The only thing better than having your users hold you accountable is driving your bugs to closure, no matter how long it takes.

In addition, I’ve thrown in some public speaking tips from doing TechEd conferences.

Now that I’ve been on the Mac PowerPoint team for 6 months, I wanted to take some time between work and grad school to blog about some very useful tips and features I didn’t know existed in PowerPoint until I joined the team.

Tips contained in this post:

• The 5 rules presentation - aka, “wow, you can do that in PPT?! animations”
• How to Convert SmartArt to Shapes to get the level of customization you need
• Presenter View – never have to remember which slide comes next in your presentation
• Slide Carousel – never again exit Slide Show to jump to the slide you want
• Shift+F5 - The One Start Slide Show Keyboard Shortcut to Rule them all (unless you don’t know about Ctrl+Shift+C – if not, search for this tip in this post right now and come back. Seriously, go now.)
• ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘W’ key presses in Slide Show
• Templates vs Themes – when to use which (and a brief intro to Slide Masters)
• How to create keyboard shortcuts for Mac PPT menu commands

In the future, I’ll break these posts into smaller, more consumable posts. But to shake off all the dust on my MSDN Blog, I wanted to start with a big post that I’m back. 

“The 5 Rules” presentation (Mac)

If you haven’t seen the “5 rules” presentation yet on Mac PowerPoint, stop reading this blog post and check it out right now. (yes, I said that earlier about copy-formatting, but I didn’t steer you wrong, did I :)  If you are a public speaker looking for something besides the standard bullet-point animation “fade-in,” this presentation will give you lots of ideas.

I discovered this “5-rules” presentation while preparing for my interview with the Mac PowerPoint team. I had no idea this was possible in PowerPoint. All those years doing talks with “pretty background picture with large text” or “have bullet points fade in line by line” I could have done something with real animations. It was at that moment that I knew I wanted to join this team. (That, and the chance to take on Edward Tuff :)

You’ll find the “5 rules” on the PowerPoint Presentation Gallery window that appears when you launch Mac PowerPoint under Templates – Guided Methods – Five Rules.

Convert Smart Art to Shapes (Windows and Mac)

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve started using a SmartArt object, only to delete it and recreate it using individual shapes because I wanted more customizations or to use the SmartArt object as a starting point for something more elaborate.

For example, in the SmartArt object below, I want to keep the balance scale, but remove the gray “header” boxes (which I can’t do because it is part of the SmartArt).

Instead of recreating this by hand, you can use SmartArt – Reset – Convert – Convert to Shapes.

Now I get the individuals shapes and can now delete the “Regeneration” title boxes. And in Matt’s defense, he’s had a tough couple of acts to follow.

Presenter View (Windows and Mac)

Oh Presenter View, why am I just finding out about you now?

Okay, to my Windows people, yes, I know Windows PPT has presenter view, but…. for Windows PPT 2010 (during my day public speaking), it only worked for me when it was connected to an external monitor. Why is this a big deal?

<digressing>

Public speaking, especially giving technical demos, isn’t about getting the talk right. IMHO, it is about how to recover when things fail, because they will fail. It’s Murphy’s Law at its truest form. Software knows when you’re in front of your first 200+ audience at your first international conference (Ctrl+c stopped working in Visual Studio – seriously, in my 10,000+ hours of testing VS, that was the first and only time Ctrl+c stopped working.) Software knows when it is 7:15am you’re about to present to an audience of 2500+ and you get the Windows Temporary Roaming profile 3 reboots in a row (I got my real profile back on the 4^th reboot right as I started to ask if anyone happened to have VS 2010 Beta 1 installed on their personal laptops.) My risk mitigation technique for public speaking is to practice again and again and again and again to figure out all the subtle little things that will go wrong (e.g. your finger slips and hit the wrong key or you move the mouse just far enough to open Outlook instead of IE while connected to a projector). I will only practice in the exact conditions my laptop will be in when I’m on stage. Software knows when you’re trying something new and Murphy’s Law will get you for it.

</digressing>

And that’s why I loved the Mac PowerPoint Presenter View’s approach. It is allowing me to practice in the exact condition I’m going to be in while presenting on stage.

