Tools and Productivity on Cathrine Wilhelmsen

Improve Your Presentation Skills by Rehearsing with PowerPoint Presenter Coach

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 13:15:00 +0200

Did you know that PowerPoint can help you improve your presentation skills? 💡 If you rehearse with the PowerPoint Presenter Coach, you can get real-time feedback on things like your pace and language. If that’s too distracting (it is for me), you can choose to hide the real-time feedback and only view the detailed report at the end of your rehearsal.

The report shows you details about the total time spent, your pace and pitch over time, whether or not you are simply reading from your slides, as well as actionable feedback on your language. The feedback includes whether you are using too many filler words (like umm, actually, or you know), whether you are using too many repetitive words with alternatives you can use instead, whether you are using any words that can be offensive, and specific sentences that you can refine.

The PowerPoint Presenter Coach works on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and in PowerPoint online 🥳 However, it currently only understands English. Let’s hope it will learn new languages soon!

Developing in Containers using Visual Studio Code (T-SQL Tuesday #140)

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 21:30:56 +0200

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Anthony Nocentino (@nocentino). He wants to know what we’ve been up to with containers. Perfect timing, because I have just spent the last couple of weeks learning how to develop in containers using Visual Studio Code! I was planning to write this for myself anyway, but perhaps it can be interesting for others as well 🤓

What is the use case?

One of my clients are using dbt (Data Build Tool) for their data transformations. In short, this means that developers write data transformations in SQL as SELECT statements. All SQL code can be combined with Jinja templates. Inside of these Jinja templates, developers can reference other tables, use control logic, or define common SQL code snippets as reusable macros. Dbt then compiles the SQL+Jinja code into pure SQL.

Keyboard shortcuts for moving text lines and windows (T-SQL Tuesday #123)

Tue, 11 Feb 2020 18:01:02 +0100

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Jess Pomfret (@jpomfret). She wants to hear about life hacks to make your life easier! In this post, I share two of my most-used keyboard shortcuts. One for moving text lines up and down without copying and pasting, and one for moving windows around without dragging and dropping. I use these all the time :)

Moving text lines up and down

Previously, I was moving text lines up and down in a couple of different ways. Have you ever marked all the text on a line, copied it, then pasted it again? Yeah, I did that all the time. And then I discovered there’s an easier way! Yay 🤩

Organizing Visual Studio Projects in Solution Folders

Mon, 30 Jul 2018 12:21:55 +0200

Do you have large Visual Studio solutions with many projects? Are you looking for an easy way to hide some projects while working on others? Maybe you are a fellow speaker looking for a way to group and organize your demo files? Solution Folders may be what you are looking for!

Online Tools for Data Professionals (T-SQL Tuesday #101)

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 21:43:29 +0200

T-SQL Tuesday #101 is hosted by Jens Vestergaard (@vestergaardj), and the topic is My Essential SQL Server Tools. There are several tools that I use every single day, such as Notepad++, Redgate SQL Prompt, and BimlExpress. Since I have already covered my favorite tools in other blog posts, I want to take a slightly different approach this time and share some of my favorite online tools.

Notepad++ Word Count

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 18:12:01 +0100

In Notepad++, you can quickly find information about your text. For example, what is the document length and total word count? You can do this by using a built-in feature or by using the TextFX plugin. They count words differently, though, so be aware! Make sure you use the one that is right for you 🙂

Word Count in Notepad++

If you have no plugins installed, you can use the built-in Summary feature. If you are using the TextFX plugin you can use the Word Count feature:

Click View → Summary
Double-click on Length / Lines on the Status Bar (shortcut to Summary)
Use TextFX → TextFX Tools → Word Count

Redgate SQL Prompt 7.1 Results Grid Features

Wed, 02 Mar 2016 18:43:30 +0100

Redgate recently released SQL Prompt 7.1. I try to be an efficient developer (read: I’m a lazy and often impatient developer), so I’m a huge fan of any feature that can save me some clicks here and some time there. In this version, SQL Prompt comes with new Results Grid Features. And let me tell you… I rarely hear so many business users and business analysts ask me: How did you do that!?

Notepad++ Multi-Editing Text

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 19:56:56 +0100

You can use Notepad++ to quickly insert, edit, or delete text in multiple locations in one file - at the same time! All you have to do is enable Multi-Editing, and then hold CTRL while you click or select text. This is a fast and easy way to edit parts of your document in just a few seconds.

Redgate SQL Prompt 6.5 Tab History

Thu, 11 Jun 2015 19:00:17 +0200

Hello, my name is Cathrine, and I am a tab hoarder 🤓 I always have lots of tabs open in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) connected to different environments. I have written about how Redgate SQL Prompt Tab Coloring makes it easy to find the right tab(s) based on the tab color, but that is not the only tab feature that saves me a lot of time.

Redgate SQL Prompt Tab History. is amazing! It allows you to view and reopen closed tabs, even those unnamed and unsaved tabs with ad-hoc queries that you thought you would never need again. It also allows you to quickly navigate and search through closed and open tabs.

Redgate SQL Prompt 6.5 Tab Coloring

Mon, 06 Apr 2015 13:15:32 +0200

Redgate recently released SQL Prompt 6.5. There are some nice features in this version, but my favorite is by far Tab Coloring! It is no longer an experimental feature, it has become a proper feature. I did a quick demo of Redgate SQL Prompt including Tab Coloring in my SQLBits session to show how you can save time and work more efficiently.

Notepad++ Column Editing

Wed, 15 Oct 2014 12:00:03 +0200

Spoiler alert! Column editing is super simple in Notepad++ 🤓 All you have to do is press the Alt key while selecting text. You can use either Alt+Mouse Dragging or Alt+Shift+Arrows. This works perfectly on text that is already aligned. But what if your text is not formatted as columns already? You can quickly fix that by using the TextFX plugin.

Notepad++ Macros Example

Sun, 27 Oct 2013 12:33:24 +0100

Do you ever find yourself doing the same things over and over and over again when working on your text files? You can save a lot of time by recording and running Notepad++ macros to automate these repetitive steps. Just record your steps once, then run them as many times as you need!

Notepad++ Remove Duplicates, Remove Blank Lines, and Sort Data in One Operation

Wed, 16 May 2012 19:40:49 +0200

You can use the 32-bit version of Notepad++ with the TextFX plugin to quickly remove duplicates, remove blank lines, and sort data - in one operation! This is a fast and easy way to get the results you want in just a few seconds. And as with any kind of automation: the more data you work with, the more time you save 🤓

The quick version:

Install the 32-bit version of Notepad++
Install the TextFX plugin (this is not available in the 64-bit version of Notepad++)
Enable Sort outputs only UNIQUE
Click Sort lines case [in]sensitive