Silly Trick of the Day: =Lorem(#,#) [Word/Outlook 2010 macro to automatically generate “Lorem” text]

.net Scraps - Did you know - There is a method called Lorem that gives you a bunch of text

“Today, while working with one of my colleagues, Chetan… I found a pretty neat trick to get some junk text in MS Word or Outlook.

Just type something like =Lorem(5, 2) and hit enter. Basically, you are telling to create 5 paragraphs of 2 lines each and so on…

…”

Some of the silly things you learn…

Before;

After (hitting return);

This works for me in Word/Outlook 2010 but not in Word/Outlook 2003.

How about a generic API that hooks your Web app to different social networks? How about the “Web Application Toolkit for Social Network APIs”! (C# and VB)

MSDN Code Gallery - Web Application Toolkit for Social Network APIs

“As social networking Web sites are becoming more and more popular, users often want to access simultaneously the different networks they belong to from one only entry point. For example, one user might want to post the same message they are posting on your site also on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and so on.

Although many of these social networks provide APIs for accessing their information, you might want to integrate your Web application with several social sites at the same time and be able to do this in a consistent manner, without having to go into numerous modifications in your code with each new social network that you want to incorporate.

This Web Application Toolkit provides a generic “Social Networks” API that allows connecting your Web application with different social networks and managing them through one entry point with a consistent set of methods. In the Toolkit you’ll find examples of how to use the Social Networks API provided to connect a Web application with Facebook and Twitter, allowing you to manage the data provided by these networks in a generic way.

Please notice that this Toolkit includes examples only for reduced set of operations (mainly posting status updates) within the two social networks named before. Through this documentation you’ll find instructions on how to extend this set into more operations and more social networks.

…

…”

Note: “This Web Application Toolkit assumes that the developer has basic experience with ASP.NET MVC Framework.”

Once you install it you get the source, some Getting Started and Exploring the Toolkit guide (snapped below);

And a quick snap of the post install folders;

Think Notepad only opens files? Nope! File/Open a HTTP URL (and get the HTML response) in Notepad…

Just learned this today via JoshEinstein.com - Quick Tip – Troubleshoot broken OData response using Notepad…

Did you know you can “open” a URL in Notepad?

I’ve confirmed this works on both Windows XP (SP3) and Windows 7.

That’s pretty cool… :)

Moving to Office 2010? Looking for some 2003 to 2010 reference (ie. “where’s feature X now?”) help? Getting Started Guides? Maybe some Top 10 features?

Microsoft Downloads - Office 2010 User Resources – XPS (as PDF or DOCX formats)

“End user resources that can help learn Office 2010 products.

Documents related Office 2010, including an overview, product guide, getting started, and new features.

File Name:	Office 2010 User Resources - XPS.zip
Version:	1.0
Date Published:	7/15/2010
Language:	English
Download Size:	89 KB - 122.8 MB*

…”

There’s a good bit of free Microsoft Office 2010 training and information in this humbly named download. I think the best are the “2003 to 2010” references. These Excel workbooks provide a nice map for those moving from 2003 to 2010 and help answer the “in 2003 I used X, where is that in 2010?”

Here’s a snap to give you a feel for the content;

Here’s the full list of files;