The Rehearse feature is useful when you need to know how much time you are spending on each slide. If you choose to save the time, you can see where you are spending your time (versus where you think you are spending your time. Always an eye-opener.)

Since I will only present in the exact environment that I practice in (I even use the same Fossil-style watch in the same location next to my laptop as my official timer – ask me sometime about my other speaker rituals, like listening to Silversun Pickup’s Lazy Eye), because Presenter View doesn’t have the “Current Slide” timer, it makes me nervous to practice with Rehearse mode in fear I’ll develop some habit to rely upon the Current Slide timer. But your mileage will vary, so you should definitely give it a try.

And lastly, if you don’t want Presenter View (maybe you’re at a Trade Show booth wanting to show 2 screens), just select Mirror Show on the Slide Show Ribbon tab.

Slide Carousel (Mac)

Another great feature of Presenter View (besides Presenter View itself just being in existence) is the Slide Carousel.

How many times have we as a society sat through a PowerPoint presentation where we’ve watched the speaker exit out of slide show just to jump to another slide. And as they exit out of slide show, we all dart our eyes to the far bottom corner to see the slide number count to tell how much longer the talk will run. Then the speaker begins the “hunt and peck” game trying to find that slide.

Although this might help the “hunt and peck” game, the biggest win (IMO) for the Slide Carousel is that it keeps the audience from seeing “behind the scenes,” especially when an hour has gone by and the speaker is only on slide 10 of 100.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

In Presenter View, just mouse down to the bottom to bring up the Carousel. Then select the appropriate slide, without missing a beat with your audience.

Shift+F5 (Windows and Mac)

Just commit to memory Shift+F5 (start from current slide). You’ll never have to worry about having to find which slide you were on ever again if you ever have to restart slide show. This is especially useful if you’re doing a lot of demos outside of PowerPoint.

Shift+F5. Always Shift+F5.

And on the Mac, Cmd+Return will also start from current slide, if that’s easier to memorize than Shift+F5.

Press 'A' to hide pointer. Press 'B' or 'W' to toggle black/white (Windows and Mac)

I learned about ‘B’ and ‘W’ from a professor in grad school who uses it as a technique for capturing the class’s attention when he wants to ask a question or do a quiz on short-term memory (it was a psych course.)

I really like ‘A.’ When I’m in the audience, there’s something about seeing the pointer that is distracting. A pointer screams “PAY ATTENTION TO ME AND NOT THE SPEAKER!” The pointer goes away within 10 seconds, but being able to immediately get rid of it provides just a little extra attention to detail that can give a speaker an edge (even if a subconscious edge).

Templates vs Themes (Windows and Mac)

tl;dr: Themes are for changing the style of existing content. Templates can contain content, themes, transitions, animations, slide layouts, etc. and are used for creating from scratch.

If I could go back in time and tell myself two things about PPT, it would be 1. the 5-rules animation abilities and 2. to stop being lazy and create my own personal template. (Aside: isn’t it amazing how often in software we feel that to be more productive, we have to do the physical actions faster, instead of giving a new way of working a try?)

If you’ve done a lot of talks like me, you probably have your one main PowerPoint deck that you copy/paste from to create a new presentation. I did this my entire life. But now that I’ve learned how to use themes and templates, I could have saved myself a lot of time.

First, some definitions and relationships: Themes and Templates.

Themes contain

• Colors
• Fonts
• Effects
• Backgrounds
• Slide Layouts
• Where placeholder content is place
• the number of slide layouts in the Slide Master (e.g. the slide layout options you see under Add Slide)

I think of a theme as “anything that affects content, but doesn’t change content.”

ProTip: And BTW, if you don’t know the shortcut “Ctrl+Shift+C/Ctrl+Shift+V” (or Cmd+Shift+C/Cmd+Shift+V on Mac) to apply formatting, learn it now! It will change your life. (note for Mac PPT you need to copy/paste formatting at the shape level (i.e. select the shape, not the individual text within the shape), but in Mac Word and Mac Outlook it works like on Windows.)

