Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 19:50:50 -0600 (CST)
   From: Mark Jacobson <jacobson@math-cs.cns.uni.edu>
     To: 810-022-01-FALL@uni.edu
Subject: [810-022-01-FALL] Test two on Wednesday...

Hi 022 students,

     I posted the Friday hands-on class Excel spreadsheet on the web page
on Friday afternoon.  Feel free to download it and look at and run the
macro code.  I will have a handout of the code tommorrow (Monday).

     The interesting thing about Friday's Excel macro application
is that it:

     1. was first done using Visual Basic (probably 5.0 but maybe 6.0)
        back in the 2000/2001 or maybe the 1999/2000 school year.

     2. was next done using Microsoft Access VBA a semester later,
        while teaching 022 in the fall of 2000 or the fall of 2001.

     3. only on Friday did I think of doing it and showing it
        in Excel.  The complete solution would involve importing
        it from a database application, then creating the unique
        sections, then exporting it back to a database or as a .txt
        file.

     4. it was worked out to help a senior MIS projects class with
        one small portion of the task of making an application that
        would allow UNI students to look up their textbooks at the
        www.panthersupply.com web site for the university bookstore.

        The task required that there be a separate record for every
        since section that required any textbooks.

        If all 6 sections of some class, for example, required the
        exact same textbook (or textbooks), then the bookstore would
        have a database or text file record that looked like this:

        810:022  01,02,03,04,05,06    Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA

        and any record like that with more than one section requiring
        the same textbooks needed to be transformed into
            in this example case, 6 UNIQUE single section records:

        810:022  01                   Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA
        810:022  02                   Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA
        810:022  03                   Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA
        810:022  04                   Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA
        810:022  05                   Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA
        810:022  06                   Excel 2003 Power Programming with VBA

    I will hand out the solution on Monday in class, but you can
play with the Excel workbook and look at and run the macros ahead of
time, if you wish.

    http://www.cns.uni.edu/~jacobson/c022.html

          and find the Bookstore.xls link there.
                       -------------

     The first exam would be excellent review to prepare for a portion
of the 2nd exam.  Be sure to take the first exam again and simulate the
test conditions.

     You will have to write a function, but not as difficult a one as the
Sudoko finding which square of the 9 different squares a certain number
is in.  :-)

     I will provide more guidelines tommorrow during and after class.

     Mark