News!

64 bit VBA

In my last post, VBA Version 7  Daniel, author of Daniel’s XL Toolbox, commented that he had not come across anything untoward with the “new!” version of VBA, and reported, so far, all is well with his addin – good news! Then JP from Code For Excel & Outlook, pointed to a  VBA Compatibility tool (tool, info) from MS – thanks JP, I think this is called team work! ;-)

Anyway, I believe the major update might be support of 64 bit types in VBA?  I’m not running a 64 bit OS to test, but I found this:

Excel 2010 can load much larger workbooks. Excel 2010 made updates to use 64-bit memory addressing in order to move beyond the 2-GB addressable memory boundary that limits 32-bit applications.

The down side of this is:

Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)   VBA code that uses the Declare statement to access the Windows application programming interface (API) or other DLL entry points will see differences between 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The Declare statement must be updated with the PtrSafe attribute after inputs and outputs to the API have been reviewed and updated. Declare statements will not work in 64-bit VBA without the PtrSafe attribute. New data types are added to 64-bit Office 2010 VBA: LongLong and LongPtr. For more information about VBA, see the “64-bit VBA Overview” and “Declare Statement” articles in the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications online Help in Office applications.

So if your using API calls in you VBA, and you hit a 64 bit versions, you could be about to hit some issue. Doesn’t sound like the fix will be to hard though, but we’ll wait and see eh!

Bonus thought: Does this mean the C API has been updated too?

The MIE Podcasts – Now on iTunes, and other ways to listen…

There are a few ways to listen to the MIE podcasts.

Right here on the blog, via your browser, just use the built in player that’s displayed whenever a podcasts posted.

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Download it. Right under the player there will always be a link that can be used to download the podcast directly, then you can listen to it however you like!

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Get it in iTunes. Apples don’t make it easy, and the store is a bit slow to update, but it’s there if you want an easy way to get it onto your iPod etc. (Tip: search for “The Methods In Excel Podcasts”)

iTune MIE Poscats

Get it in Google. Use the RSS feed for the podcasts (http://www.blog.methodsinexcel.co.uk/feed/podcast/) and add it to you RSS reader, if your using Google  reader  you get a nice little player there too.

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Of course if you’re cool like me, then you’ll have Aandriod phone in which case you can add the RSS URL to Listener.

Office User Group.

Clearly having more spare time on his hand than me (or maybe he’s just not as lazy and bad at writing!) Simon has written up an excellent review of the UK OUG in Reading:

Just like Simon I really enjoyed the event. All the speakers came across really well, and the presentations where excellent.

Personally I found the Visio one a real eye opener and I can really see me using this product in the future. I am still far from sold on Grove and I think like a lot of other people InfoPath is a solution for a problem that does not exist. (I know it’s faster than using Excel and Access or PHP and MYSQL, but that’s only in the demos!!). Has anyone else noticed how slow IP forms seem to run on the server too? I think I was conceived that One Note might be a “once bitten forever smitten” type product, but I’ll wait for the bite.

It was first-rate to meet and speak to some of the guys from around the web well around this part of the web any-road. Particularly good to meet Simon (Murphy), Russell Proctor, Mike C, Nick Hodge and Andy Pope.

As Simon mention at the bottom of his post there is talk afoot about meeting up and going through some “proper” code, not a Northwind BD in sight, if anyone is interested contact me or Simon, or leave a comment we’re not fussy!

Inaugural UK Office User Group Event

Ok, this could be a good chance for a few of us to meet up. I’ve booked my place, have you?!

Inaugural UK Office User Group Event

Also check this out!

A Smuf of SpreadSheets?

There’s a new blog in town! Simon Murphy of www.codematic.co.uk has sparked up the old blogging elbow and put figure to keyboard. As you might expect there is some excellent and very interesting content from a very experienced Excel consultant. Check it out here!

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