Change the default text field size in Access 2007

If the default size of Access 2007 text fields doesn’t fit your needs, you could waste a lot of time manually adjusting each one you create. Take a moment now to set your own default and save yourself all that extra work.

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The default size for Access 2007 text fields has been increased from 50 to 255. If you rarely need fields that large, you can save yourself some time by changing the default to the size you use for the majority of the text fields you create. For example, suppose most of your text fields are around 50 characters. You can change the default to that size by following these steps:

1. Open Access and click the Office button.
2. Click the Access Options button.
3. Click Object Designers in the pane on the left.
4. Under Table Design, enter 50 in the Default Text Field Size box (Figure A) and click OK.

Figure A

The default text field size for all your databases will now be 50.

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Mark duplicate entries automatically with Excel’s COUNTIF function

Sometimes, it’s handy to get a quick view of data that matches up between two columns. By combining an Excel function and the conditional formatting feature, you can easily accomplish this.

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When you need to quickly compare two columns of data for duplicates entries, you can use Excel’s conditional formatting with the COUNTIF function. For example, suppose you want to know which properties’ selling prices matched their list prices in the worksheet shown in Figure A.

Figure A

To set this up, just follow these steps:

1. Select C2:D17.
2. Go to Format | Conditional Formatting. In Excel 2007, click Conditional Formatting on the Home tab and choose New Rule (Figure B). Then, click Use A Formula To Determine Which Cells To Format (Figure C).

Figure B

Figure C

1. Click the Format button.
2. On the Patterns tab, choose yellow, and click OK. In Excel 2007, on the Fill tab, select yellow under Background Color and click OK.
3. Choose Formula Is from the Condition 1 drop-down list and enter the following formula: =COUNTIF($C$2:$D$17,C2)>1. In Excel 2007, you’ll enter the formula in the Format Values Where This Rule Is True text box.
4. Click OK again to return to your worksheet.

Figure D shows the results. The COUNTIF function counts all the numbers that are repeated in the range C2:D17 and then shades all cells that have duplicate entries in yellow. As you can see, three properties sold for their list prices (that is, each property’s selling price in column D is a duplicate of its list price in column C).

Figure D

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Word scraps speed up data entry

Chances are you haven’t heard of Word scraps, but you’re probably familiar with the technique. A scrap is a small block of content that you highlight and drag to the Desktop, where Windows automatically saves it. Then, you can reuse the scrap as needed.

Before dragging content to the Desktop, restore the current window, so you have easy access to the Desktop. Then, simply highlight and drag the content to the Desktop.

From the Desktop, drag the scrap into another document or double-click it to open the content in a new Word document. You can also open the scraps in other applications.

Automatically change the name of screenshot files

One of the side-effects of running The MacTipper Blog is that I take a lot of screenshots. Right now, I have more than 150 screenshots in my trash can. My point with all this is that I deal with a lot of screenshots. One of my complaints when dealing with screenshots is that you cannot quickly select a screenshot with the keyboard. To do that, I need to navigate to the folder, hit Tab, then type in Picture, press the Space Bar, then type the number of the screenshot I want.

In order to solve this, I have written a script to rename any of the default-named screenshot files to a name you prefer with the number before the name. For example, this script will change Picture 1.png to 1 Screenshot.png. Here’s the script:

Use an Excel range to save time and prevent errors

If you use the same values and formulas frequently, you can bypass some of the data entry chores by assigning a range to the value or formula. Then, when you need that value or formula, use the range instead. In addition, the range performs as a constant, making updating much easier.

For instance, suppose a company name you enter frequently is long. Instead of entering the entire name every time you need it, enter it once in an out-of-the-way spot, assign a name to the cell, and then use that range name to display the company name. Doing so is efficient, and you don’t have to worry about errors. Let’s work through a quick example.

1. In cell A1, enter North American Financial Institutions Center for Advanced Studies and Research.
2. With cell A1 selected, choose Name from the Insert menu and then select Define.
3. In the Define Name dialog box, enter a short name, such as Co, for the range.