Now Templates contain

• Content (e.g. you’ve entered your name as the author on the title slide)
• 1 or more Themes
• Transitions
• Animations

What do I mean by “1 or more Themes?” The best way I can explain it is by showing it. In the example below, I started with a New Presentation using the Office Default template (the defaults). Then I applied a theme to slides 2 and 3, another theme to slides 4 and 5, and lastly a final theme to slide 1.

(Note: it looks like if you want to apply an additional theme, you have to do it to 2 or more slides, you can’t apply it to just one; otherwise, applying a theme to just one slide selected will apply the theme to all slides that share that theme. In my example below, since there was only one slide remaining when I applied the 3^rd theme to slide #1, only that one slide was changed. If I had applied the theme to just slide #1 selected, all the slides would have the theme from slide #1. Honestly, it’s pretty straight forward once you give it a try.)

Saving this PowerPoint design as a template File – Save, Format: PowerPoint Template .potx means all 3 themes are saved in the template.

And just to prove all 3 themes are saved, you can go to File – New from Template, and under My Templates, you’ll see the new template (see below).

Now when I create this presentation, I get

And now you know what I mean by “1 or more themes” are saved in a template.

BTW, every time you create a new PPT presentation, you are already using a template. It is called the default “Office Theme” template. Therefore, every PPT file includes 1 template and at least 1 theme. From a developer’s point of view (since everyone still reading my blog is a developer), all of the template and theme info comes from the file and not some default theme saved within the PPT application itself.

When to use a template vs theme?

To summarize the above, a .potx (template) is used to create from new, whereas a theme is used to “apply” a style to existing content.

Now back to my Doctor Who and Delorean time-traveling obsessions… here’s what I wished I could go back in time and tell myself 3 years ago:

1. Use a Theme instead of copy/pasting my favorite presentation file
2. Create a template for those wanting to create their own CodePlex talks

#1 - Use a Theme instead of reusing my favorite presentation file

Open your main PowerPoint presentation (the one you derive all your talks from) and create a theme out of it (found at Themes – Save Theme).

The next time you need to create a new presentation, simply do File – New, and then apply your new theme from the Theme ribbon.

To save even more time in the future, just select it to be the new Default theme, as shown below.

If you are like me and you use a certain style for your slides, like the “big picture / little text” approach, you can modify the Slide Master (which was the first thing I learned about joining the team.)

The Slide Master is found on the App Menu under View – Master – Slide Master

Now you’ll enter a mode where any of your changes are occurring to the Slide Master. Don’t worry about Slide Masters too much right now, I’ll cover this in a future post.

For this example, just delete the slide layouts you never use. For demo purposes, I’ll leave just 3 slide layouts.

Now go to Themes – Save Themes, and give the theme a meaningful name.

Close the Slide Master to go back into the “real” design mode.

Now under Add Slide, you’ll see just those two slides.

You might be wondering, “can I accidentally overwrite my default themes?” As long as you stay within “My Themes” folder (in other words, don’t overwrite the default themes installed on disk when you install Mac PPT), you should feel pretty good trying things out.

And just in case you need to revert your actions, you can select Themes – Save Theme – Reset Default to White Theme as shown.

#2 - Create a template for people wanting to create their own CodePlex talks

Back in the day, I had a “CodePlex in a Box” presentation for anyone wanting to do their own CodePlex talk (e.g. some people wanted to talk about the site whereas others wanted to talk about their projects hosted on the site). For these presentations, I wanted speakers to derive their talks from my base presentation, where they could pick and choose what info they wanted to include. The idea was to avoid everyone having to start from scratch.

Instead of having my own personal talk and sharing out that file with a ton of speaker notes, I should have used a template. Recall a template is where you want to create from new.

The template could have contained all the “must-have” slides with the content on how to talk about the site, some “hidden slides,” any animations or transitions I wanted to suggest using, and then all the benefits of using a theme. (I was going to say “a (green) theme” but the site has moved on ;-)

And lastly, since it is a template, the speakers are forced to give the new presentation its own filename, instead of replacing my generic file name.

