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I spent days trying to figure out a good way to set the value of a word content control in the header of a document using VBA. The solution was very useful for dealing with content controls in general…

The problem is that Word splits a document up into different regions (called stories) and each seem to contain their own collections. So the thisdocument.contentcontrols collection only refers to content controls located in the main section of your document, but not the header and footer.

If you want to put content controls in the header and footer, you can run into trouble.

There are a couple of solutions to addressing content controls in the header and footer of a word document, but I prefer the solution by Sunil Thomas at the following forum:

http://www.officekb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/word-vba/24300/replace-picture-in-content-control

Syntax is:

ActiveDocument.SelectContentControlsByTag("Your-Content-Control-Tag").Item(1).Range.Text = strYourString

Since I only have three content controls to address, I don’t need to loop through the collection and I can just address them by tag. Simple, love it!

Or maybe I’m just going crazy! The Android 2.2 Froyo update announced itself on my Motorolla Defy phone yesterday.

The HTC Mozart has also been reminding me of the Mango (Copy and Paste etc) update too… Great phones both of them… Have not looked back at the iPhone which is gathering dust for one second!

The most liberating digital experience you can ever have is not having iTunes on your PC!!!!

Updating them both now, hoping that it improves general performance for the Defy. Interested to see what goodies turn up on the Mozart. The Windows Phone 7 Interface is the most flowing and useful of all of the phone interfaces in my opinion, and I prefer this phone out of all of them.

We’ll see how this goes…

I’ve been back on planes all week this week, splitting my time between Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

So I knocked out this blog post about the new HP state 500 standing at the gate at Sydney airport.

I love being able to blog from anywhere!

Fortunately we made it out of Sydney within 30 seconds of our noise curfew. Phew! Qantas A330 is bringing me home to reintroduce myself to the family…

Here is a blog post that I wrote at the pool today.

I’ve decided to throw some ink blogs up on www.tabletpc.com.au.

Marketing people are so original aren’t they? I used to be in undated with iPod giveaway offers in my inbox, but in a stroke of genius marketers have found a new junk cheapie to give away. It’s an iPad and it’s a lot less useful than those ipods we used to give away!

I have to acknowledge the iPhone. It has introduced me to the pleasure of Exchange ActiveSync. It is hard to imagine working without a unified mail box and contacts list now.

However, on Thursday l received 52 phone calls and by 3:00 pm my iPhone was dead flat.

Now of course there are a plethora of charging options for the iPhone. Charging sleeves, battery boost packs and car chargers. But of course the simplest and most practical battery power solution for serious users was sacrificed by Apple on the altar of design.

Not Good Enough Apple!

A phone that has 200,000 iFart apps available but cannot practically run all day is a joke!

Fortunately, the benefits of Exchange Active sync have long since been realised by users of tonnes of other phones running Windows Mobile and Android, so now we have a choice!

On other phones like the HTC Desire or HD2 can remove the battery and replace it with a freshly charged one. Instant double battery life!

And, thanks to the fact that you can remove the battery, you can also geta spare battery charger like this one.

No more stuffing around, just plug your phone and battery in overnight and off to work you go!

Now that is a phone for business, not just fashion!

According to Dave Stevens of Brennan IT, probably not. In his opinion column in The Australian IT section he compares the NBN to the government providing each household with a Rolls Royce… and as much as I am enjoying my own fast broadband at home (only 100mbps – yowee!) I think I he has a point.

Not wanting to be political, but the full capacity of my 100mbps connection is practically untouched and my real broadband needs are much more mobile oriented than fixed line.

My brother cannot even get broadband at his place in Cranbourne, Victoria and he operated entirely from Telstra NextG. For a few years my own Telstra NextG connection on my Tablet PC was equivalent if not faster than the slow ADSL 2 speeds that I could get at home.

I hate to say it, but implementing better wireless technology like 4G makes a lot more sense than Fibre To The Home… After all, why should we be confined to fixed lines to do what we need to do. Notebooks, Netbooks, Smart Phones, iPads, iPhones and Tablet PCs are not the future, they are very much here and now. They would all benefit much more from better wireless coverage than fixed line broadband.

Update: Judging by the plethora of idiots people commenting on stories on the major news websites, it appears that the NBN represents the politics of distraction.

Punters and politicians are getting wound up about technical things that way out of their depth. They are throwing around billions when none of them have a clue what they are talking about (i.e. they wouldn’t know an ST fibre connector from an SC) , and I guess that was the gambit… What did I expect?