Statement to be used to refine the query with
'
' Usage:
' ~~~~~~
' RedefRptSQL "Report1", "SELECT * FROM tbl_Contacts ORDER BY LastName;"
'
' Revision History:
' Rev       Date(yyyy/mm/dd)        Description
' **************************************************************************************
' 1         2009-07-13                 Initial Release
'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Function RedefRptSQL(sRptName As String, sSQL As String)
On Error GoTo Error_Handler
    Dim Rpt     As Report
 
    DoCmd.OpenReport sRptName, acViewDesign, , , acHidden 'Open in design view so we can
                                                          'make our changes
    Set Rpt = Application.Reports(sRptName)
    Rpt.RecordSource = sSQL                               'Change the RecordSource
    DoCmd.Close acReport, sRptName, acSaveYes             'Save our changes

Error_Handler_Exit:
    On Error Resume Next
    Set Rpt = Nothing
    Exit Function
 
Error_Handler:
    MsgBox "The following error has occured." & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
            "     Error Number: " & Err.Number & vbCrLf & _
            "     Error Source: RedefRptSQL" & vbCrLf & _
            "     Error Description: " & Err.Description, _
            vbCritical, "An Error has Occured!"
    Resume Error_Handler_Exit
End Function

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