Windows 7: Show Clocks in Different Time Zones

I'll always remember the first time I saw one of those walls in an airport that has a pile of different clocks lined up, each showing the current times in different cities around the world. At the time it was just really novel to see so many clocks in one place with different times, but I was too young to really see the usefulness of it. Now that I'm regularly in contact with people in different time zones, I'm seeing how handy it is to have my own set of clocks. Did you know that you can have your own set of three clocks using Windows 7?

The first clock is going to be your system's time, so that will need to be your own time zone. You can add up to two more clocks, however, which you can see anytime you hover over or click on the clock on your taskbar. Add these additional clocks by first clicking on the clock and then clicking on the 'Change date and time settings...' link. In the Date and Time window which will then appear, click the 'Additional Clocks' tab. Check one or both of the 'Show this clock' checkboxes, and then you can go ahead and select the time zone that you would like to display. There's also a text box there for each that lets you give it a display name. You could put the name of the region, or perhaps the name of the person that you know in that time zone. When you're done, click the 'OK' button. Hover your mouse over the time now and you'll see your additional clock(s). Cool, eh?
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Access: Export Report as PDF

Microsoft Access has a built-in feature that allows you to export a report in PDF format. What you need to do is click the ‘PDF or XPS’ button on the ribbon. You’ll find this button in slightly different places depending on how you’re viewing the report. If you’re in Report mode, you’ll find it on the ‘External Data’ tab. If you’re in Print Preview mode, you’ll find it on the one and only tab available - ‘Print Preview’. Once you’ve clicked the button, you’ll be able to choose a file name and location, and Access will generate and save the PDF for you when you click the ‘Publish’ button.

If you only want to publish a certain page rage and not export the entire report, click the ‘Options’ button just before clicking ‘Publish’. Select the ‘Page(s)’ radio button and enter the ‘From’ and ‘To’ page numbers, and then press the ‘OK’ button.
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Access: Change the Default Folder

When you first install Microsoft Access, it makes an assumption about where you’d like to save your databases when you first create them. If you’re using Windows 7, you’re likely to find that it’s defaulted to your user ‘Documents’ folder. If you have a different location you’d rather it default to, however, that can be changed.

It doesn’t matter if you have a database open or not, but you’ll need to have the Access application open. Go to the ‘File’ tab on the ribbon, and choose ‘Options’. If it’s not already selected, make sure you have the ‘General’ button pressed (from the options on the left-hand side of the window). In the ‘Creating Databases’ section, you can enter a new file path for your default save location next to ‘Default database folder:’. Click the ‘Browse…’ button if you’d like to navigate to it instead of entering it manually. When you’re done, press the ‘OK’ button.

It’s important to note that this doesn’t change the location of any databases you’ve already created; it simply changes the default for any that you create from this point forward.
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OneNote: Optional Update Released 2011/03/14

Attention all Microsoft OneNote users: a free and optional update was released for us today, for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. According to the Microsoft OneNote blog, the update "improves the display of search results and inserted documents and improves Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and indexing features in the application".

Click here to be redirected to the Microsoft site for more information and a download link.
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Excel: Find Duplicates

The built-in Microsoft Excel feature to remove duplicates from a set of data is great, but what if you just want to find the duplicates and not actually remove them?

You can use Conditional Formatting to have Excel automatically find duplicates and highlight them for you. First, select the cells in which you’d like to find duplicate values. In most cases this is going to be entire rows or columns. Next, click the ‘Conditional Formatting’ button on the ‘Home’ tab of the ribbon. Go to ‘Highlight Cells Rules’, and then choose ‘Duplicate Values…’.

The ‘Duplicate Values’ window will come up, which allows you to make a couple of choices. First, choose ‘Duplicate’ or ‘Unique’ from the drop-down list. The next drop-down list lets you choose how you’d like the value to be marked. There are some preset options available to you, or you can choose ‘Custom Format…’ and set your own. When you’re done, click the ‘OK’ button and you’ll see that Excel has gone through and formatted the unique or duplicate values in the format that you have chosen.
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Access: Cancel Opening Report if No Data

There’s hardly any point in opening a report if it has no data to display, so how do you get your Microsoft Access database to just let you know that there’s nothing there and to not bother opening it? The answer is all about the On No Data event.

With the report open in Design View, go to the Property Sheet. If the Property Sheet isn’t already open, you can access it by clicking the ‘Property Sheet’ button on the ‘Design’ tab of the ribbon. From the ‘Selection type' drop-down list at the very top, make sure you have ‘Report’ selected. Now go to the ‘Event’ tab. Click next to where it says ‘On No Data’ and then click the ellipsis button (…) which will appear just to the right-hand side. In the window which pops up, choose ‘Code Builder’, and then press the ‘OK’ button.

Now you’re in the VBA editor, where it has already set up a subroutine for you called Report_NoData. The code you enter here will run when you open a report and there is no data to be displayed. If you’re comfortable with VBA, you can go ahead and put whatever you like in here. Here’s what I use to make a simple dialog box come up to inform the user that the report is empty, and to then cancel the opening of the report:

Private Sub Report_NoData(Cancel As Integer)

     message = MsgBox("There is no data available for this report.", vbOKOnly, "No Data Available")
     Cancel = True

End Sub

When you’re done, you can save and close the VBA editor window and the report. The next time you try to view the report and there’s no data to display, this handy bit of code you entered will prevent you from seeing a pile of errors and an empty report.
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