High School High
By Brian | April 3, 2009
Both Jason and Ilya have partaken in the “My So-Called High School Life” meme, and since high school was all about peer pressure, well – here goes:
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 8 Comments »
Free Ice Cream!
By Brian | April 3, 2009
They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but no one can argue with free ice cream:
As a way to thank our customers for their support and to celebrate 31 years of scooping the chunkiest, funkiest ice cream, frozen yogurt and sorbet, Ben & Jerry
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Idiot’s Guide to Digital Cameras
By Brian | April 2, 2009
Tomorrow, I embark on an important, secret mission. What is it, you may ask? Well, if I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret, now would it? Suffice to say that it’s important enough that today, I bought a brand new digital camera. And so tomorrow night, when it’s all over, I hope to have pictures and video to share with you about the results of said mission. Try to stay glued to your seats…
In the meantime, some idiocy from the folks who brought you the Quick Start Guide for the Nikon Coolpix L20:
So, let’s review, shall we? The second step in the quick start guide is entitled “First Steps.” The first step is, and I’m quoting directly from the text here, “Take the Camera Out of the Box.”
So here’s what I’m thinking: the true idiocy here doesn’t reside with the authors of the manual. The true idiocy belongs to the dozens of people who called the help desk and said, “Hello? Yes….I just purchased your camera – the Coolpix L20? I’m sitting here with the box on my desk, and I’m not sure what to do next. Can you help me?”
Makes me think of these guys:
Categories: The World Wide Weird | 2 Comments »
Excel 2007 Problem: Solved!
By Brian | March 31, 2009
I’ve been using MSOffice 2007 for a few weeks now, and while I’m generally pleased with the enhancements it brings, there was one bug in MSExcel that was driving me crazy.
When I opened an Excel file (.xls, .xlsx, .xlsm), Excel would launch, but the file wouldn’t appear. Instead, I’d see just an empty MDI frame (the Excel title bar and menus, but without any spreadsheet on the screen). I quickly discovered, through trial and error, that I could get the spreadsheet to open by choosing “Open” from the Office icon menu, and then clicking “Cancel” when the Open dialog box came up. This was, however, equal parts weird and annoying, and could not be the best answer to the problem.
Today, I got around to Googling it. As I suspected, others have had the same problem, and have suggested several possible solutions. One was to disable one or more suspicious add-ins, but I had none of the supposed culprits on my machine. The idea did get me thinking, though – the add-ins I did have (both of which were self-made), were in Excel 2003 format (.xla). Excel 2007 creates add-in files with a .xlam extension. Also, I’ve had several minor problems with Excel 2007/Excel 2003 compatibility issues in the past. Maybe the .xla format is the problem?
That solution turned out to be the right one. It also explains why others may find that disabling a certain add-in made the problem go away. Therefore, I’m pretty sure I’ve identified the problem.
So, to make the problem go away, you need to convert your .xla add-ins to .xlam. Here are the detailed instructions:
- Open Excel 2007 by running the app (not by opening an Excel file)
- On the Developer ribbon, chose “Visual Basic.” If the Developer ribbon isn’t displayed, you can add it by clicking the Office icon in the upper left corner of the screen, choosing “Excel Options” and checking the “Show Developer tab in the Ribbon” check box. Or, if you want to avoid the whole mess, you can use the old Excel 2003 keyboard shortcut (Alt-F11) to open the Visual Basic editor immediately
- Expand the add-in in question, and double click on the associated Module to bring up the code
- Click inside the code, and then press Ctrl-A to select all of it. Then press Ctrl-C to copy it
- Right click on the new Excel that opened with Excel (usually called Book1) and choose Insert…Module
- When the empty Module comes up, click inside of it and press Ctrl-V to paste in the code
- Click the office icon and choose “Save”
- Save the file as an Excel Add-In (.xlam) with the same name (other than the extension) and in the same folder as your existing add-in
- Repeat allof the steps above (starting with a brand new Excel file each time) for each .xla add-in you have
- Close the Visual Basic Editor
- From Excel, click the Office icon and choose Excel Options
- Click on the Add-Ins menu item on the left side of the dialog box. At the bottom, select Manage Excel Add-ins and click “Go.”
- When the Add-Ins box appears, click “Browse.”
- Choose the new (.xlam) add-in and click OK. You will be prompted that another add-in with the same name exists. Click OK at this prompt
- Repeat the above step for each newly created add-in
There you go – problem solved (hopefully). If you have any questions, comments, updates, or corrections, feel free to post them in the comments below.
Categories: Tech Talk | Comments Off on Excel 2007 Problem: Solved!
