Is the Office button a menu or a dialog box?

Another of Simon’s excellent posts about the Ribbon and other parts of the Fluent UI in Excel 2007 has prompted me to respond. Read the ribbon file blunderfest, where Simon says (I snipped a few bits out here for brevity, and the bold is mine):

I already mentioned the lack of file open icon, and previously I have talked about the ridiculous blob. And the initial flashing they had to incorporate to tell us its a button. But when you actually get closer it just gets sillier – I really wouldn’t have thought that was possible!

When you click and look, if you decide to cancel and move to the traditional cancel location (lower right) and click that button, does it close the file open dialog/ribbon? Or does it close Excel?

Everyone I have asked (and me) has accidentally closed Excel numerous times before eventually learning that this particular piece of the interface is not ‘normal’. In fact to cancel that thing you click anywhere else in Excel – and Excel ignores the click but closes the dialog! How ridiculous is that?

They have created a thing that is not as powerful or controllable as a dialog, but is too big and intrusive to be a menu or toolbar so they butchered an existing UI concept – the click away to cancel menu concept to work with this quasi dialog. But dialogs never worked like that before or in other applications. So now Office is the most friction-full application in the widows world (excluding perhaps Ulead products).

So, does the Office button bring up a (poor) dialog, or is it just a menu?

Sorry Simon but I have to disagree with you on this one (I seem to recall being told I was the voice of balance on smurfonspreadsheets by someone…).

Just because you think it’s a dialogue and call it a dialogue does not mean it is a dialog or should behave like one. Shredding a straw man / ribbon does not make a valid argument. To me it looks and behaves pretty much like I would expect a menu to behave:

Excel cell styles – useful feature or waste of ribbon space?

I agree with Simon in his article about the usefulness of cell styles in Excel, where he says:

Styles in Excel are one of those things that sound good in theory, but are significantly worse than useless in reality. In an isolated world they may work but as soon as you start copying a pasting between workbooks…then you get a right royal style mess.

Cell styles as a concept seem pretty weak to me. The built-in ones are hopeless; I know hardly anyone (actually no-one that I could name right now) that uses them.

I have recently done some extensive work for a client on a set of templates, themes, etc for the whole Office suite. For the Excel templates I included some cell styles to make it quick to format things in "corporate" colours for headings and so on (as well as default table styles for the same reason). This provides user convenience and helps them create more consistent documents with more of a “branded” feel to them.

As to imposing a regime of "pink means bad" and "orange double underline means linked" (linked to what?), no chance.

Why styles don’t address the real need for good formatting

I teach students on my Excel training courses that formatting of spreadsheets should be used for three purposes:

• to highlight (data outliers; estimates as opposed to actuals)
• to group or associate data together (months in the same quarter or year having a light shaded background say, next group no background; using matching colour for axes and lines in a two-series chart with two different scales)
• to separate data by category or type (line above the first month of a new year; making the title row bold)

These principles of using formats to help interpret the data, rather than help it look pretty tend to get people focussed on the task rather than the appearance. The built-in cell styles only seem to address the concept of highlighting, rather than being useful for grouping or separating. The highlighting they provide seems arbitrary at best, and quite likely to cause headaches with some of the colours involved.

Changing many cells in Excel to recalculate new values after VAT changes

So you have a spreadsheet with lots of values in – future monthly invoices for service contracts, say. Actual values, not calculations which multiply up by a VAT rate stored in another cell, or a named range, or even as a fixed number in a formula. And the Chancellor of the Exchequer just announced that the VAT rate (sales tax for our colonial cousins) has changed so all your values are now going to be wrong for the next twelve months.

What can you do to change many cells at once by a specific amount?

A few approaches spring to mind, depending on the scale of the problem and the structure of your data.

Passed 70-291 to become MCSA:Messaging

“Implementing, Managing, and Maintaining a Windows 2003 server Network Infrastructure”, also known as The Beast has been slain.
Turned out to be a cuddly bunny rather than a beast (a bit like the end of Monty Python’s holy grail only in reverse).

