A little while back a colleague of mine asked me, “How do I calculate the total seconds in Excel?” What he had was a column of timestamps in the h:mm:ss format and he wanted to convert that timestamps to simply display the total seconds, which is actually quite easy to do in Excel depending on (1) how the data was entered, and (2) how the data is formatted. And surprisingly for something simple, it can get quite complicated depending on how much the user understands about Excel Date/Time formats and formatting. To make it easier, I created the following tip:

I’ve been using SkyDrive on and off since it was first release by Microsoft; however, I was never really all that excited about the service–that is, until Microsoft launched the SkyDrive for Windows App, a Windows application that places a SkyDrive folder in the Windows Explorer allowing users to simply click and drag files and folders to this location to sync with SkyDrive automatically.

But best of all, this application allows for easy access to your computer remotely. Very similar to Windows Live Mesh and to Remote Desktop, from your SkyDrive online account you can access anything on your home or work computer with just a few clicks of a button. You’ll have to pass a few security tests, but it is pretty cool and easy to use.

The SkyDrive for Windows app is really easy to install. I’m fairly certain my mother could do it without any help (well, maybe just a little help). But if you need help installing or figuring out how to use this application, you can watch this short video:

Back in January, Alan Ackmann (yes, my husband) and I gave a webinar for the TrainSignal blog on The Top 10 Resume Tips for IT Pros. Following that same theme, we were asked to deliver a similar webinar, this time focused on cover letters for IT Professionals. In case you missed it, you can watch the recording of that webinar at TrainSignal’s blog: http://www.trainsignal.com/blog/videos/it-cover-letter-help

And if you do not wish to watch the entire webinar, Alan Ackmann compiled a lot of that advice for TrainSignal’s “Ultimate IT Resume Guide” which can be downloaded here: http://www.trainsignal.com/blog/email-newsletter

It is official. There will be another MCT Summit this year, an event by MCTs for MCTs, designed to build our skills on the latest changes in technology, certification, and course ware, and to, of course, development our teaching skills.

The Summit will be held in Bellevue, WA, October 17-20, 2012, just down the road from Microsoft. Session tracks include IT Pro, SQL Server, The Cloud, Developer, Office and SharePoint, and Soft Skills. Sessions will be 75 minutes in length. If you would like to speak at the MCT Summit, they planning committee is still reviewing session proposals for all tracks here.

This year, I will not be serving on the planning committee; however, Christopher Harrison and Michael Corkery will be. If you’d like to stay abreast of the latest summit developments, you can visit the MCT Summit 2012 website, check out the MCT Summit Facebook page, or follow the MCT Summit’s twitter feed.

If you have ever been frustrated when trying to delete a record in Access and seeing the warning message “The record cannot be deleted or changed because table ‘tblYourTableName’ includes related records,’ do not be dismayed. That warning message is actually a good thing, for referential integrity is protected your data from being orphaned. To side-step the warning message and to allow you and your database users to delete unwanted data, you might want to try to turn on a feature called “cascade delete.”

To learn how to enable Cascade Delete, watch the following video:

Note: This video demonstrates cascade delete using Access 2007; however, the steps are the same for Access 2010 databases. That is, as long as your database is not a web database. Web databases are kind of their own thing, in many respects.

Newbies to Microsoft Access are often puzzled by a variety of warning messages, and the message “The record cannot be deleted or changed because table ‘tblYourTableNameHere’ includes related records,” is among the more common messages that frustrate beginners. Do not be discouraged. This message is really a good thing because it means referential integrity is doing its job in protected your records from being orphaned.

Still confused? Watch the following video to learn more:

PowerPoint presentations do not have stay as PowerPoint presentations. You can save a PowerPoint file as almost anything nowadays, including a PDF. The following video demonstrates how to save a PowerPoint file as a PDF using the 2007 version of PowerPoint, for those who do not have the PDF add-in installed. If you do have the add-in installed, or you are using the 2012 version, you probably don’t need the video. Just go to File–>Save As, and choose the save as type, PDF. It is that simple! But for those who are running a new copy of PowerPoint 2007, the video will be helpful.

In this training clip, I show students how to use wildcards inside an Access query to locate a customer by last name without knowing exactly how to spell the customer last name. Knowing how to use wildcards is very important when querying data in Access, as the use of a simple wildcard can save a lot of time hunting through records.

You can use the DateAdd function for a variety of purposes within Microsoft Access queries. This clip demonstrates how to use the DateAdd Function as query criteria to display only those records whose sales transactions are three months old.

Append queries are a quick and easy way to copy or “move” records to a table in Access. In this clip from TrainSignal, I show students how to add a sale price to select books in our sample database for Picaroon Publishing and copy only those sale books to an existing (yet blank) table. This is just one of many uses for an append query. Enjoy!