Using Formula to determine which cells to format
There are many options to choose from when using conditional formatting, however at times we will need to use formula to manipulate our conditions further.
by Mandy Doward - 28/3/2017
Using a SQL Server SELECT Statement to Query an Excel Workbook
Occasionally you may find that some of the data you need to reference in a SQL Server query is located outside of the database in an Excel Workbook.
In this article we look at how you can query an Excel workbook as if it were a table in a SQL Server Database.
The SQL Server OPENROWSET function can be used to connect to a variety of data sources by means of a data provider:
by Mandy Doward - 8/3/2017
Creating And Working With Tables in Excel
You may think that an Excel Workbook already provides a table of data to you, and in a sense it does, an area consisting of Rows and Columns, with column and row headings and values.
It is, however, possible to create formal Tables from ranges of cells on an Excel worksheet.
Why would we want to do this?
Well, here are a few reasons:
by Mandy Doward - 21/4/2017
Creating A Drop Down Lists For Users to Choose From In Excel
When you design an Excel workbook for users other than yourself to use you may find that it is helpful to provide drop down lists for some column values such as Status Codes, Categories, Response Codes, etc. This is surprisingly easy in Excel and requires no clever VBA code!
In the following example we can see a drop list that a user can choose from when populating a Country column value.
by Mandy Doward - 16/2/2017
SQL Queries to Check Passwords & Privilege Assignments
This article introduces a few SQL queries to gather information about user passwords and privileges and permissions assigned on SQL Server systems.
When writing VBA, there are a number of occasions when you will have to select a single or group of worksheets. In this blog, we will explore some of the ways we can do this.
Selecting a single Worksheet
Selecting all Worksheets
Selecting the last sheet
by Mandy Doward - 16/2/2017
Linux Partitioning & Logical Volume Manager (LVM)
This article covers the partitioning of physical disks in a Linux Server ready for use as raw partitions for file systems and swap devices, or ready to be used to create Logical Volumes under the control of the Linux Logical Volume manager (LVM).
Linux, Disks and Partitions
by Mandy Doward - 18/1/2017
Word Keyboard Shortcuts
Here are a few questions and answers about some keyboard shortcuts available in Microsoft Word.
by Mandy Doward - 31/3/2017
Searching for Lines Containing Patterns
There will be many occasions when you are trying locate a specific set of lines in a file, such as a log file, or perhaps you are trying filter the results that have come back from a Linux or Unix command to just the ones relevant to your specific needs.
The grep command is perfect in these situations and we explore some of it’s capabilities here.
by Mandy Doward - 3/1/2017
Email Security Threats
While many organisations have moved over to “The Cloud” many are nervous of making the move with security being the number one concern. I came across a couple of interesting articles last week, which I thought I would share with you as they highlight some common IT security concerns among IT Security Managers and present some possible solutions to protect your company from common threats.