Crowing about the site, and a thank you

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I post site stats every once in a while, but I don't very often discuss the history of the site. In fact I can't recall any post where I've done so. So here we go!

Wherefore Art Thou, Jimmy?

Let me introduce myself. My name is Jimmy Pena and I am the author of the articles you will find on this site.

I have been working with VBA in Microsoft Office for about six years, mostly with Excel but also with Outlook and to a lesser extent the other VBA-aware programs like PowerPoint, Access and Word. My first big Excel project that used VBA was selecting names from a list at random. Since then I have created dozens of VBA projects, many for this website but a good portion solving business problems for various clients around the country.

I started this website in November 2007, after reading a blog post with VBA code for redirecting an email in Outlook. I took the code and adapted it for Outlook 2003 (at the time it only worked for 2007) and told people to email me.

Well, the emails came in, so I decided to put the code online where anyone could just grab it without having to ask me first. In fact, you can go to Aaron Lerch's blog and see my comment where I mentioned the site for the first time. My first couple of hits were from that link.

Now the site has dozens (hundreds?) of code samples in VBA for use in Microsoft Office. There are code samples for Excel, Outlook, Access and Word, and some that can be used across any VBA-enabled program.

There are 400+ blog posts and 140 static articles on the site (see About page for the exact number), centered around different topics such as Office automation, web APIs, various worksheet functions and the occasional rant about one thing or another. All written by yours truly. My goal is to create a code base for programming projects using VBA, so that anyone can use the code to create their own works of art.

Like many of you out there, I am still learning VBA, and learning new things all the time. It's a process which I never consider finished.

I am a firm believer in presenting code without telling people how to use it. That is why you will not find many example workbooks on this site, because coming up with an sample use case usually requires me to make up some bogus problem in which you have to follow an artificial workflow.

Instead, you will see the code printed in the blog post, sometimes with a simple workbook that usually (in addition to the code) demonstrates some useful presentation technique. That way, you can take the code and use it the way YOU want. I see Excel-related websites that don't just give you the code, but entangle it in useless workbooks that you're forced to either just use as-is or recreate from scratch.

Typically the VBA code you find on this site is compatible with Office 2003, although it generally works in 2007 and 2010 as well. I always welcome feedback (and give credit generously), so if you find something that doesn't work in a particular version of Office or under specific conditions, I would like to know. If you can offer a patch or alternative, even better!

What's In a Name?

I'm sure you're all wondering, why the name "Code For Excel and Outlook"? Looks great in the SERPs, but it's a bitch to type.

The truth is, I came up with the name for this site while under the influence of alcohol. A warning to those of you out there: Never choose a domain name while drunk! (Surfing While Intoxicated?)

Hey, use a URL shortener if you want to share an article from the site, I encourage it

Even more about me

I am married with two children: Alex (8 years old) and Chris (1 year old in February!). When I'm not at work, doing homework or writing blog posts, I'm with them

My laptop (Vista) has Office 2003 on it, Office 2007, and soon Office 2010. However I will not replace Outlook 2003 with 2010, nor will I be getting rid of Excel 2003. And yes, I am a student, still working on my A.S. degree in Computer Science at JCC. I take only one class per semester because otherwise I'd be overwhelmed.

My home PC still has Windows XP on it, so I can write programs in VB6 (I couldn't get it to install on Vista, plus I just like XP better). I also use it for Visual Studio development, although not much of that is going on right now.

Site Kudos

Pages from this site have been provided as answers in numerous forums.

Special thanks to EVERYONE out there — as well as the MVPs and Microsoft employees — who refers to this site when answering technical questions.

Honorable mention goes to VBA Express, however it's usually me giving out my links.

I should also mention that the VBA Search Engine passed 10,000 searches. Thank you again!

All a-Twitter

The Twitter campaign is going well — I'm happy to report my followers have increased to over 100 (see the sidebar for the latest number). I continue to reach out to anyone who tweets the word "Excel" and offer my assistance, 140 characters and all.

Sometimes my help is appreciated, although one person tweeted an Excel question and when I responded, instead of proceeding to describe the problem (like most people would do when asked) she tweeted "who is u" and then fell silent. Oh well, can't help everyone!

If anyone else would like to follow the same Twitter feed — and maybe help a few folks — here is the URL: http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=How+To+Excel. Watch out for the spam!

Details About The Site

This site reached PR5 some time in early 2011! Being recognized by Google as an important site is, well, important to me. It only took about 3 years to accomplish. Not bad for a non-MVP.

Articles have been translated (thanks to Google's translation engine) into at least 15 different languages, and have been viewed in 216 countries (acc. to Google Analytics). Which is funny, because the U.S. State Department (same country as Google's HQ) only recognizes 195 countries.

This is a WordPress-managed site. I use it as a CMS to publish articles as well as a blog. Some of the plugins I use to manage the site:

WP Super Cache
WordPress SEO
Contact Form 7 – very flexible form creator
WP-DBManager – optimize and backup your db all in one plugin
Gurken Subscribe to Comments – fixes MAJOR bugs from original StC plugin
Who Sees Ads – display content selectively
Bad Behavior – you wouldn't believe the spambots that attack your site
CodeColorer – provides all the syntax highlighting you see on the site

The "Thank You" Part

As a thank you to my loyal readers, I'm offering a discount on Random Data Generator.

Visit Random Data Generator and choose your version. At checkout, use the discount code YOUROCK for a 20% discount on the purchase price. Offer ends this Saturday (Feb 26th, 2011) at midnight. Enjoy!

If you'd like to share something about yourself, I will happily publish it in the comments below.

1 Comment on Crowing about the site, and a thank you:

Rachelle Anderson writes:

March 4, 2011 at 10:41 am

Hi JP! I've been following your blog since only last month, and am still quite new to the site. It's really nice to learn more about you and the history of how Code for Excel and Outlook came about. Keep up the good work and more power to your website! Also, thank you very much for sharing free trial versions of RDG.