Replies

> Well my friend, you have an astounding memory and I compliment you!

Al, your post count exceeds 10,000 while mine hasn’t even struck 900. It’s likely that you participated in roughly 10 times more conversations than I, which makes it much harder to remember everything!

Happy new year to y’all!

Edited to correct a grammar error

I found the original thread I intended in the first place.

David Raisley mentions the copy command (what I understand is what you call “binary joins”) and Jezsik introduces ZIP joins, in both cases for MPEG files.

Reading on I see you posted too contributing a batch procedure to join files. A long while back this was.

Hi John,

> Does it cause volume problems between tracks?

I’m not sure. In practice I don’t join MP3s. I like playlists best, since I can listen to whole albums while keeping tracks (and files) separate for whatever other purpose. I remember doing the binary join thing (it’s done via DOS-like commands, right? I’m not very literate in DOS) when I read about “ZIP joins” for the first time.

My belief is that in essence they are the same, save for a little header that Winzip will add to the ZIP file, even with Compression = None. If you check file size at the byte level, you’ll notice a slight difference bewteen the original MP3 and the no-compression ZIP equivalent. Somehow this header does not interfere with audio reproduction.

The fact that you can binary-join WAV files makes me think you can also ZIP-join WAV files (being coherent with my theory above).

Here’s a link to a related thread created a while back, FWIW.

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Groups of tasks with identical names have driven me mad since they were invented.

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[/indent]Groups alone drive me mad. The additional click required to first select the group, then the task, gets my nerves on. I’d have believed most people (no, I won’t say freaks!) here shared this thought (mania?), but having Alan on the opposite side definetly tears my theory asunder.

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The University has moved over to open source in a big way as they ( and I tend to agree) that Access 2007 is a step too far and now a power toy.

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[/indent]I’m not quite the right person to judge this move, but I agree too.

Other freeware (not sure if open source) DBMS’s I’ve seen mentioned frequently are SQLite and PostgreSQL. R integrates quite nicely with the former as far as I’ve read. Of course you’re tasked with learning MySQL, but in case you happen to be curious…

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…along with Design Expert, which is a DOE software package (the best around IMO).

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[/indent]What is a DOE software package? Possible matches I’ve found for DoE: “Department of Energy”, “Department of Education”, “Design of Experiments”.

Hello Jerry,

I tried to pick up MySQL about a year and a half ago and, while not difficult, I found it awkward, or that’s what I recall. I was used to SQL Server, and I got frustrated by having to use the DOS-like window. I think someone told me there’s a nicer GUI out there, but never got round to checking it out.

All in all, my journey to MySQL lasted some three evenings, when I had to quit it to do something important.

I come from the actuarial field, but a friend from the computing/programming field insists that MySQL is way “better” than SQL Server (and Access for the case), whatever that means, so when you become more experienced I’d like to know your thoughts.

Good luck!

Yes.
I mentioned it in case someone was interested in taking the plunge, but a fair amount of “exposure” is required before being able to do something worth considering. Even importing the information is a real chore. JIC, those interested check the R Commander package, which makes many simple tasks (i.e., importing data), well, simpler.

I’ve never used SAS / SPSS / Minitab / Statistica, so I cannot tell how R compares to these.

Hi Hans,

Finally at work. I could compile the project here (Excel 2003). However, I failed at home (Excel 2000, including a VBA reference to the Microsoft Office 9.0 Object Library). How weird… at least it worked at work.

BTW, the add-in I’m talking about is RExcel, ware, which allows Excel to interact with R, which I mentioned in this post.

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Do you have a statistics program such as SPSS or SAS at your disposal?

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[/indent]You might want to try ware, open source R. It does have a steep learning curve, but it looks quite promising. I’m studying it on my own and I can give some references I’ve found regarding distributions fitting if you are interested.

Certainly not. The subject indication of Excel 2003 refers to the version I have at work (where I made the original post). At home (where I tried to compile the project) I’m using Excel 2000, which, as far as I can see, can only add a reference to the Microsoft Office 9.0 Object Library. Couldn’t find a checkbox for 11.0.

Let me try to check at work (won’t be there until Wednesday). And thanks for all your help!

Hello Hans,

Thank you for such a clear and prompt explanation.[indent]

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The first time code is run after being created or modified, VBA “compiles” it, i.e. creates a list of the entry points and jumps in the code; this speeds up subsequent execution.

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[/indent]Just out of curiosity: does VBA/Excel store this list somewhere when the workbook is saved, or does it create the list upon every first run of the code after opening the file?[indent]

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You can also force compilation of all code in a project (workbook) by selecting Debug | Compile .

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[/indent]I tried to compile the add-in’s project, but got this error prompt: “Compile error: User-defined type not defined”

As a result, the second line gets highlighted:

Function SelectedFile() As String
Dim fd As FileDialog

Doing a whole project search, I couldn’t find a definition for this FileDialog type. In fact, if I use =SelectedFile() in any cell, I get the same error. However, all the other add-in UDFs I tried work just fine. This makes me think the code is compiled and the resulting list is stored in the workbook, because if VBA tried to compile the code on every first run, I’d get the same error message. Right?

Thank you, Hans. For the nth time.

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Is there any way that I can make this a global change? It seems only to apply to the active workbook.

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[/indent]Well that was going to be my next question this morning. Glad that you asked it (and that you got it answered)!

Yes, a well-known piece of soft.

Thanks!