Access 2010\Microsoft Access 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
Access 2010\Microsoft Access 2010 Get Started Guide.xps
Access 2010\Microsoft Access 2010 Product Guide.xps
Access 2010\Reference_Access_2003_to_2010.xltx
Excel 2010\Microsoft Excel 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
Excel 2010\Microsoft Excel 2010 Get Started Guide.xps
Excel 2010\Microsoft Excel 2010 Product Guide.xps
Excel 2010\Reference_Excel2003_to_2010.xltx
InfoPath 2010\Microsoft InfoPath 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
InfoPath 2010\Microsoft InfoPath 2010 Product Guide.xps
InfoPath 2010\Reference_InfoPath2003_to_2010.xltx
Office 2010 Suite\Microsoft Office 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
Office 2010 Suite\Microsoft Office 2010 Getting Started Guide.xps
Office 2010 Suite\Microsoft Office 2010 Product Guide.xps
Office 2010 Suite\Microsoft Office 2010 Top 10.xps
Office Mobile 2010\Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
Office Mobile 2010\Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 Product Guide.xps
Office Web Apps\Microsoft Office Web Apps Getting Started Guide.xps
Office Web Apps\Microsoft Office Web Apps Product Guide.xps
OneNote 2010\Microsoft OneNote 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
OneNote 2010\Microsoft OneNote 2010 Getting Started Guide.xps
OneNote 2010\Microsoft OneNote 2010 Product Guide.xps
OneNote 2010\Microsoft OneNote 2010 Top 10.xps
OneNote 2010\Reference_OneNote_2007_to_2010.xltx
Outlook 2010\Microsoft Outlook 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
Outlook 2010\Microsoft Outlook 2010 Getting Started Guide.xps
Outlook 2010\Microsoft Outlook 2010 Product Guide.xps
Outlook 2010\Microsoft Outlook 2010 with Business Contact Manager Features and Benefits.xps
Outlook 2010\Microsoft Outlook 2010 with Business Contact Manager Product Guide.xps
Outlook 2010\Reference_Outlook2003_to_2010.xltx
PowerPoint 2010\Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Getting Started Guide.xps
PowerPoint 2010\Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Product Guide.xps
PowerPoint 2010\Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Top 10.xps
PowerPoint 2010\Reference_PowerPoint2003_to_2010.xltx
Publisher 2010\Microsoft Publisher 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
Publisher 2010\Microsoft Publisher 2010 Getting Started Guide.xps
Publisher 2010\Microsoft Publisher 2010 Product Guide.xps
Publisher 2010\Microsoft Publisher 2010 Top 10.xps
Publisher 2010\Reference_Publisher_2007_to_2010.xltx
SharePoint Workspace 2010\Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
SharePoint Workspace 2010\Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 Product Guide.xps
Word 2010\Microsoft Word 2010 Features and Benefits.xps
Word 2010\Microsoft Word 2010 Getting Started Guide.xps
Word 2010\Microsoft Word 2010 Product Guide.xps
Word 2010\Microsoft Word 2010 Top 10.xps
Word 2010\Reference_Word_2003_to_Word_2010.xltx

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Interested in the thought of internally hosting the Microsoft Office 2010 Web Apps? Here’s an IT Guide for ya…
Don’t reinvent your in-house Microsoft Office & SharePoint training… Give your users a productivity boost with the “Productivity Hub 2010” [Free, reg-ware]

Deploying your ORK (Office Resource Kit, that is) – eBook (Doc) Deployment Guide for Microsoft Office 2010

“First Look: Microsoft Office 2010” Free 202 page eBook – Free as in no registration required for a limited time

Love Windows Live Writer? Wish it did more? Then write a plugin… and here’s some tips for doing just that… (with even some VB in there for flavor :)

InsertableContentSource - Top Tips For Live Writer Plug-in Developers

“Whether you’ve written Live Writer plug-ins before, or if you’re just thinking about writing your first, hopefully this post will give you some good tips that will help you build that new plug-in.

Use A Visual Studio Template

I would highly recommend downloading a Visual Studio template. The template can be downloaded for machines running x86 or x64 flavours of Windows (for VB.NET devs, downloads are x86 and x64). The reason I have done ones for both architectures is because otherwise you have to remove and then re-add the reference to WindowsLive.Writer.Api.dll as it will be looking in the wrong Program Files folder. The template itself is based on a combination of templates written by myself and Ben Hall. …

…

Make Sure The Plug-in Copies Automatically To The Plugin Folder

If you’re using the template from above, then you can skip this tip. …

…

Run Live Writer When Debugging Plug-ins

Because Live Writer plug-ins are just dlls, it makes it somewhat more difficult to actually debug them, however, with just a simple change to the project’s properties (again), we can make this oh so easy. …

…

Add Plug-in Options to the QAT (Wave 4 and newer)

With the latest beta of Live Writer, we have been given the Ribbon UI that has been present in Office for a few years now. …

…

…”

Scott provides a number of handy, don’t re-invent the wheel, time saving tips for your Windows Live Writer development. These are things you’ll likely figure out on your own after time, but why waste that time figuring this out when it could be better spent working on your uber plugin! ;)

And a huge thanks to Scott for taking the time to provide VB templates too. (This is his first time doing VB… Welcome to the Dark Side Scott! lol)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Writing Windows Live Writer Plugins, or want too? Then Scott has written an article just for you!
Guide to Writing a Windows Live Writer Plugin in C#

Solar Panel Installation Update–The Two Dollar Electric Bill

Dreaming of not paying an electric bill? For my family, it’s no longer a dream…

At the end of April 2010 we had solar electric panels installed, Solar Panel Installation – We’re cooking with Solar!, and we’ve been waiting on pins and needles to see the impact to our electric bill. It’s taken SCE a bit for everything to work through the channels, but today it looks like everything finally took effect.

I mean, come on! How can you NOT love a $1.95 electric bill!  :)

The way it worked out was that we had an initial bill for 6/23 of $131, which kind of freaked us out. But we figured it was just taking a bit to work through and our solar installers held our hands, calmed us down, “It’s okay, don’t worry, it takes a bit…” And they were right. As of today we now have a $129 credit! Looks like we won’t be sending them a checked for a good long time… LOVE THAT!