I had put this off for so long because I thought I was weak on a couple of areas and needed some polish, and since everyone says it is one of the hardest I wanted to be sure to nail it.
But I was in the exam centre on Friday anyway (taking my CRM Applications exam MB2-632, also nailed) and I had second shot to back me up, so I figured "what the hell, even if I fail majestically at least I will know much more accurately what to expect on this one next time".

So I waltzed away with 889 in a shade under half the time available (105 minutes out of 215 – I know some do better than that but I was well pleased with the result). Finally gave me my MCSA:Messaging and only two more to go (293 and 294) to MCSE.

Microsoft Certified Application Specialist times five

I took five MCAS exams on Friday and passed them all. Some were easier than others, as always, but overall I found them a lot less stressful than when I took four on the same day to get the Microsoft Office Specialist:Master qualification.

Overall I like the way the Office exams work – the real application (minus the help!) running in the top half, and the questions at the bottom. Each question has a few tasks to complete, and you are measured on the end result, not how you got there.

This is a much better test of real-world ability to use the software than any multiple-choice questions can ever hope to be. Yes, it means that you could take a few wrong turns, and click on some irrelevant buttons before finding the thing you were looking for, but you can do that in real life too. The exam is limited to 50 minutes, so you can only afford to do this on a handful of questions, and you need to be able to make up the time on other questions by reading it once and going straight to the correct feature or function.

Microsoft second shot exam offer back again for 2008

It seems that Microsoft have listened to the community and brought back their Second Shot offer much earlier than most people expected. Previously this seemed to run only once each year (albeit for several months at a time), and the last one only closed for taking exams the first time round at the end of May and the retakes by the end of June. Re-opening this in August 2008 and leaving it open right through to June 2009 seems to indicate that this will effectively become a permanent fixture, but you can’t just roll your retakes forward forever, you will have to use the second chance within the year-long programme, which seems perfectly fair.

The same launch page is being used as last time, although until today this was not live for the new offer and still showed the old information.

Microsoft Second Shot Exam Offer 2008

Our UK SBSC losses are Australian gains

Robbie Upcroft went back to Oz a while ago to carry on working with SBS partners down under after a stint at Microsoft UK. While over here he was a key part of expanding the Small Business Server community, working to set up local user groups, and it sounds like he is carrying on where he left off.

Another of the movers and shakers who made a huge impact to SBSC was the UK SMB girl herself, Susanne Dansey. After becoming an MVP just over a year ago for her contributions she upped and left us for foreign shores. Her passion and enthusiasm for technology and business are sorely missed, but now she too is bringing them to bear in Australia, joining the fun there in the run up to the launch of Cougar (SBS 2008 ) and EBS.

Susanne is blogging again as well, so with her and Robbie and other renowned SBS MVPs such as Wayne Small on the case, it looks like they have a great opportunity to make the most of the buzz. Good luck to all of them, and we hope to see you in the UK sometime soon, even if only for a flying visit!

UPS_Invoice email trojan variant claims to be from Customs Service

In the last hour I found in my inbox a variation on the UPS_Invoice trojans of last week. This new email claimed to be from “Customs Service” with the subject “Customs – We have received a parcel for you” and the following text:

Good afternoon,

We have received a parcel for you, sent from France on July 9. Please fill out the customs declaration attached to this message and send it to us by mail or fax. The address and the fax number are at the bottom of the declaration form.

Kind regards,

Rolland Hanna

Your Customs Service

This content was so close to the UPS_Invoice one that it seems obvious it originates from the same source.

Follow up post about UPS_Invoice trojan

I’ve now had a chance to take a slightly closer look at the four copies of this Trojan Agent HFU that I received in the last 24 hours, as discussed in my previous post here. I’ve posted some details of file names and sizes along with MD5 hashes for people to be able to compare their versions against.

