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Below are just some of the comments that we have recently received. Although not all comments may display a direct reply, we do reply and also do thank you for all your comments.

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Pat writes...

I read your article re DW 8 from TechTrax and found it quite revealing. I am still using DW4 and did not upgrade to dw 2004 mx when I could. I am now wondering if you would recommend that I make the jump from DW4 to DW8. Would it be cost efficient?

Dian Chapman, author of Dreamweaver 8—First Impressions, replies...

Well...that's kind of hard to say, as far as COST-EFFICIENT. But I would say that it might be a good idea to get upgraded before they stop allowing your version to be part of the upgrade. Sometimes software programs stop allowing older version to be part of the discounted upgrade.

Granted, so far, even version 3 is allowed with the current upgrade. So if you're not in a rush, you might want to wait a year or so until they are about to post a new version and discounts are out for the old version??? But then again, personally, I LIKE having the newest version cos' the cool, new feature save time and I guess THAT would make it cost-efficient. If you were on MX or MX2004, you might not gain much. But from ver 4...your version is fairly far back, so you're missing some cool features that are now a lot easier. Hope this helps.

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Jacqueline writes...

Dian: Thank you for supporting Canine Assistants. My son received a dog from Canine Assistants and we were with the graduating class that FRISCO was in. He sure is an incredible dog.

Dian Chapman, author of Man's Best Friend, replies...

OH WOW! How very cool! Thanks SO MUCH for letting me know this. I'm so jealous that you got to meet Frisco...I only got "his" postcards!<smile>

I'm so happy for you and your son to have gotten a Canine Assitant service dog. I know how much dogs have enriched my life just by having them as pets. I can only imagine how excited your son must have been to get his own partner to help him get through life. Congrats! And here's hoping that your dog has a wonderful LONG life. It's so sad that these incredible animals don't have a longer life span!

Again...thanks for the email. You made my day!!

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Mary Carpenter writes...

The link reads Dreamweaver Tables but the video is for Word 2003. I am really happy to be a paid member!!!

Dian Chapman, Editor/TechTrax, replies...

Thanks so much for letting me know I messed up! Sheesh...so many links, so little time!<grin> It's fixed now so should you be able to properly view the Dreamweaver table video online. Cheers!

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Dennis writes...

Subject: Domain Report Manager

Greg, Let me start by saying thank you. I am a noobie to scripting. I am a Network Admin for a small Hospital. I was looking for a script to invenory my pc's. The Domain Report Manger is awesome!!!

One thing I am having trouble with because I don't know how to write a vbs is how can I get the inventory to show the version of software? I need to find all the pc's with Symantec Antivirus but when I look there is not a version number in the txt file. It has Symantec Antivirus but no version number. If you could find time in your busy scedule to help me I would be most grateful. Thanks again and keep up the great work. Folks like myself really do appreciate it.

Greg Chapman, developer of The Domain Report Manager free utility, replies...

Dennis, Yep, that's a problem and it's not easily solved. The source for the application listing is the registry key where Uninstall information is kept. Unfortunately, the text entry here only contains version information if the vendor puts it in that text string. And I understand why you've got to get this sorted out; both McAfee ad Symantec are dependant on the scan engine, installation version and virus signature file version. If any one of the 3 is sufficiently out of date, you can't be sure that the AV tools will do their jobs. That is the classic definition of a nightmare and it sucks scissors!

The best advice I can give you is to modify the inventory script and check for the existence of the registry key of the desired version of Symantec you want. You also might want to contact Symantec Corporate Support and find out if they have utility information or better ideas of how to automate discovery of non-compliant systems.

As an added hint, both Symantec and McAfee have centralized policy and AV management consoles which can also help you organize and manage all those client machines effectively.

Also, since you are running a domain, I highly recommend you take a look at this page to help you guarantee all clients are using the latest version: http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-security.nsf/9d94c8571a91ba4788256bf3007f62b5/52e3a9e5f153a2ed88256c30005f3d18?
OpenDocument&prod=Symantec%20AntiVirus%20Small%20Business%20Edition&ver=8.1
&src=ent&pcode=sav_sb&dtype=corp& svy=&prev=&miniver=sav_81_sb

Good luck!

