photo credit: therefromhere
I am a big fan of Google Spreadsheets, they give you most of the features of a desktop “office” based spreadsheet but your data is stored online, no more need to carry your data on a USB stick.
I’m also a huge fan of databases, SQL is a fantastic tool for querying data.
Now you can combine the best of both worlds: store your data in a spreadsheet and then summarise the data using SQL.
Dell: Can I confirm that your laptop has been collected.
Me: Which one, I have had two collected in the last week.
Dell: The one that needs the repair to the palm rest and screen.
Me: Yes that was collected last week, a day later than was arranged.
Dell: OK, Thank You.
Me: Can you confirm the status of the repair?
Dell: Yes we received the laptop last week and are waiting on the replacement parts.
I’m glad to see that the Dell quality processes have finally kicked in and they are confirming that they are actually repairing the laptop that they have collected and that they have not mistaken my laptop with someone else’s that has the same service tag and the same fault.
The laptop was returned all fixed today !
As you will have read here I previously owned a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 (1011) and had a host of issues that resulted in the laptop being returned for a full refund.
I really liked my Dell Mini 10 so I thought I would give them another go.
I ordered another Dell Mini 10 from the Dell UK Outlet.
Once Bitten…
I bought a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 in October directly from Dell via the Dell Outlet.
After the usual few days it took to get all the service packs and fixes etc onto it I noticed that the screen resolution was incorrect. The screen has a maximum physical resolution of 1024×600. The properties only listed 1024×768.
When you used the laptop you were missing the bottom 168 pixels worth of screen. The desktop did not scroll. It was still usable, press the start button on the keyboard and the menu appeared, you just couldn’t see the task bar.
If I used the screen magnifier and dragged the mouse off the bottom of the screen, the magnifier showed me the area off the bottom of the screen (the missing 168 pixels worth).
I’m a huge fan of Google Reader.
They recently introduced a “Send To” feature to allow you to share items with other users.
The one that was not included by default was Send To GMail !
Try This:
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=cm&cmid=0&fs=1&tearoff=1&to=&su=${title}&body=${url}
Whoops, just noticed there is a big “EMail” button at the bottom of every article that does just this!
Just a quick summary of my on-line presence this year.
I have invested a lot of content to Twitter this year.
This is primarily due to the convenience of the platform racking up almost 1200 updates in the year here.
I can’t find a way to get stats for the year so here are my top five photos:
By far the most popular post on the site was the photos page here.
Second most popular page is the “About Me” page here.
As for the blog entries themselves they rank at:
1 – Business Objects XI 3.0 New Features – Conditional Prompts
2 – Crystal Xcelsius – Filtered Rows From A Filter Component
3 – Modelling Change In Your Dimensions
4 – Business Objects XI 3.0 New Features – Change Data Tracking
5 – Dimensional Modelling – Facts
As you can see here the site only really started getting traffic last January so that gives me 17300 page views.
Obviously the biggest news of the year was the passing of my daughter Emma.
Celebrating the Life of Emma Berry Goodman
And the year ends on another low point with the passing of another member of my extended family.
George Miller – Footballer | 1939 – 2008
I was recently asked by a customer what steps we take to secure their files. I always use TrueCrypt to encrypt all customer files. This is an overview of how you can use TrueCrypt.
TrueCrypt gives you the ability to store information in a hidden partition that is secure from prying eyes.
Just as importantly the software is easy to use, being almost seamless in use.
Despite my working in IT and also “enjoying” technology, our kids being typical kids and having a PC each and an unstoppable curiosity, Elaine has never shared our passion.
Last week Elaine tore the ligaments in her left foot so has not been able to hit the shops at all and has been forced to stay at home with her feet up. Over the space of that week she did her first Asda shop online.
Last night, with no prompting Elaine had the laptop out and was shopping unaided !
The coup de grace was the next question:
How to I get the BBC iPlayer on the Wii to work again !
As you know I love Twitter. OK there are some things i find annoying, the lack of groups is one.
The main thing is the lack of uptake amoungst my “real” friends and colleagues. OK, this is in part due to the short sightedness of most customer sites using WebSense or proxy rules to block it. I have just been further depressed by Twitter Local a great site that shows you the geographocal location of tweets. I have seen similar sites on the macro scale, for example: TwitterVision gives you a world map with tweets appearing all over it.
Twitter Local works at the other end of the scale, you give it a location and a radius and it shows you “local” tweets. So, why am I depressed: I can only find two other twitterers within 5 miles of me!
Fact
I rarely “surf” to random sites any more, any site that wants my attention must have an RSS feed that I can put into Google Reader.
Fact
I am intrigued by the social networking sites, a few are listed here. LinkedIn is one that I can see the point of.
LinkedIn have recently introduced an RSS feed for my network updates, so it ticks both boxes. What’s the downside? I’m not sure what it is. It could be that LinkedIn is a work/professional focussed network rather than personal. It could be the immediacy of the updates from my colleagues. It’s strange but I feel crossed between a stalker and a voyeur in a way that I just don’t get from feeds from other sites.