UPS_Invoice.exe trojan received by email

This lunchtime I received an email as follows:

From: United Parcel Service [someone@not_ups.com]

Subject: UPS Paket N2410170593

Unfortunately we were not able to deliver postal package you sent on July the 1st in time because the recipient’s address is not correct.

Please print out the invoice copy attached and collect the package at our office

Your UPS

Attachment: UPS_Invoice_317.zip

Of course this was extremely suspicious. I had no recent dealings with UPS, the email clearly did not really come from them anyway (it was not even spoofed to appear to be from their domain), and why on earth would they need to send me a file, let alone a zipped one? The misspelling in the subject also smelled of an automated message (although Paket is the correct spelling for the German word for packet). I smelled malware and wanted to find out more.

Using Field Chooser to find out when an Outlook appointment was created

Ewan Dalton posted a tip for finding when an appointment was created on his blog “The Electric Wand”. This involves dipping into the developer tools to have a look at the actual fields that Outlook / Exchange uses to store the data about the calendar entry, as opposed to the standard stuff that gets displayed through the default form view.

However, he posted a comment a day or so later with a much faster method which is probably less scary to the average user (no mention of words like “developer ribbon”, “forms” and so on). Simply using the field chooser in the search results window means that you can see the created date (and any other additional information you want) at a glance. I thought it would be useful to expand this and give a quick tutorial, since being familiar with the Field Chooser in Outlook is useful in lots of other ways such as:

• You might want to see the size of emails so you can sort the large ones to the top to delete first, reducing the size of your email file the most amount with the least effort
• Maybe you have filed sent and received items together which relate to a particular topic or project, and you want to show both the To and From fields in this folder view
• It is easy to accidentally drag and drop a column heading away which removes it completely, so you need to know how to get it back

So, let’s have some show and tell:

Simple online content management from Texty

I found this online Content Management System (CMS) tool today which you can use to maintain the content of a web page without any great knowledge of how to write code.

Texty: The Simplest CMS

The principle here is that you put a script on your page which pulls the information from Texty’s database. You edit the content in that database through a simple online user interface, much like editing a blog post, for example. This is great for small organisations who may be prepared to pay a small amount to a web design firm for a basic site (or an off-the-shelf template) but do not have the skills to maintain well-written HTML themselves. So clubs, societies, and small (or even large) not-for-profits could all benefit from a simple system to help them manage the content of pages which change frequently, such as news or upcoming events listings. Some commercial firms might also welcome the convenience, although I suspect that many smaller businesses simply don’t feel the need to change their website content all that often. The other benefit may be that it is easy to allow multiple people to produce content without fear that they can cause problems for one another.

Why not get a blog instead?

For many people a blog is a handy way to post short pieces of news or information without having to write underlying code. However, the popular free offerings only give limited control over the appearance of the site from a selection of templates.

System Administrator Appreciation Day 2008

SysAdmin Day – last Friday in July every year

From www.sysadminday.com:

If you can read this, thank your sysadmin

A sysadmin unpacked the server for this website from its box, installed an operating system, patched it for security, made sure the power and air conditioning was working in the server room, monitored it for stability, set up the software, and kept backups in case anything went wrong. All to serve this webpage.

A sysadmin installed the routers, laid the cables, configured the networks, set up the firewalls, and watched and guided the traffic for each hop of the network that runs over copper, fiber optic glass, and even the air itself to bring the Internet to your computer. All to make sure the webpage found its way from the server to your computer.

If you are not sure why you should show your appreciation, gratitude and even love for your SysAdmin, why not watch the System Administrator Song from Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie

Make sure you don’t forget SysAdmin Day this year or ever again

Click to download a calendar entry (.ics file) and add it to your diary (eg in Outlook or Lotus Notes) to remind you every year.

<update> Just found this SysAdmin day cartoon – maybe you should set it as your desktop background to remind you to celebrate on the day.

If you are a SysAdmin, are you celebrating this day? What gifts would you most appreciate from your colleagues?

