Visual Basic's Basics #1

The target audience for this blog is not computer experts, but normal 21st century office works that use computers for their day to day needs, and are looking to increase their productivity through automation. I’m not an expert myself, so what I write may not be the most accurate or efficient way to do things. I just want it to work, and that’s you want too. So, on to the lesson.

Convert Table To List

This is a code I wrote to convert a table (values and headers) to a list, so it can easily be manipulated using pivot tables or loaded intro a database. I posted this two years ago on the excellent Ozgrid Forums, so it makes sense I share it here too. It was tested on Excel 2003, but it should work in 2007/2010. Let me know if it doesn't.

Random Task in Outlook

So maybe you have 20 minutes available and you want to do something, but you're not sure what. Or you have a tendency to delay the tasks you don't like to do. I find that leaving some decisions to luck is sometimes the best solution.

This VBA code will make Outlook select a random task from you to-do list, and then based on your feedback give you positive or negative reinforcements. In this case, if you do the task it shows a simple message and marks the task as complete, while not doing it displays a random post from Fail Blog. It was tested with Outlook 2010, but should work with any Outlook version that supports RSS feeds.

Please note that I will not be held responsible for any loss of productivity as a result of navigating Fail Blog!