Another Mind-bending, Useless Statement about Time
By Brian | March 31, 2009
We’ve all heard or seen statements like this, typically around New Year’s Eve, when the almighty “they” decide we need a leap second:
One second used to be defined as 1/86,400 the length of a day. However, Earth
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 4 Comments »
The Three Bubbles
By Brian | March 27, 2009
Jeff Porten posted a very cool graph, in that it provides a nice perspective on how the market has performed in the last ten years, relative to the sixty years before that. This illuminating tidbit finally kicked my butt into gear and got me to draw (and post) the graph I’ve been visualizing in my head for months now:
The blue line represents the NASDAQ composite from 1993-2003 (Source)
The red line represents average home prices in the US from 1999-2008 (Source)
The green line represents crude oil prices 2006-2008 (Source)I’ve used different scales for each line so that the peaks are roughly even, in order to illustrate my point, which is this: we’ve had three economic bubbles in the last ten years; they are getting closer together, and they’re completing faster each time. Before we rush ahead with new laws and government regulations, we need to answer several very difficult questions:
- Do we want to space the bubbles further apart?
- Do we want to make each bubble last longer?
- Do we want to reduce the size (from valley to peak to valley) of each bubble?
- Do we want to eliminate bubbles altogether?
These are not easy questions to answer. Most policies that accomplish one will not accomplish the others (in various combinations). Also, when we’re in the tail-end of a bubble, the bubbles seem like horrible things that we’d like to avoid in the future. When we’re in the beginning of one, though, we call it “unparalleled economic growth,” and it’s generally seen as a good thing (in particular, the kind of good thing that wins elections).
I don’t necessarily have answers to these questions, but at least Jeff and I are now tied at one cool stock market graph apiece. And that’s gotta count for something…
Doesn’t it?
Categories: Money Talk | 8 Comments »
Plane Food – Anything but Plain
By Brian | March 26, 2009
It’s been a while since I travelled for work, but the occasion has arisen once again, compelling me to use my employer’s online travel service. In doing so, I took note of the food choices available to me on my (Continental Airlines) flight:
– standard – vegetarian lacto-ovo – vegetarian – low protein – asian vegetarian – low sodium – raw vegetarian – gluten free – fruit plate – high fiber – seafood – diabetic – kosher – non-lactose – muslim – low purin – oriental asian – child – hindu – bland – low fat cholesterol – low calorie Maybe these choices are available on Expedia as well (that’s the service I typically use to book personal travel). If they are, I hadn’t noticed them until now.
In any case, questions abound: Am I the only one who remembers when airline meals were offered as regular, vegetarian or (maybe) kosher? And what if I’m a lactose intolerant Hindu who wants a vegetarian meal that’s low in sodium, cholesterol and protein? Can we do combinations here? Doesn’t that come to billions of potential meals? What in blazes is “purin?” And does anyone intentionally order a “bland” meal, or is that just a complaint lodged after the fact?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Categories: The World Wide Weird | 3 Comments »
Personalizing the Banker’s Fate: Jake DeSantis Resigns from AIG
By Brian | March 26, 2009
Jake DeSantis, an executive vice-president in AIG’s Financial Products Unit, has resigned from the company. Rather than giving back his retention bonus (as requested by CEO Ed Liddy and many members of Congress), he has decided to donate all of the after-tax proceeds to charities that will help those disadvantaged by the Current Financial Crisis(TM). He also sent his resignation letter to the New York Times, who printed it in their Op-Ed section.
Here’s a pull quote:
I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in
Categories: Money Talk | 12 Comments »
Obama Places His Bets…
By Brian | March 20, 2009
This post isn’t about what you think it’s about.
Ladies & Gentlemen, Barack Obama’s hand-written NCAA March Maddess bracket:
(Click to enlarge)Last night, Jay Leno wondered aloud if he picked schools that were located in swing states (more on that later, if I get a chance…)
(Hat tip to Jeff Kohl for the pic)
Categories: Sports Talk | Comments Off on Obama Places His Bets…
AIG – One more thing…
By Brian | March 18, 2009
It’s being reported today that seventy-three of the roughly four hundred AIG employees that received retention bonuses received bonuses of more than $1 million. It’s also being reported that eleven of them (including one who received $4.6 million) have already left AIG, and received the bonus anyway.
In my previous post, I attempted to explain that retention bonuses are not new, nor are they sinister plots to distribute taxpayer money to rich executives. Especially when a company is going through tough times, retention bonuses can be absolutely critical to retaining the most critical people so that the company can flourish again when the crisis is over. I roundly criticized our leaders (including the President) for misleading the American people into believing that this wasn’t the case.
I stand by that criticism. However, if AIG’s retention contracts were written such that bonuses (especially substantial ones) are still paid even after an employee leaves, then we’re talking about extremely poorly written contracts.
Categories: Money Talk, News and/or Media, Political Rantings | 1 Comment »