If you are not in IT, how will you be showing your SysAdmin that you care?

How Microsoft protects value of certifications against cheats and braindumps

Anyone who holds a Microsoft certificate or is thinking of taking one may sometimes wonder how much value there is in this piece of paper in terms of salary or expectation of finding a job in the first place. One way is to look at how many people share your qualifications although this does not tell you if any of those people are “paper MCSEs” who do not really have the depth of knowledge and experience it would normally require. People cheat in all kinds of ways to get some letters after their names, most notoriously using “braindumps” of genuine test questions and simply learning the correct answers rather than understanding why these are right. Even on exams with some simulations, this rote-learning technique buys a cheat more time to spend on the sims by answering the multiple choice questions in hardly any time at all. Microsoft claim to be working hard to eliminate cheating of all kinds as far as possible, and you can join in a Live Meeting to find out more about this here: MCP Live Meeting: Redmond CSI: Anti-piracy and Microsoft Certification

Certification fraud is big business and a serious threat to the value of Microsoft certification exams. Cheaters, braindumps, and sometimes even the actions of your well-intentioned peers can damage the reputation of your hard-earned Microsoft credential. Come to this session to learn what Microsoft is doing to protect your certifications from braindump providers, proxy test-takers, and score-report fakers. You’ll hear how technical innovations in the exams themselves, our piracy teams, and YOU are helping to reduce cheating in the world of Microsoft certification. 

This meeting will be offered twice to accommodate worldwide calendars

This online event is on June 25th 2008 at 7:30 am Pacific time (What time is this in my region?) and later at 5:00 pm Pacific (What time is this where I am?) – use the online registration button at the top of the page to register for either of the two sessions.

Thanks to Trikah for the heads up.

Great keyboard shortcuts from the Visio Guy

I love using keyboard shortcuts to work more efficiently, especially compared to using the trackpad on my laptop in a cramped or shaky environment like on a bus or when I’m driving (joke!)

I’m currently in the process of updating my shortcut key handouts which I give out to delegates on my MS Office training courses. I’m always finding new key combinations to use, but I try to make sure I teach people the most useful ones based on three criteria:

1. Does this shortcut do something genuinely useful which people need to do frequently or repetitively?
2. Is the key combination easily memorable? (Ctrl-B is fine, but Ctrl-Shift-Alt-F7 is less easy to recall when you need it!)
3. How ’standard’ is the shortcut across different applications, especially within MS Office?

Visio is an application I use quite a lot but would not really consider myself a “power user” (I don’t create and edit my own shapes, for example). I find it really straightforward to use and great for doing office layout plans, network schematics, and data or process flow diagrams. However, I was amazed to see how many keyboard shortcuts and keyboard / mouse combinations I was missing out on when I read this article yesterday over at the Visio Guy blog:

Work Faster With Our Top Visio Keyboard Shortcuts

Some of these I was already using as they are the same or similar in other applications, but I could have saved myself loads of time over the years if I had known how to do this to draw out a region to zoom to:

Zoom to Region: Ctrl + Shift + Left Mouse-drag

You can specify exactly where you want to zoom with this command. Press the Ctrl + Shift keys together, then hold the left mouse button. You can now drag a net around the area that you want to zoom. Visio will fill the window with the region that you specify.

What are your favourite shortcuts for getting round applications more quickly?

Why IT design skills are important, and how to measure them

The comments on my earlier post about the MS Security Design exam 70-298 prompted me to add some more general thoughts.

I agree with the comment made that the design exams do generally seem easier in some respects than the straight technical ones, as you don’t need to know the same level of detail of exactly how to do something in terms of making choices in a dialogue box.

On the other hand, the MS design exams do expect you to be able to take in, digest and interpret a load of business and technical requirements (some of the latter may only be implied from the former, some will be explicitly stated). The breadth of this is where the challenge lies in the real world, although the exam will often lead you in the right direction, rather than a blank sheet of paper on which to write an IT security plan. The nature of a computer-based exam does not lend itself to open questions; it would be very hard to make any kind of meaningful sense out of your answer to “How would you improve the security of the data for this organisation? (answer in no more than 200 words)”.

