Author: Peter G. Aitken File Type: pdf ullThirty clearly defined lessons take the reader from understanding the parts of an Excel application into building applications to work with data, formulas, charts, and the enhanced XML capabilities of the new Excel XllBook is designed to teach the core concepts of Excel over a weekend or in just fifteen hours, with each session being thirty minutesllApplicable to Excel 2000, Excel 2002, and the latest release, Excel2003llHelps Excel power users in fields such as accounting, finance, operations management, and market research to begin automating data manipulation in Excel quickly, so they can handle real-world projectsllA how-to guide to using Excels programmability to create custom data-processing and analysis solutionsllCovers security, debugging, and error handlingllCompanion Web site includes sample files, projects, and test enginewith self-assessment examlulFrom the Back CoverGet up to speed on Excel programming in a weekend!The big day is Monday. Thats when you get to show off what you know about Excel programming. The problem is, youre not really up to speed. Maybe its been a while since you programmed Excel to create custom data processing solutions. Perhaps youve just discovered Excels adaptability. Or maybe you just like a challenge. In any event, weve got a solution for you Excel Programming Weekend Crash Course. Open the book Friday evening and on Sunday afternoon, after completing 30 fast, focused sessions, youll be able to dive right in and start programming and automating Excel. Its as simple as that.The CurriculumFridayEvening 4 Sessions, 2 HoursullMicrosoft Excel and ProgrammingWhy and How llThe VBA Code EditorllThe Excel Object ModelllSyntax and Data in VBAlulSaturdayMorning 6 Sessions, 3 Hours ullOperatorsllControl ConstructsllProcedures and ModulesllWorking with Dates and TimesllWorking with TextllUsing Ranges and SelectionslulAfternoon 6 Sessions, 3 Hours ullWorking with Columns, Rows, and Cells llProgramming with Custom FormulasllProgramming with Excels Built-In FunctionsllFormatting a WorksheetllFind and Replace OperationsllCreating Custom ToolbarslulSaturday, cont.Evening 4 Sessions, 2 HoursullIntroduction to ChartsllAdvanced Charting TechniquesllCreating Custom Dialog Boxes with User FormsllControls for User FormslulSundayMorning 6 Sessions, 3 HoursullAdvanced User Form TechniquesllA User Form ExamplellWorking with EventsllSecurity ConsiderationsllDebugging and Distributing an ApplicationllDefining and Using Custom ClasseslulAfternoon 4 Sessions, 2 HoursullHandling Runtime ErrorsllDatabase TasksllCreating Add-InsllAdding Online Help to Your ApplicationlulAbout the AuthorPeter G. Aitken has been writing about computers and programming for over 10 years, with some 30 books as well as hundreds of magazine and trade publication articles to his credit. His recent book titles include Visual Basic .NET Programming with Peter Aitken, Office XP Development with VBA, XML the Microsoft Way, Windows Script Host, and Teach Yourself Visual Basic .NET Internet Programming in 21 Days. For several years he was a Contributing Editor at Visual Developer Magazine where he wrote a popular Visual Basic column. He is a regular contributor to Microsoft OfficePro magazine and the DevX Web site. Peter is the proprietor of PGA Consulting, providing custom application and Internet development to business, academia, and government since 1994.

Author: Peter Lamont File Type: pdf A rope rises up into the air. A boy climbs up the rope and when the boy gets to the top he vanishes into thin air, explains Peter Lamont, winner of the Jeremy Dalziel prize in British History, and author of The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick, about a tall tale that found its way into legend. The rope trick is one of the most successful hoaxes of all time, created by an amateur magician and printed in the Chicago Tribune in 1890. Despite a later admission that the story was false, it continued to spread in newspapers and journals throughout the world. Some claimed to have seen the trick performed on trips to India. Others added their own spin to the tale. Using the original legend as a starting point, Lamont, who has performed as a magician and psychic, explores how easily people will believe stories that are fed to them as truth despite all logical senses and their outright impossibility. **From School Library Journal AdultHigh SchoolA performer pulls out a long rope and, with arcane words and gestures, coaxes it to climb high into the sky without any sign of support. The magician then calls on his young assistant, who climbs the rope until he vanishes from view. When the boy doesnt return, the magician angrily follows after him and carries him down to resounding audience applause. Impossible? Yes. Lamonts fun, informative book details the history of this myth and why so many people wanted to believe in it so deeply. The first hard reference came from an eyewitness report in the Chicago Tribune in 1890. Although the journalist printed a retraction a few months later, the fabrication had already captured the attention of U.S. and British readers to the extent that others claimed to have witnessed the trick themselves. Strange and frightening stories developed around the swamis and magi who supposedly performed it and the dangers experienced by those who attempted to discover its secrets. Amid the campy facts, Lamont develops interesting conclusions. The late 1800s brought a rise in science and a growing disbelief in the spiritual side of life, and the tale fulfilled a need within educated Westerners to believe in something that couldnt be explained. The faraway land of India as its origin added a level of mystique. In the end, the author shows that the stories we create about other cultures reveal volumes about ourselves.Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. From Booklist British historian and magician Lamont relays the strange history of the so-called Indian rope trick. According to legend, a boy clambers up a rope and disappears, followed by a knife-armed fakir, who also vanishes. Severed limbs then tumble from the heavens and reassemble into the living boy. Sound plausible? A group in 1930s Britain was skeptical, and Lamont has a lot of fun describing their inconclusive debunking campaign. Such entertaining insouciance permeates his writing, but Lamont structures his tale seriously and treats the trick as an example of the Wests flawed perceptions of the East. Delving into Victorian history, Lamont discusses popular fascination with the Easts mysteries and presents a gallery of eccentric performers who met the publics demand to be gulled by supernatural feats. Feeding this social appetite was an 1890 Chicago newspaper revelation of the rope trick, which, despite its editors admission that the article was fabricated, only succeeded in perpetuating the myth. The various tangents related to the Indian rope trick are cleverly united in Lamonts amusing read. Gilbert Taylor American Library Association. lt

Author: Bill Zehme File Type: mobi Amazon.com ReviewBill Zehmes biography of comic actorperformance artist Andy Kaufman (subject of the feature film Man in the Moon) is a meticulously researched, eminently readable, and very strange book--this last being perhaps no surprise given its subject. Written over a six-year period, Lost in the Funhouse is crammed with details gleaned from interviews with the actors family, friends, teachers, coworkers, and unwitting participants in Kaufmans pranks. In particular, the book provides great insight into Kaufmans early life in Great Neck, NY, his relationship with transcendental meditation, and his first forays into nightclubs in the early 70s. Zehme, author of The Way You Wear Your Hat Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin, weaves together multiple narratives from varying perspectives, including passages in which the author appears to have entered his subjects brain. Zehme did have access to unpublished letters and manuscripts (which fans would certainly like to see published on their own one day), but the only person who could legitimately verify the accuracy of these passages is no longer with us. At its best, the book approaches that apex of artful celebrity bi-fiction, Nick Toschess Dino Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams. The transitions from one perspective to the next are a bit jarring at first, but once the reader gives in to Zehmess collage of multiple personalities, one is considerably closer to understanding the books subject. Kaufman was nothing if not a collection of various intense personalities the young boy continually mourning his grandfathers death the likable and naive Foreign Man the talentless and irascible lounge singer Tony Clifton the bliss-seeking student of TM the devoted and loving son who never had anything to do with his own child and world champion of inter-gender wrestling. Lost in the Funhouse is the one Kaufman tome that will please neophytes as well as those with their own Andy Kaufman Web sites. --Mike McGonigalFrom Publishers WeeklyAlready the subject of Bob Zmudas recent memoir, Andy Kaufman Revealed, the avant-garde comedian receives more straightforward treatment at the hands of journalist Zehme (The Way You Wear Your Hat). Yet while Kaufmans life may be open to scrutiny, cracking the weird intricacies of his personality and motives is another matter. Growing up in Great Neck, N.Y., the young Andy honed his performance skills by hosting childrens birthday parties before striking gold on the New York comedy scene with his creation of Foreign Man, a sweet, bumbling immigrant who would bomb with a series of unfunny jokes (Tenk you veddy much), only to veer into an uncanny impersonation of Elvis Presley. The character landed Kaufman a recurring guest spot on Saturday Night Live and a benchmark role as Latka Gravas on the sitcom Taxi. Eventually, his obnoxious alter ego, lounge singer Tony Clifton, and Kaufmans obsession with taunting and wrestling women audience members spurred Saturday Night Live viewers to vote by a wide margin to kick Kaufman off the show in 1982. A year and a half later, he was dead at the age of 35, the victim of lung cancer. Through the entertaining recollections of numerous friends, colleagues and family members, Kaufman comes across as either a genius or a lunatic, most likely a bit of both. Unfortunately, Zehmes mannered writing style (on Kaufmans part-time busboy job Plus, he could do funny things in the course of a shift not to be funny no really) detracts considerably from what is otherwise a balanced portrayal of his tumultuous career. 36 b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Chris Calhoun, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Dec.) br 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Author: Wiebke Sievers File Type: pdf This study analyses how immigrant and ethnic-minority writers have challenged the understanding of certain national literatures and have markedly changed them. In other national contexts, ideologies and institutions have contained the challenge these writers pose to national literatures. Case studies of the emergence and recognition of immigrant and ethnic-minority writing come from fourteen national contexts. These include classical immigration countries, such as Canada and the United States, countries where immigration accelerated and entered public debate after World War II, such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany, as well as countries rarely discussed in this context, such as Brazil and Japan. Finally, this study uses these individual analyses to discuss this writing as an international phenomenon. Contributors Include Sandra R.G. Almeida, Maria Zilda F. Cury, Sarah De Mul, Sneja Gunew, Dave Gunning, Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, Martina Kamm, Liesbeth Minnaard, Maria Oikonomou, Wenche Ommundsen, Marie Orton, Laura Reeck, Daniel Rothenbuhler, Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Wiebke Sievers, Bettina Spoerri, Christl Verduyn, Sandra Vlasta.