Dynamic Reordering

I work with a lot of objects in my slides. And when they overlap, I usually just use “bring to front” or “bring to back.” I don’t have the patience to hit “bring forward” or “bring backward” until I get the effect I want.

Another “ooh, that’s cool.” moment was finding this feature.

Go to Home Ribbon tab – Arrange – Reorder objects, and now you can manipulate the objects in their z-order.

How to create keyboard shortcuts for Mac PPT menu commands

What sort of blog post would this be from me if I didn’t mention how to modify keyboard shortcuts?!

Let’s say you wanted to bind the Custom Animation window to a keyboard shortcut. Since it appears under View – Toolbox – Custom Animation, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to it.

Go to the Keyboard panel in System Preferences. Select Application Shortcuts, and at the bottom of the list view, click the + button.

In the dialog box, under Application: choose Other… and select Microsoft Office 2011 – Microsoft PowerPoint.app

Next, type in the menu title: Custom Animation

And lastly, give it a keyboard shortcut. I’ll have to find a new one now that my favorite Visual Studio demo keybinding Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T is no longer applicable.

Now in Keyboard settings, you’ll see the new Keyboard Shortcut applied.

And now checking out the View menu on the App Menu bar we see the keyboard shortcut is now good to go.

Thanks for reading this far!

Wow, thanks for hanging in there and reading this far! You must really like Mac PowerPoint and that’s super-cool (only for this blog post am I applying the MSFT “super-“ prefix.)

I have a few other features to blog about, but I’ve been told many times my blog posts are not posts, but rather dissertations. Funny now that I’m in grad school, I’ll probably write a blog post for a Masters thesis.

I started drafting this blog post in Mac Word, and the doc length is now 17 pages. I think I should stop now.

I hope I’ve stuck the right balance between Mac PPT, some Windows PPT features, and some general tips and tricks for public speaking. Let me know in the comments what’s working, what isn’t working, what you want me to blog more about.

Thanks!

My game plan for my post-Microsoft/Seattle life was to attend graduate school full-time for a Masters in Human Factors (User Experience) at San Jose State while I trained for my 3^rd degree black belt with my grand master and get serious about triathlons and long-distance cycling. But life always seems to happen to me whenever I make plans.

After the injury, a close friend (a fellow karateka from Seattle) gave me some advice, “If you could do anything, what would you do?” And my first honest thought was, “I wanted to get back to working on great products again. I want to help people become more productive as possible using those products. I want to do another Tip of the Day series. I want to write more books and do more community activities.” As I looked around the Bay area, I began to realize more and more that Microsoft gave me the opportunities that I wanted back. It was amazing how much I took for granted as a college hire to MSFT. And more importantly, I learned why all non-MSFTies ask “What’s a Program Manager?”

This summer, a PM position opened up on the Mac PowerPoint team, ironically down the hall from my last MSFT office (I seriously can’t make this stuff up). In a way, my career has moved naturally from F5 to build (in Visual Studio) to a “PM F5” to start Slide Show :)  But more importantly, in an internal farewell post to the Microsoft bloggers, I said, “If someone were to do a tip of the day for Windows or Office, you could change the world.” Little did I know I would be inspiring myself. And yes, I’m still in grad school for a Masters in UX (Human Factors) at San Jose State – If Jeff Atwood has it on his blog tagline, you know it is worth getting a Masters in.

Long-time readers of this blog know how much Karate meant to me, so I hope to find something else to fill that void (maybe Iaido if my wrists aren’t too tight from all the years of typing, or rock climbing provided I can overcome my fear of heights). New readers will be wondering, “Why are you sharing this?” They should read about my phobia of plants. Seriously, I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve (i.e. to be as human as possible on this blog) as a Microsoft employee - hands-down my favorite opportunity at Microsoft. And I don’t see any reason to change that now.

Here’s hoping I can hit another blogging home run with Mac PowerPoint. For my next blog post, I plan to follow what I did for Visual Studio: to blog about the best features I never knew about PowerPoint until I joined the team.

Here we go!

I’ve been extremely fortunate in my career at Microsoft to work with such smart, passionate folks. As a college hire from Mississippi State, I feel it is important to play what I’ve learned forward. I recently spoke at the New Mexico Regional Grace Hopper Women in Tech conference on “How Microsoft Builds Software”, in hopes of inspiring young women to have awesome careers of their own.