Passed 70-298 "Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network"

This morning I took and passed Microsoft exam 70-298 “Designing Security for a Windows 2003 Network”. Having not taken one of these scenario-style design exams before, I was a little cautious even though I was fairly confident of my knowledge of the material.

The first section had 11 questions which was great as I had made loads of notes from the provided fictional case studies, and I sailed through with loads of time to spare. Unfortunately the format of these exams is that the time for each part is independent, so you don’t get to carry any spare time to the next set of questions and use it there. I had a couple of shorter sections where I maybe spent too long reading the materials and answered the last question with seconds to spare.

Overall I found this style of exam to be right up my street; taking in lots of information in a very short time and then applying my technical knowledge to this to come up with solutions to the business issues. Despite the rushed time on a couple of questions I came away with my best score to date on a Microsoft MCP exam, and won’t need to use my second chance to take this.

How do you find these design exams compare to the ‘normal’ technical ones?

How Vista file copy has improved with sp1

Mark Russinovich is very well known within the technical community as an authority on detailed information on the inner workings of Microsoft products. Author of several books including the Windows resource kit “Windows Internals” volume, and founder of Winternals and sysinternals.com, he is now a Technical Fellow in the Platform and Services Division at Microsoft.

In a recent blog post, Mark explains in great detail the file copy process in Vista, why it changed radically from XP and how this impacted real and perceived performance of this basic function. He goes on to explain how some of this has been changed and remedied in Vista Service Pack 1. He makes it clear that some of the code design choices have to be compromises between making things faster in different situations, and that in most cases Vista <> Server 2008 filecopying will be faster using the chosen algorithms than they would be with different choices, or using XP or server 2003 for example.

Copying a file seems like a relatively straightforward operation: open the source file, create the destination, and then read from the source and write to the destination. In reality, however, the performance of copying files is measured along the dimensions of accurate progress indication, CPU usage, memory usage, and throughput. In general, optimizing one area causes degradation in others. Further, there is semantic information not available to copy engines that could help them make better tradeoffs. For example, if they knew that you weren’t planning on accessing the target of the copy operation they could avoid caching the file’s data in memory, but if it knew that the file was going to be immediately consumed by another application, or in the case of a file server, client systems sharing the files, it would aggressively cache the data on the destination system.

The article is also a useful working example of how Process Monitor can help you to see what your machine is really up to. On the same subject, Mark gave a great Tech Ed presentation in Barcelona with some real-world demonstrations of how to use a variety of Sysinternals tools and utilities to detect, find and fix all sorts of system issues. A video of that talk entitled “The Case of the Unexplained…Live!” can be viewed here (it’s just over an hour long).

Windows Server 2008 Security Resource Kit coming very soon

Jesper Johansson has put together a great book for Windows Server 2008 focusing on security and providing a load of resources that go beyond the shipped product.

Produced by a group of world-class contributors including several MVPs and members of Microsoft’s server security team, this is likely to be the definitive reference on the subject for some time.

According to Jesper’s blog it has now gone to press.

This official Microsoft Resource Kit delivers the in-depth, technical information and tools you need to help protect your Windows®–based clients, server roles, networks, and Internet services.

Leading security experts explain how to plan and implement comprehensive security with special emphasis on new Windows security tools, security objects, security services, user authentication and access control, network security, application security, Windows Firewall, Active Directory® security, group policy, auditing, and patch management. The kit also provides best practices based on real-world implementations.

You also get must-have tools, scripts, templates, and other key job aids, including an eBook of the entire Resource Kit on CD.

It’s an MS Press title so it should be pretty widely available, I will be pre-ordering my copy from here at The Register book store, as they have really competitive pricing and free delivery for orders over £25 at the moment.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all

From here: XKCD Webcomic