Alex Scoble's IT Notes - An Information Technology Blog

PowerPoint and Embedding Sounds

You know, this being 2004 and all, you'd think that you'd be able to embed an MP3 or WMA file into a PowerPoint presentation instead of linking it.

Think again. PowerPoint only allows you to embed WAV files. Was pounding my head against the wall for a while on this one until I read the fine print on the Microsoft web site.

Why not just link the file you ask? Well this presentation will be emailed so linking isn't an option.

Besides WMA and MP3 have been around a while, so why doesn't PowerPoint support them fully?

Office Annoyances

It's not often that I get frustrated by something that a computer does, but this is one of those times.

I'm trying to get my office "toolbars" set up how I want. Specifically, I'm trying to get rid of the Adobe PDF Maker and DeltaView toolbars. I'm trying to do this for Word, PowerPoint and Outlook at the moment.

The way that these apps are "supposed" to work is that you make a change and close the app and the change sticks. At most you might have to save the changed setup as the default global template, but no, when add-ins are involved they override any changes that a user might make, which is hella annoying!

I don't see a particularly useful fix to this situation at the moment either.

Here's an answer to the Outlook problem:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;827305

Although it still doesn't save the placement of the toolbars. It keeps popping the email toolbar above the To: From: Subj: entry bar. I hope that the Office team realizes how annoying this is. It's right up there with Windows' inability to remember where I last put a window for a specific application or how one application can steal window focus while you are working on another application.

The interface should be consistent and intuitive. That means it does what you tell it to do every time.

Bug In Latest TrippLite PowerAlert Software (V 12)

As I'm replacing all of the systems here, I'm also getting a TrippLite SmartPro 550 USB Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS). These will keep a PC and monitor running for about 10-15 minutes. Long enough to stay on during most power blips and to shut down if needed during an extended power outage. Also has built in circuit protection and noise filter to increase the life of your equipment. Cost is about $75 per. So not much more than a good power strip.

Has 6 receptacles and an 8' cord.

Anyhow, I've run into a problem with the Power Alert software that runs on the PC.

This software monitors the UPS's power situation and lets the user know if the UPS goes into an error condition. Error conditions can range from UPS on battery, UPS on battery and at low charge, bad battery, power back on, etc. You control how long the UPS waits to initiate shutdown through this software.

The problem that occurred was that the software on a few PCs was seeing the Dell USB keyboard with USB hub as a power device. This was causing the software to constantly use 50% of the total CPU power. Would also totally screw up Windows' ability to display properly.

The fix is to shut down the Power Alert Monitoring Service. Remove a file named commhid.dll from c:\program files\TrippLite\PowerAlert\Engine\ directory (this is default install location). Delete all files in the c:\program files\tripplite\poweralert\data\ directory.

*** Warning: Be careful when working with the registry. Make a backup before you do anything. ***

You may also have to delete the keys in the registry for the devices found under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tripp Lite\PowerAlert Agent\ key.

Restart the Power Alert service and it should now just see the UPS.

Microsoft Project Viewer

Need to view a MS Project (.MPP) file but don't have Project?

Microsoft doesn't make a free viewer for this app like they do for Word and PowerPoint.

Found a website that lets you view the files for free. Click here to get to the website.

Lets you print any of the views, but didn't look at the printed product so don't know how good it prints yet.

It's free and lets you view the files without having to spend $300 or whatever it now costs for a Project license.

Downloading Large Emails Using Outlook

I'm sure that other people have had this same problem, but I haven't yet been able to find a good solution for it.

We are running Exchange 5.5 SP4 with all of the latest hotfixes (as of 3 weeks ago anyhow).

When remote users connect to the Exchange server using Outlook in MAPI remote connection mode (cached Exchange server mode in Outlook 2003, Offline folder (.OST) mode in previous versions) and try to download a message with a large attachment, their Outlook basically stalls and takes far longer to download the email than it would using POP3.

The users are connected to the internal network using Netsecure VPN software and our firewall is a Netscreen 10.

I don't want to open the holes in the firewall necessary to connect to the Exchange server over RPC because that is a very big security risk. In a few months, after I get everything moved to Active Directory and Exchange 2003, this won't be an issue because of RPC over HTTP, but until then it is an issue.

I have tried the methods suggested in the Technet Document: MS Exchange Server and Outlook: Optimizing Messaging Client Performance, but that hasn't solved the problem.