1. Click OK.
2. Select any cell other than A1 and enter =Co; Excel will copy the text in cell A1.

To change the company’s name throughout the worksheet, just update the value in cell A1. (Actually, doing so updates only =Co instances.) Use this technique to eliminate data entry and errors when entering frequently used values and formulas.

Use a Smart Playlist for custom radio stations in iTunes

If you like to listen to your favorite internet radio that does not appear on the iTunes Radio sidebar, you probably have a bunch of radio stations in your Library. A quick way of having them all in one playlist is to set up a Smart Playlist with this rule: Time — is greater than — some large number, say 10 hours.

iTunes recognize that “Continuous” is longer than any fixed time span, and so you’ll have your radio stations conveniently located in one place.

Another way to organize radio would be to use the Sorting tab in the station’s properties — in many cases, information from the Info tab gets reverted to the station’s default when starting playback.

10+ keyboard shortcuts for working efficiently with Outlook items

You can zip around Outlook via the keyboard if you know a few handy shortcuts. This useful list covers basic tasks, from creating a distribution list to generating a meeting request.

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The user universe is divided into mousers and keyboarders, with the latter group stoutly insisting that it’s faster to keep your fingers on the keyboard than to stop and pick up the mouse to execute a command. If some of your users are in the keyboard camp, these basic shortcuts will be right up their alley.

Note: A comprehensive list of more than 80 Outlook shortcuts is available as a PDF download.

The shortcuts

Action	Shortcut
Create an appointment	Ctrl+Shift+A
Create a contact	Ctrl+Shift+C
Create a folder	Ctrl+Shift+E
Create a journal entry	Ctrl+Shift+J
Create a distribution list	Ctrl+Shift+L
Create a message	Ctrl+Shift+M
Create a meeting request	Ctrl+Shift+Q
Create a note	Ctrl+Shift+N
Create a task	Ctrl+Shift+K
Create a task request	Ctrl+Shift+U
Create a fax	Ctrl+Shift+X
Send a message	Alt+S
Reply to a message	Ctrl+R
Reply All to a message	Ctrl+Shift+R
Forward a message	Ctrl+F
Mark a message as read	Ctrl+Q
Delete an item	Ctrl+D

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Remotely restart Timbuktu when it stops responding

I’ve been using Timbuktu for many years now, and like SSH Bouncing (a problem I solved in an earlier hint), after upgrading to Leopard, I also found that occasionally Timbuktu would go deaf, leaving me unable to connect to Timbuktu on my home machine while at work. SSH would still work, but that was useless to, say, open up Quicken and enter in what I spent for lunch.

I was able to remotely restart my machine via sudo shutdown -r now, and Timbuktu would work fine on restart, but that would forcibly crash anything on my home machine that had been open. I wished that Timbuktu had the plethora of command-line options that Apple Remote Access did.

Later it occurred to me that perhaps in the same way that it’s possible to restart some UNIX processes with a HUP signal, maybe I could do that with Timbuktu. And it worked! So all you GUI folks will have to delve into Terminal, but here’s how y…

Queue multiple iPhoto imports

I recently had to do a large import into a one off iPhoto library, but I didn’t see an easy way to handle it in a batch. While, yes, I could just import the whole disk, I had album/folder organization that I needed to preserve.

So, after I started the first import, I went to the next folder that held photos I needed to import, selected all the photos, and dragged them to the album where I wanted them imported. When the first import was done, the next one started automatically! I then queued up the next 10 imports, and they all just worked!

The only downside I can see at the moment is that there’s no sort of queue indicator, but that’s a rather minor inconvenience.

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one.]

Watch iTunes preferences panes in slow motion

This is an addition to the list of previously posted slow-motion hints.

Within iTunes preferences screen, pressing Command-[ and Command-] changes from one panel to the next or previous; holding Shift at the same time enables slow-motion animations for the changes.

Vestigial slow-motion in Carbon-based app-forms…?

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