As a final blog post here, I thought I’d share some of my favorite blogging memories:

• Bloggers, The Movie, although I think I look much more like Sara Gilbert
• My blog reader who cashed out his FSA to buy medical supplies for my hometown after Hurricane Katrina. I’ll never forget meeting him in the “kid drop off” section of building 41, as he unloaded eight plastic grocery bags of first aid supplies. Thank you. (The supplies were gone in hours.)
• Mini – need I say more ;-)
• The day the Starbucks iCup was installed in building 41. For 3 days, we were the most productive people on the planet. TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.
• The public outcry on blogs.msdn.com when our towels were taken away, and how Lisa became our hero when they were brought back.
• The day Windows Live Writer came out.
• How we all went Halo 2 blogging crazy, and how some of us tried to camp at the Company Store to get in line before the queue wrapped the building.
• The day I actually got to use my French minor to figure out which “Did you know” phrase I used in my head during the VS Tip of the Day series.
• The day I saw the Visual Studio ad on SciFi.com – “Cylons: Why Debugging Matters.” I’ve never been more proud.

To my colleagues at Microsoft: Be transparent! Incorporate community feedback! Make great products! And keep on blogging!

As for me, I’ve had the opportunity of my dreams come along that I got to pursue. But first, I’m going to take a short break to get some much needed cycling in.

You can stay tuned to my adventures at

Blog: http://saraford.net

Twitter: @saraford

LinkedIn: Sara Ford

See you soon! Or to quote Lost, “See you in another life, brotha!”

Raffle prizes include:

• Windows phone 7 device
• Halo Reach Xbox bundle
• Zune HD 32G
• And more! (I would share what “more” is, but I’ll find out when you all do. =D

Attend either day or both days!  Note that Day 2 is all Hands-on Labs, and no presentations. More information about each day below.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mountain View, CA | Microsoft Silicon Valley Office | October 12 - 13, 2010

• Day 1: Jump-Start
• Day 2: Workshop

San Francisco, CA | San Francisco Design Center | October 20 - 21, 2010

• Day 1: Jump-Start
• Day 2: Workshop

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Day 1: Jump-Start Your Mobile Development | 8:30am - 5:15pm
In the first of this two-day launch event, we'll take you under the hood of Windows Phone 7 and the Windows Phone 7 platform with a progressive set of learning sessions. We'll start with the basic tools and fundamentals of Windows Phone 7 application development and as the day unfolds, we'll go deeper into development scenarios using Silverlight, XNA and the Windows Phone 7 SDK. You'll also see how to earn cash for your apps in the fully loaded Marketplace.

Day 2: Unleash Your Best App Workshop | 9:00am - 4:00pm
This hands-on workshop is designed to help you turn those napkin sketches and subway scribbles into real, sellable apps. You'll apply fundamental Windows Phone 7 design principles to build an app and upload it to the fully revamped Marketplace. Go at your own pace or follow along with a proctored group lab. Either way, you'll get step-by-step advice from Microsoft and community experts. It's an unprecedented opportunity to stake your claim in the marketplace – using familiar tools and consistent specs.

Cheers!

I’m with Team in Training, a non-profit organization that raises money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (blood cancer research). You fundraise for “TnT” and in return they train you for your event, whether it’s a triathlon, a marathon, or a century bike ride. They also handle event registration and logistics for you. It’s been a perfect experience for me.

Triathlon selection

I started off training for a half-Ironman (1.2 mile swim, a 50 mile bike ride, and a 13 mile run), but a 5-minute run in my Vibrams gave me some tendonitis in my ankle. Yes, i had been taking it slow, wearing the Vibrams for nearly 3 months before trying to run. And yes, they were a proper fit. I had been through 4 different sizes. Nothing is that good to be true, so if you have low arches, I highly suggest avoiding Vibrams. Additionally, I heard there was an open water swim cut-off for the half-ironman, which freaked me out. I could just imagine me fighting the people on the beach or on a boat trying to pull me out of the water if i didn’t make the cut-off. Luckily, I was able to downgrade my tri to an Olympic size one in time. Baby steps.