I see some other things to try in this document about using Outlook 2003 in Cached Exchange mode, but if anyone has any other ideas, please let me know.

Macro Package Chosen

Here's a quick update on what's going on with our Application Upgrade Project (that's what I'm calling the combined projects of upgrade to Word 2003, migration from WordPerfect, training of users on Office, cleanup of WORLDOX (our DMS) and training on the new version of WORLDOX).

Last week we chose the macro package we will be using. It's by a company named KI Systems that specialize in Office customizations for legal companies (http://www.kisys.com). Their package is comprehensive and includes an enterprise level address book (I'll get more into this later). We also purchased the separate Formbank, Numbering Tool, Metadata Stripper and Remote modules.

Also decided to buy Levit and James (http://www.levitjames.com)CrossWords and Stylizer to help convert documents from WordPerfect to Word and to properly set up the styles of any document to our standards (will also talk about these apps as we start working with them).

To help us with implementing all of the above and to do the training we went with David Adams of Just Results! (http://www.justresults.com/) Out of the 4 vendors we talked to, he really seemed to best understand law firms, how to setup training in a lawfirm and the process of migrating users from WP to Word.

As we move along, I will be talking about the whole process in more detail.

Word AutoSave Sucketh

Well, sad to say it, but I've found another area where Word Perfect is better than Word.

Automatic backups. Word's AutoSave and AutoRecovery feature is woefully inadequate especially with users who forget to manually save often.

I've seen users accidentally close Word after working on a document for 2 hours several times. They all say that Word never asked them if they wanted to save the document (running Word 97 here, but going to 2003). Not sure if this is a bug in Word or just users playing fast and loose with fact in order to make a problem not their fault.

I would strenuously request that the Office team fix this issue post haste, as the application really should regularly save the document for the user in such a way that nothing the user or the system does will prevent the user from going back to the last previous autosave.

Also while you are at it, can you please set up the Master Category list in Outlook so that it gets saved to the Exchange server, can be shared and administered by the Exchange Admin? Not quite as important as the autosave feature, but it is a pet peeve of mine, especially for Outlook centric outfits like mine.

Word 2003 Annoyance

OK, as I stated before we are upgrading from Office 97 to Office 2003.

Already ran into one annoyance in Word that I can't find a setting for.

In Word 2003, when I select a range of text and hit the delete key, I get a prompt in the status bar "Delete block? No (Yes)". I don't want to be asked if Word should delete a block of text.

Can't find a setting for this in Tools->Options and can't find documentation on this in either Word help or on the Microsoft website.

Always nice when a vendor puts in a feature with specific wording and then doesn't document the feature, or if it does document it, it uses different wording for the feature so you have to spend 10 days figuring out the minds of the document writers to come up with the search that gives you the answer you are looking for.

WordPerfect To Office Conversion

I figure that this is a good topic to start talking about since in many ways it's the most complex project that I've undertaken.

The goal is to move all 40 people in our law firm from WordPerfect Suite to using Office 2003 as the standard. We are currently using WordPerfect Office 2000 and Microsoft Office 97 as well as WORLDOX 2000 for our document management system.

This is a huge task for good reason. Quite a few of the firm's personnel have years invested in using WordPerfect. The application works. They know how to use it and it gets the job done for them quite nicely.

The problem with getting them to use Word is that Word will NEVER be exactly like WordPerfect. So if you know one, the other seems much less than intuitive. I have some experience with working in Word and I oftentimes have problems doing the simplest things in WordPerfect simply because it's a different paradigm of doing things.

So the first issue is training. Getting everyone up to speed on how to properly use Word.

Second issue is features. We currently have macros and templates in WordPerfect, but none in Word. We also could gain a lot of benefit from purchasing a metadata scrubber, which is a whole other topic for another day. Some sort of app that converts cleanly from WordPerfect to Word would also be beneficial. So there are a few tools that we need to have in place before we can get people to standardize.

Third issue is getting everyone to build their documents to a set standard as much as possible. This goes hand in hand with training, but the standards have to be built before they can be taught.

Even if we do all of that, there will still be a modicum of resistance from the users who are comfortable with WordPerfect. Having said that though, I think that we are all willing to come to the table, discuss what we need to do and attempt to resolve the issues. If we can manage that, the project should go smoothly.

I will be talking more about this as it progresses.