Crystal Reports Multi-Pass Processing Engine
Crystal Reports uses a three-pass reporting method to generate reports.  A pass is a process that Crystal Reports uses each time the data is read and manipulated.  Depending on the complexity of the report Crystal Reports may make 1, 2, or 3 passes over the data....
Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.1; What’s New Part 2
Part 2: Customizable Toolbar   The toolbar has been a part of Photoshop dating all the way back to version 1.0, released for the Mac in 1990. It has gone through a variety of changes over the past 25 years, most of them involving arrangement of...
QlikView  – Popular Hotkeys / Shortcuts List
Script Editor <F5> or <Ctrl> + R Runs load script <CTRL> + <Shift> + R Partial reload <Ctrl> + T Shows model diagram <Ctrl> + E Opens table editor for LOAD INLINE statements (cursor should be placed inside statement) <Ctrl> + Q + Q Inserts script...
Crystal Reports – Adding a Watermark to a Report
If you have ever looked for the watermark feature in Crystal Reports, you no doubt walked away smothered in soul-crushing despair wondering how Life could be so cruel. True, there is no official tool in Crystal Reports that adds a watermark to a report, but that...
Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.1 What’s New
Part 1: Start and Recent Files Workspace After installing the November release update to Photoshop CC 2015 the first thing (actually the second, cause the first is the new splash screen) you will notice is a new default workspace. The new Start workspace provides access to...
Excel – Conditional Formatting with Subtotals
If there has ever been a more “You’ve got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” moment, it’s the blending of Conditional Formatting with the Subtotals tool in Excel. If you have ever used the Subtotals tool to group information you have probable been impressed with its...
QlikView – Mandatory Include Statement to Prevent Data Inconsistencies
The goal of every QlikView developer is to do as little work as possible.  When you notice that you are writing the same instructions in multiple app scripts, the notion of re-use is a red flag that flies with great fervor.  QlikView’s Include statement provide just...
QlikView – Always View Chart Bars
One of my pet peeves (wouldn’t that be a great name for a dog; “Peeve”?) when working with charts in QlikView is that I have a tendency to click on bars accidentally when showing data to colleagues.  When I do, all of the bars disappear except...
Using Excel MODE Function to Return a Text Response
Excel’s MODE function is a great tool for returning the most frequently occurring number in a set of numbers.  But what if you want to return the most frequently occurring word in a list of words? MODE with Numbers Using the MODE function in Excel is...
QlikView Preserving Dates in Crosstables
The data transformation tools in QlikView are amazing.  When I think of the hours I have spent working with data that was output by some system trying to get that data into a format that I could then START modeling.  Oh, the wasted man hours. One...
5 Tips for Photoshop Users
Sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference. Tip 1: We’ve all used the ever popular Save As to prevent messing up a photograph and not being able to go back afterward and edit out our changes. A much simpler approach to work in...
Using Adobe Bridge Instead of Windows Explorer
Adobe Bridge CC is a separate application that can be downloaded as part of your Creative Cloud subscription. For years it has been an additional application that came with familiar programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign. Its real purpose escaped me for years and I mostly...
Crystal Reports Clear Recent Reports History
Crystal Reports – Clear Recent Reports History As with most applications, Crystal Reports maintains a history of the last several reports opened so as to facilitate repeated access. This is a very helpful feature, but there comes a time in every report user’s life when they...
Excel – Mixed Pivot Table Layout
Excel - Mixed Pivot Table Layout Microsoft Excel Pivot Tables is one of the greatest inventions known to man; second only to those buttery mints they bring you in fancy restaurants.  Even the greatest of ideas are not without their issues.  Take for example the Report...
Excel – Convert Names to Email Addresses
Converting Names into Email Addresses Suppose you have a list of names, perhaps a roster of employee names, and you wish to generate email addresses for these individuals. If you work at a company that has an established standard for email addresses (i.e. first initial of...
How to Size Fonts in CSS
One consideration most designers go through when creating content for today’s web is; should my stylesheet begin with a reset? The variety of reset options used today is fodder for a completely different discussion, but there is a subtopic I’d like to pursue. Oftentimes a stylesheet...
New, Active, Default Features
Have you ever opened the latest version of an application and discovered that a new feature was a default setting? This one goes all the way back to 2010 when Adobe released their fifth version of the Creative Suite. Many applications have some sort of zoom...
Typography: Part 3
In Part 1 we began with a simple classification of the different typefaces used today. In Part 2 we took a simple look at some of the basic character components. In Part 3 we want to make the users of Adobe products aware of a wonderful...
How To Plan a WordPress Website
You’ve decided you need a website for your business, your frequent family reunions, your… And YOU want to build it - you don’t want to pay someone. Where do you start? Here’s the frustration and fun. You search  “how to build a website” (or something similar)...
Typography: Part 2
In Part 1 we began with a simple classification of the different typefaces used today. We kept things simple and broke them down into 5 different groups; serif, sans-serif, monospace, handwritten, and decorative. In Part 2 we will take a simple look at some of the...