I’m doing Marin County Triathlon on Halloween (can’t wait to see the costumes). It’s an Olympic distance of .9 mile swim, a 22 mile bike ride, and a 6.2 mile run (10k). I *love* cycling, and before the Vibram incident I could easily run 3 miles. But the swimming! Shudders.

The training

The TnT folks on the tri team get together twice a week to train with the various coaches. This group has 5 coaches, most are specialized per activity. It’s cool to hear stories of the coaches starting off with TnT years ago doing their first tri as a participant and working their way up. It’s been very inspiring to me.

You also get assigned a mentor, who in my case, keeps me from quitting when I get frustrated in the swimming pool or from my latest injury. The participant to mentor ratio is really low (at least in this group), making you feel like someone truly has your back.

And lastly, they give you a static schedule to follow. I think the most important part of any exercise program or training schedule is knowing how to listen to your body, and knowing when to push through and when to throttle back. Given my never ending list of injuries, i’m constantly working on this! The other challenge is making sure you get your workouts in. You have to train 6 days a week, since you’re training for 3 different sports.

The biggest satisfaction I’ve gotten out of TnT is having run coaches evaluate my running technique and tell me what i’m doing wrong. My shin splints went away almost overnight just from correcting my technique. I was really impressed how much knowledge the coaches have. Also, being new to the area, they have been a great source for local recommendations.

You even also get your own paparazzi who take awesome photos of you training. Nothing better than folks taking pictures of you from a car, as the other vehicles start asking each other “are they famous people?” Epic!

The swimming

Last week was my first open water swim. I was terrified. I’ve never been in a wet suit before, so i’m expecting the water to be ice cold compared to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not the open water that scares me. I used to sail as a kid. What scares me is cold water.

I stare at the lake and finally put my toe in the water. My immediate reaction is “Oh, it isn’t that bad.” I slowly walk into the water feeling the cooler temperatures permeate through the wetsuit. I’m told to open my suit a little to let the water into my chest to help get adjusted to the water. It’s a little shocking but again not that bad. I’m just grateful i’m starting off in a lake instead of The Bay.

The last step is to go underwater. No big deal. I’ve only been practicing my breathing techniques in the swimming pool for months. I sink down and I realize to my surprise I can barely get my head underwater, the wetsuit is that buoyant. I jump up and try to cannonball into the water to get fully summered.

Next, I realize I can just “sit” in the water. I’m that buoyant with this “human body life jacket”. I scream “This is AWESOME!” and take off swimming. I had a blast and didn’t want to get out of the water at the end.

I thought of Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, in the episode about the Great Dane that was terrified of the swimming pool. Once Cesar finally gets the Dane into the pool after 10 minutes, the Dane discovers he likes swimming (as illustrated by the Dane’s future willingness to jump into the pool). Cesar tells the family, “10 minutes of fear versus a lifetime of fear.” This was so true in my case of the open water swim I couldn’t stop laughing at myself.

The fundraising

The first thing anyone who has done TnT before asks me, “Send me your fundraising link! I’ll help you out.” So, if you fall into this category, here’s my fundraising page.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/silvertr10/sfordr

If your employer matches donations to non-profits, contact me and i’ll send you the instructions to request a match. If you’re a Microsoftie, I’ll send you the step-by-literal-step instructions.

I’m doing a well-known bike loop in the area, when I realize I’ve made a wrong turn. I stop and check where I am on the “Maps” app. Sure enough, I’m at the exact center of the loop. Not half way around the loop, but directly bullseye. Only me.

I use this time to refuel (Gu gel, Heed sports drink) when I hear a very disturbing noise from the woods across the street. I’m in a rural area with very few cars and houses, so it’s not surprising there’s wildlife so close to roads. But whatever this thing is, it’s big and moving closer to the road.

Having lived in Seattle for a while, I worry it’s a cougar, a small mountain lion that attacks people if they feel threatened. You’ll hear stories on the local Seattle news of hikers or runners who have disappeared on trails, and a lot of the time the authorities suspect a mountain lion or some other wildlife.

