Dear Readers

I'm quite complimented that some of you have noticed I haven't posted as I normally do this week. I figured it would be best to let everyone know here that I'm in the middle of preparing for an exam that I'm writing this coming weekend, so I most likely will not be creating another entry for this blog until after I've finished. While it would be quite feasible for me to throw something together really quickly, I'd rather wait until I have the time and energy to put together a post of good quality. Until then, I hope all of you are having a wonderful day and please continue to send me e-mails with your comments and questions - I love getting them!
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Access: Change the Tab Order on a Form

So you've created a form in Microsoft Access and everything seems to be laid out perfectly... but wait! Why does your cursor jump around to the different fields in an awkward order when you press the Tab key? Is there a way to change that?

Changing the tab order on a form is actually a fairly painless process. From the design view, click on the 'Design' tab on the ribbon (it's in the 'Form Design Tools' group). To the very right of the ribbon, click on the 'Tab Order' button.

The 'Tab Order' window now appears. You'll have some different sections on the left-hand side of the window, depending on what you've included in your form design. Things you might see here include: Form Header, Page Header, Detail, Page Footer, and Form Footer. Each section of the form has its own tab order, so you'll want to first select the appropriate section. Chances are, you're looking to change the tab order in the 'Detail' section.

Once you've selected a section, take a look at the right-hand side of the window. Here you're going to see a list of all of the objects that you can jump to using the Tab key. Click the box to the left of an item to select it. If you drag while clicking, you can select multiple items at once. When you've finished making your selection, click once more and drag to move the item(s) up or down in the list. Rearrange it as you please, then click the 'OK' button to finish.

Besides manually reordering these items, you can click the 'Auto Order' button on the 'Tab Order' window, and Microsoft Access will try and guess a good order for you automatically. I find this option works fairly well if you've organized your form in a standard manner and haven't gotten too creative.

And there you have it! Hope this helps some of you out as you design your forms.
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SharePoint: Fix Slow Browsing in Windows Explorer

I came across a surprising fix to a problem I was having today, and thought I'd share it here on my site. While using Windows 7 and browsing through various folders in SharePoint with Windows Explorer, everything was loading at a sickeningly slow pace. Super, extremely, verrrrrrrrrrrrrry slow.

Oddly enough, you can make it run fast by changing some settings in Internet Explorer. You need to make sure you make these changes in IE regardless of whichever other browser you may use, as it is heavily integrated with Windows Explorer.

Open IE, go to 'Tools', and then choose 'Internet Options'. Go to the 'Connections' tab, and then click the 'LAN settings' button (it's right near the bottom). Uncheck the box next to 'Automatically detect settings'. Click 'OK' twice and you're all set.

If I had more of a networking background, I'd offer you an explanation as for why this works... but in the meantime, I hope that this helps out some of you out there who have been experiencing the same frustration as me!

(Consider this an open invitation to leave a comment if you know why this works. I offer my eternal gratitude in return.)

***April 12, 2012 Update: Check out the comments below - someone has been kind enough to explain it all. Fantastic.***
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