What’s the ROI? 7-10 years. Assuming electric prices don’t increase…

Maintenance? Couldn’t be easier. Spray them off with the hose every month or so (the morning dew catches the afternoon dusty winds).

Piece of mind? Priceless… lol

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Solar Panel Installation – We’re cooking with Solar!

DevCheatSheet.com, The Developer focused cheat sheet aggregator (just about all languages, all areas, all the time…)

WebWorkerDaily - DevCheatSheet: More Useful Free Reference Cards

“If you liked QuicklyCode — a collection of cheat sheets that you can download, print out and pin up next to your monitor for handy reference — you’re going to love DevCheatSheet, an even larger collection of some 1,600 free cheat sheets and reference cards in various formats, gathered from all over the web.

Like QuicklyCode, DevCheatSheet is an ad-supported site that’s primarily aimed at developers, hence the “Dev” in the title, and the tagline “Cheat sheets for developers.” It has a huge number developer-friendly categories, including most of the major programing languages, operating systems, databases and frameworks. But it also has useful cheat sheets for many topics that non-developers will find useful, such as trigonometry, telephone country codes, color codes, social media, Google Docs, Photoshop, MS Office, Skype, Twitter and more. If you’re not a developer, it’s worth perusing the categories listed and as there are plenty of useful sheets hidden by the sheer number of highly technical topics

…”

DevCheatSheet.com

DevCheatSheet.com - Visual Basic (VB) Cheat Sheets

This looks like a cool site to quickly find that cheat sheet you’ve been looking for… I appreciate that there’s an RSS feed to help me easily keep up with new Sheets as they are added.

Holy ClickOnce Smoke! CodePlex now provides ClickOnce app hosting! Yes, you can now ClickOnce your CodePlex project on CodePlex servers!

CodePlex Weblog - ClickOnce Releases

“With today’s release, we are happy to announce that our #1 most requested feature, hosting ClickOnce applications directly from the CodePlex website, is now available for all projects! For those that are not familiar with ClickOnce, it is a .NET deployment technology that enables a user to install and run a Windows application by simply clicking a link from a web page. ClickOnce applications are also inherently self-updating, as they check for newer versions as they become available. ClickOnce applications are also “low-impact”, in other words, they do not need administrative rights to install, only install for the current user, and are isolated from other ClickOnce applications.

Since there is no direct way of publishing your ClickOnce application to CodePlex from within Visual Studio, we have attempted to make the process as simple as possible. The next few sections will walk you through the preparation and publishing, and ultimately creating a ClickOnce release on CodePlex.

…

…”

In a word, AWESOME!

This has been one of my biggest whines every time I corner someone on the CodePlex team. Now I’ll have to find something else to whine about (like maybe providing Build support…  LOL ;)

Anyway, I dig the CodePlex service and team. This thing just keeps getting better and better. If you’re doing .Net dev and need a place to store your code, host your discussions, track your issues, contain your doc’s and now host your ClickOnce apps, and like “free” then you HAVE to check out CodePlex (…I’m sure this is redundant as you’re all hosting your projects here already, right? ;)

Great work guys, thank you!

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start–Four free three hour (12 hours total) virtual sessions to jumpstart your WinPhone7 development (Space is limited)

Windows Phone 7 Jump Start: Session One - Getting Started with Microsoft Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight

“Join us on July 20 2010 at 8.00 am PDT (What time is this in my region?) for an three-hour Office Live Meeting broadcast.

Windows Phone 7 promises to be an amazing mobile phone operating system given its innovative user interface and functionality, as well as its great development platform upon which you can quickly and easily build games and applications.

This course is organized into four virtual instructor-led sessions that are of 3-hour duration. They will be presented by forthcoming MS Press authors and MVP's, Andy Wigley and Rob Miles. It will provide developers a jump start for developing Windows Phone 7 applications. Labs will be completed offline with office hour access to the instructors.
This session is the first of 4 sessions.  Please register for all 4 in order to complete this training.

July 20th
Session Two:  Programming Game Applications with XNA

July 22nd 
Session Three:  Programming Applications with Silverlight
Session Four:  Review and Wrap Up” [GD:Leach Level 99%]

News of today’s release of the Windows Phone 7 Development Tools beta is everywhere (mostly) but just how best to use it? That’s where this 12 hours of training next week will come in handy. (I’ll have to catch the On-Demand version as I’ve got other training happening next week… sigh… when it rains, it pours…lol :)

(via Microsoft Journal - Microsoft Launches Windows Phone 7 Dev Tools‎)