I immediately consider running for it, since I have my bike. But, I’m surrounded by small hills, so I quickly abandoned the idea of a quick getaway.

The noise is very loud, moving very fast, and is headed straight for me.

Seattle hiker advisories say “If a mountain lion attacks, fight back aggressively.” I pick up my road bike. I’m betting the bike is going to be lightweight enough to use as a weapon. It’s not like I have anything else to bet on. Whatever this creature, mountain lion, ManBearPig is, it might get me at the end, but I’ll make sure it limps away very injured.

The noise explodes. The creature emerges. It looks me directly in the eyes.

I drop my bicycle in relief. It’s just a deer.

Trying not to shake too badly from the adrenaline rush, and not to mention the Gu gel w/ caffeine, I grab my Windows Phone and start taking photos. I unlock the phone and press the “Camera” button on the side to load the camera. Then I press the Camera button a few more times to grab some photos. This is my first time taking pictures with the Windows Phone at the drop of a dime. I have to say compared to my previous BlackJack, I was happily surprised I was able to capture this vicious creature and it’s squadron.

There were 4 deers total, hence why the creature sounded huge and ferocious in the woods.

Can’t wait to see what adventure my Windows Phone brings me next time!

Today’s post comes from Guest Blogger Erik Ejlskov Jensen, SQL Server Compact MVP, @ErikEJ

Toolbox for SQL Server Compact developers

If you use SQL Server Compact, Microsoft’s embedded database for devices, desktops and soon ASP.NET, this extension is for you.

It adds several features not found in Server Explorer Data Connections:

• Support for both version 3.5 and 4.0 database files
• Script tables, including data
• Script entire schema, optionally with data, both of SQL Server Compact and SQL Server 2005 or later databases
• Import to SQL Server Compact from a SQL Server 2005/2008 database or a CSV file
• Basic, free form query execution, with Excel friendly output
• Parse SQL scripts
• Display graphical estimated query plan
• Generate detailed DGML files for visualizing table columns and relationships (requires VS 2010 Premium or higher to view)
• Create and manage SQL Server Merge Replication subscriptions

To install

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/0e313dfd-be80-4afb-b5e9-6e74d369f7a1

To use

To start using the add-in, go to Tools, and select SQL Server Compact Toolbox:

The add-in will list any version 3.5 database connections, which you have defined in Server Explorer. For 4.0 (which is currently not supported in Server Explorer, but will be so in VS 2010 SP1), you can add a connection from the context menu (or even create an empty 4.0 database file):

To refresh the listed connections, click the refresh button on the add-in toolbar.

Scripting an entire database

To create a SQL script file with all object definitions and data in your SQL Server Compact database (for documentation, backup or migration use), select “Script database schema and data” from the context menu:

Viewing estimated execution plan

To find out if you are missing indexes in your database, you can examine the graphical estimated query plan.

With the SQL editor open, press Estimated Plan:

It looks like an index is used here, which is a “good thing”.

Displaying a graphical view of your database

From the database context menu, select “Create Database Graph (DGML)”

This will allow you to explore an interactive graph of your database tables, relationships, and columns:

More information

You can submit feedback/patches, request features and browse/download the source code at the CodePlex site: http://sqlcetoolbox.codeplex.com – and keep up to date with the latest SQL Server Compact news on my blog: Everything SQL Server Compact

Have you written an extension? Want to see it featured here? Let me know!

I thought it would be fun to share a few blogging statistics:

• This is my 980th post on blogs.msdn.com/saraford
• As of this writing, ya’ll have left 5504 comments on this blog
• I have been blogging as a Microsoft employee for nearly 1/4 of my life
• My most commented blog post (where I wasn’t asking for feedback) is on Guidelines – a hidden feature for Visual Studio
• My most commented blog post that was not software-related is <spoilers>My thoughts on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower VII – This article contains Spoilers!</spoilers>
• My most viewed blog post of all time is Automation Testing versus Manual Testing Guidelines
• And last but not least, my very first blog post 7 years ago was Testing for Accessibility: Keyboard, High Contrast, and Assistive Technology Compatibility.

