Tables are great for communicating and organizing data in a meaningful way. They're also efficient. However, in Microsoft PowerPoint, tables can be a bit troublesome because space is limited. Too much data on one slide can be worse than no data at all. Susan Sales Harkins shows you how to get creative and improvise how you display tables in PowerPoint.

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Sony Vegas is an image editing and manipulation application geared toward the average amateur editor, but it is still a very powerful and capable tool. Creating what is commonly known as a mask in Sony Vegas requires the use of an applet called Cookie Cutter. Steven Warren shows you how to create a mask using this tool inside of Sony Vegas.

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For IT professionals, acquiring new technical information is the life blood that keeps them ahead of the next crisis. One of the more efficient ways of receiving that new information is through podcasts delivered via RSS feed directly to your Outlook 2007 inbox. Mark Kaelin walks you through the setup process.

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On occasion, an application developer working with Microsoft Access may need a list control that's a bit more flexible by allowing users to update the control's list. Handing over a bit of control, in the right circumstances, can be helpful for everyone, including you. Susan Sales Harkins shows you how it is done.

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CSS allows you to use background graphics in a wide number of tasteful and versatile ways. Not only can graphics exist as backgrounds to entire pages, but you can also employ CSS to assign a background image to any CSS rule. John Lee shows you just three of many popular ways that Web designers use background images to create dynamic and visually rich pages.

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For many, one of the biggest obstacles in Linux is installing applications. Because the computing world has grown so accustomed to click and install, the idea of having to manually install something is very foreign. Installing plugins for the Linux version of Firefox isn't that difficult once you know what you are doing. Jack Wallen shows you how.

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Adobe Illustrator can be used to create buttons and other images for use on Web pages just like Photoshop. The finished product is very similar but how you get there is slightly different. Steven Warren shows you to make a glass button using the tools available in Illustrator.

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Enforcing your data's integrity is probably the single most important issue you face when designing a database. Validating user input is one way of keeping bad data from making its way into your analysis and reports. It only takes one piece of bad data to throw everything off. Susan Sales Harkins explains how to use CHECK constraints in SQL Server to control user input.

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Bad threading logic can actually slow down an application, or worse, cause an application to have inconsistent exceptions. There really isn't much to be worried about though if you plan ahead and take the correct precautions. Zach Smith shows you some examples on how to use threading in C# and how to protect yourself while using threading.

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You can populate a list control with an explicit list of values and generally, that list consists of one column, although you can display more. Creating a multi-column value list control is the easy part -- using and updating it takes a bit more effort. Susan Sales Harkins shows you how it works.

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