New Gmail Features That Do Not Work Well

Multiple Inboxes - I like this feature. Incredible way to create different views on the same messages. In my case, directing multiple email accounts to the same place and differentiating the view. No need to login into multiple places. Multiple Inboxes behaves a little funny. First, if you access a message from the "main" inbox and it is seen in a second inbox, subsequent changes (delete, new messages in conversation, etc) will not appear on the other view without refreshing the Inbox or the page. Secondly, if you do not log out properly, it acts funny in both Google Chrome and IE 7 - requiring a flush of temp files to fix.

Gmail Offline - This is a nightmare. It perceives itself to not be connected when it is. Very annoying. Couple that with errors from Multiple Inboxes and you have a non-functioning email set up.

Google Chrome - Add the above two to Google Chrome and an erratic connection and you may as well give up. Nothing works. Disabling offline and deleting all temporary files solved most of the problems - but it was hard to believe that IE7 was more stable with Google products than Google's own browser.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta Won't Support Logmein

I tried IE8 - why not? Logmein refuses to work. It claims that all computers you are trying to access are "in a previous session." I witnessed a workstation with IE7 NOT have the same problem.

Of course, Google Chrome does not support ActiveX, so here we are going back to IE7.

Visual Basic Express 2008

Due to the virus (see last two postings), I had to download VS and install again. Due to potential inavailabilty and my lack of desire to search past the obvious, I downloaded and installed Visual Basic Express Edition 2008 instead of 2005. Project conversion went rather seamless - no issues. Environment looks the same. It appears to be a rather friendly version change.

I am sure that some Microsoft developer would vomit reading this as there invariably are plenty of major changes under the hood. We will see when I find them....

Perceived Death of a Thumb Drive

I purchased a 4GB USB thumb drive two days ago. Working fine on both PCs (the corrupt one - see prior post and the backup).

Suddenly, neither computer can access it. Windows provides a drive letter, but when you try to open it, you get a "Insert disk into Drive E" message.

I formatted it in Computer Management--> Disk Management area, and voila! it works now.

I made the mistake of leaving it in the USB port while reformatting my C drive due to Windows installation. Perhaps the sequence through Windows (I wiped all partitions - perhaps the system saw this one) or the constant restarts. At any rate, at least it works now.

Disappearing Network Connections - XP Pro

I was working on my laptop and poof! all of my network adapters and network connections suddenly disappear. VPN adapter, USB to Ethernet adapter (docking station), NIC, Wi-fi, all Deterministic Network Enhancers, etc. Gone.

I do the classic warm and cold restart. No change.

I try to "create" a network connection. No option.

Follow Window's suggestion: uninstall driver, allow PnP to detect device, and reinstall. Can't uninstall drivers due to the system 'needing them to start up' (no they don't - a VPN software adapter to start? Never.)

I do a Windows XP repair installation. The only change is that I can now uninstall the driver, but the reinstall process proclaims a driver INF problem.

I download new drivers from Dell. Run through installation. "Problem installing new drivers." Right.

Search for this peculiar error on forums. Find that there is an MSDN article on the needed steps to have networking in XP. Go through various services (find that some are stopped), start them. No change. Article suggests to verify that "Simple TCP/IP Services" are installed in Windows Components. They are not. Try to install. Error.

I search the forums. Similar issue. Try sfc /scannow. Try an "Upgrade" Installation of XP. No change.

Alas, I had to reformat the entire drive. Per the forums, this is caused by a virus. Ironically, this disappearance of the connectivity occured while the AV was scanning.....

Forum posting here: http://forums.devshed.com/windows-help-34/network-card-won-t-install-due-to-internal-error-505183-2.html

Issues with IsDBNull and MySQL Varchar Fields

This one is bizarre - I am not sure if the issue lies in with the .NET framework or MySQL.

Opening a DataReader on an Odbc connection type in VB.NET allows for the verification of null fields with the .IsDBNull function. However, in one instance, I was absolutely certain that a MySQL field was null (I had just created it), yet I kept getting a .NET error in the program when I tried to verify the null status. I checked and checked and tried many different things. I was using a VARCHAR(45) field and I noticed that most of the DB fields used were VARCHAR(250). Hence, I took a shot in the dark and changed the field to VARCHAR(250). The problems went away.

I still am not sure if this is a .NET or a MySQL error, but it was frustrating and bizarre to say the least.

Connecting to a SQL Database from Excel

First of all - WHY would anyone download data directly from a SQL database into an Excel spreadsheet on an automated basis? The simple fact that I am writing this indicates that someone needed it....but I think the idea is just silly.

1.: Create the necessary trigger (button) and double-click in design mode to start entering code.

2. Paste the following code into the beginning of the sub routine.
Dim dbs As Database
Dim rs As Recordset
Dim vtSql As String
Dim numberOfRows As Integer
ThisWorkbook.Activate

3. In my case, I read from the data in rows A12 through A30 and fed this into the SQL statement
''Open the database
For i = 12 To 30
'Get value from user
a = Me.Range("A" & i, "A" & i).Value
'If value is blank, skip processing
If a = "" Then GoTo 100
'All the fun database stuff
Set dbs = OpenDatabase("ENTER NAME OF OBDC DATA SOURCE NAME HERE", False, True, "ODBC;Regional=Yes")vtSql = "ENTER SQL STATEMENT HERE"
Set rs = dbs.OpenRecordset(vtSql)
'Drop data back onto the spreadsheet
Me.Range("B" & i).CopyFromRecordset rs
dbs.Close
Set dbs = Nothing
Set rs = Nothing
100
Next i