Greg Chapman
http://www.mousetrax.com
http://www.layer1wireless.com

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Alan Henderson from Wanganui City, Whanganui District, New Zealand writes...

Re: Are You an Inconsiderate Emailer?

Kia ora, First: I would like to copy the above article and send it as content to my whole Contact list. May I have approval for that? Sending a link is no use, most people won't bother to look.

Second: Although I'm reluctant to send people away from my website, I'd also like to place a link to the article here:
http://www.mistywindow.com/email/junkmail.htm below the heading; With Friends Like These...... May I have approval for that too?

e noho ra, Alan Henderson

Dian Chapman, author of Are You an Inconsiderate Emailer?, replies...

LOL...Alan, BECAUSE you made me laugh out loud...realizing that your email must be much like some of mine...YES, you have my permission to send that article to everyone you know...for the good of the community! Have fun sending it to all your contacts!<snicker>

Yes, my sister just won't listen and sends tons of junk to poor mom who frets when she can't open all that garbage because she gets the envelope inside an envelope scenario from here. It makes me crazy because I have to go help her all the time and reassure her that she's not missing anything! So I hope it helps you.

Please kept my name and a link to TechTrax (www.mousetrax.com/techtrax) as the source. And yes, links are no problem. In fact, you can use a couple of lines from the opening as a TEASER and then provide the link on your site to the entire article. Hope it helps limit the garbage you get.

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A. Farmer from Canada writes...

Hi Dian,

Congratulations on your new format. I've always thought you were an excellent publication free, so I'm excited to see what you can do when you have money :)

I wish I could be writing to you as a paying member, but when I went to subscribe, my only option to pay by credit card was to join Pay Pal. Is this correct? Must I subscribe to Paypal in order to become a member?

Regards, Angela Farmer

Dian Chapman, Editor/TechTrax, replies...

Thanks so much for the kind words, Angela. Yes, the first method was only via PayPal and that is our preferred method, but you can now send a paper check as we have a P.O. Box to accept orders. See this link for details: http://www.mousetrax.com/TechTrax_byMail.html

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Steve writes...

Re: Creating a Table of Contents Spanning Multiple Documents

Excellent article. I'm wondering if its possible to create a standalone TOC using the RD which also hyperlinks the "external documents"?

Dian Chapman, Editor/TechTrax, replies...

Sure...check out this article...

Compiling Sub Docs
http://www.mousetrax.com/mastdoc.html

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Viktor from London, UK, writes...

Hi,

First of all thanks for the great articles, all round. I often query mousetrax for all kinda issues i need help with. Really good stuff. I have a question and i am not sure if you answer questions like these but ill have a go. Regarding the above article, does Windows log anywhere when you lock and unlock your PC. I am using Windows XO and am trying to find if there is some kinda audit trail of when a user has locked/unlocked his machine. Any help, or a point in the right direction would help ENORMOUSLY.

Either way, thanks guys

Dian Chapman, Editor/TechTrax, replies...

Thanks for the great comments. Vic has been hard to reach lately...so the best place to find these types of answers is to jump into his Windows group and ask your Q. I'm sure you'll get the answers you need.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WinTips-Tricks/

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Lexi Schwartz from Irving, TX, writes...

I read your article, Don't Touch my stuff, to see if there was anything I didn't already know. I saw where you credited Herb with how to move the quick launch toolbar. I did a search for Herb's articles on this site, checked out his website, and didn't see the instructions on how to do this?

Is the article as obvious as the nose on my face, or is it hidden somewhere?
Thanks!

Dian Chapman, author of Don't Touch My Stuff, replies...

So sorry for the confusion...Herb never wrote an article on this, as far as I know...although I have mentioned it in some articles. He just SHOWED me a picture of his desktop once, which showed me what he had done. Since I know how to move toolbars around, I used his method for my own desktop. I just hadn't thought about it that way. So seeing his, I knew how to do it, too and told him I was swiping his idea!<g>

All you need to do is GRAB it and drag it. You can learn a bit more in this article:

WinXP_02: Messing with the Display
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=308

I discuss moving toolbars around in that one.

But you're one of many people who wanted to know how to do this...so I guess a Windows customization video is needed soon, eh? I'll plan on it.<smile>

Hope this helps for now!