It’s tradition to recap the teams you’ve worked on over the years…

• QA on the Environment SDK (also known as VSIP, VS SDK, VS Extensions). The first feature I ever tested was “devenv.eve /safemode”
• Learned how to do Accessibility Testing – worked without a monitor for 3 months (seriously, I listened to a screen reader) when i first joined Microsoft
• QA on the Profiles feature (Tools – Import / Export Settings) – my first feature I worked on from design to launch
• QA on the Extensibility team (add-ins, macros, recording macro).
• QA on the Core IDE team (Window Management)
• Started blogging here in October of 2003 (content was moved a few months later here)
• Drove the Accessibility Effort for Visual Studio 2005
• Assisted driving the User Experience Consistency Effort for Visual Studio 2005
• QA on the Editor team (core Editor functionality)
• QA on the Project / Solutions team, completing a tour of all the Visual Studio feature areas (okay, okay, i didn’t own Help, but i helped analyze test case failures when those owners were out of office)
• Program Manager on the Developer Solutions (aka Power Toys) team, releasing 3 of the first 28 projects on CodePlex.com when the site went public back in 2006.
• Kicked off the Visual Studio Tip of the Day series
• As a hobby, I assisted teams within Visual Studio in releasing to CodePlex by authoring a framework for what sorts of releases go where and how to get them to the outside world.  Even received a ThinkWeek review by Bill Gates.
• Program Manager for CodePlex.com. First got my CodePlex.com account back in early 2006. Joined as PM when site had 2800 projects.
• Achieved 4 of my childhood dreams: Rode on a Mardi Gras float, Held a Koala, Got To Be In That Number When the Saints Went Marching In!, and got my 2nd degree black belt. Only 2 dreams left to go: Buy a DeLorean and Do an Ironman.
• Achieved 2 of my professional dreams; Wrote my first book and started a college scholarship for folks back home; Got to be in a TechEd Keynote (in Australia)
• Overcame 1 of my biggest nightmares: Jumping from a Tall Building
• Left CodePlex.com after watching 10,000 Open Source Projects get created as the Program Manager
• Finally moved to California after 81 months without seeing the Sun. No joke! 9 months of gray * 9 years = 81 months.
• Now a Developer Evangelist for Silicon Valley who can demo 101 Visual Studio features in exactly 55 minutes ;-)

It’s also tradition to bring in a pound of M&Ms for each year at MSFT. Since my team is scattered across the west coast, I’ll bring my 9 pounds of M&Ms to SuperHappyDevHouse on Saturday.

Thanks everyone for a fantastic 9 years!

I’ve given many talks on Visual Studio, and one of the most popular questions is about controlling when Solution Explorer syncs to the current item. This extension is the best one I’ve seen in providing this functionality.

To Install

You can find the Solution Explorer Tools extension at http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef4ac3e9-d056-4383-8ca2-11721bd879b4

To Use

First, you must disable the “Track Active Item in Solution Explorer” in Tools – Options – Projects and Solutions – General page.

Now the fun can begin.

On the Solution Explorer, you’ll see 3 new icons.

Starting right from left:

1. Sync Item – sync’s the Solution Explorer to whatever document is open (or the last active item if a tool window is in the file tab channel).
2. Collapse All – recursively collapses everything in the solution explorer
3. Collapse to Item – this combines the previous commands. This will sync to the currently opened item and collapse everything else.

You can also bind keyboard shortcuts to each of these commands via the Tools – Options – Keyboard page:

• Project.SyncItem
• Project.CollapseItem
• Project.CollapseToItem

Some keyboard shortcut suggestions are to bind Project.CollapseToItem to Ctrl+Alt+semicolon, since it is right next to the Ctrl+Alt+L keystroke that opens the Solution Explorer. If you really like this feature and want it on all the time, you could bind it to Ctrl+Alt+L, overriding the standard Open Solution Explorer commands, so the Solution Explorer will always open and collapse to the current item.

Just double-check what your keyboard shortcuts are bound to, as your settings may be different than mine.

More information

Check out the extension’s gallery page at http://tinyurl.com/solexp