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A subscriber writes...

I deeply appreciate your series and have recommended them to others as a good "seminar" in a particular subject, especially for newbies to PM. I work for a federal contractor and the agency we support is on an earned value kick because OMB is coming down hard on this, and rightly so. I've tried to explain that MS Project doesn't really support the concept of control (or cost) accounting based on control action plans. There is no way that I can see to set these up in MS Project unless you want to go to a lot of effort to customise the application and to do that you really need to know what you're doing and you really need to understand earned value. So far, I have few takers who fit both categories although the takers I have wave their MS Gold Partner status and sing and dance around the subject, I think, hoping to divert me like the Great and Wonderful Oz.

Have you any experience in this? And how did you solve the problem of making MS Project actually work like Primavera which was designed to incorporate control accounting in project management and computing earned value.

Mike Glen, author of the Microsoft Project series, writes...

Thanks for your kind words - I hope the others are making good use of my articles :)

As to your query - Project is not a cost accounting program and has never pretended to be so. I also know little of Primivera except for its high price! However, Project does have sufficient costing inputs to cover most Project Managers' needs which should give a close enough approximation for budgetting purposes. The resulting data could always be exported to Excel where you can produce S-Curves. Try searching Help for Earned Value Analysis. Project has nothing else except for vba with which you can do almost anything!

You might like to post a query to one of the Microsoft public newsgroups - see FAQ Item: 24. Project Newsgroups. FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at this web address: http://www.mvps.org/project/.

Mike Glen
Project MVP

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Jimmy Hill from Elberton, Georgia, writes...

Re: Excel's VLOOKUP function

Sheet1 renamed to P1
Sheet2 renamed to P2
Table in each sheet named PRICE
Table includes 3 columns: ColA=item# ColB=size ColC=description
Sheet3 is used to collect data needed from P1 or P2
ColA=sheet name ColB=item# ColC=vlookup formula

vlookup formula: =vlookup(CellB5,CellA5!Price,2,false)

This formula does not work. How do I get the vlookup to look at the correct table?

Linda Johnson, author of Excel’s VLOOKUP Function: How to Use It and How to Nest It, replies...

Hi Jimmy. There are a few things wrong with that formula. First of all, I would recommend that you don't name your sheets with names that could also be cell addresses. P1 and P2 could also refer to cells, so I would change those names or you could have problems in the future. (However, that's not what's messing up this formula, because when you name a range, you don't need to refer to the sheet name at all.) But, you cannot name all the ranges with the same name (PRICE). If you name all of the ranges with the same names, Excel will never know which one to use. You have to rename them with different names, like PriceOne in the first sheet and PriceTwo in the second sheet. And, thirdly, you can't do both vlookups in the same formula, and I'm not sure why you are referring to your cells in the formula as "CellB5" and "CellA5"...the word "Cell" will not work...the formula references should be simply B5 and A5.

So, let's say the size is in the Price1 range in sheet 1 in column 2 and the description is in the Price2 range in the second column on sheet 2. And let's say the item number on sheet 3 is in A5 and you want the size in B5 and the description in C5 on that same sheet (If I'm understanding you correctly):

Your formula in B5 on sheet 3 (for the size) would be
=VLOOKUP(A5,PriceOne,2,false)

And your formula in C5 on sheet 3 (for the description) would be
=VLOOKUP(A5,PriceTwo,2,false)

Did you read my VLOOKUP tutorial at Techtrax? It doesn't appear that you did, because my tutorial would never tell you to use something like "CellB5" in a formula. I'd recommend you go back and re-read my tutorial.

Good luck.

Linda F. Johnson
Linda's Computer Stop
http://personal-computer-tutor.com

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Tom writes...

Hi Diane, Just took a couple of quiz's from Tech Trax and noticed your bio. What a wonderful thing you and Greg are doing for others. Thank you! I hope that your lives are happy, joyess and free. Keep the rubber side down.
Respectfully, Tom

Dian Chapman, Editor/TechTrax, replies...

WOW...what a great email. THANK YOU so much...not only for your very kind words, but also for taking the time to send this nice email.

This is the stuff that keeps us going!<wink>

Best to you, Tom!