2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

I REALLY appreciate their effort and the quality of their hosting offering.  Thank you WordPress…  Below is their cool little summary of my site activity in 2011.  Interesting stuff.

And thank all of YOU for visiting my site.  You have no idea how good it feels to have so many of you see the value of what I have to say and especially you guys who posted so many times.  Please don’t be shy.  I can see how many came, and that’s great, but your thoughts are interesting to me.

2012 is going to be an interesting year for us all.  Office 15 (2013?) hitting the market in the Fall would be my guess and it’ll be interesting mostly to see how Microsoft positions it.  I believe it is time for Microsoft to get out and show people how to use this stuff rather than just hoping they figure it out on their own.  I don’t expect them to do anything though and if so I think we will continue to see Excel and Access lose altitude.  I don’t think it’s enough to just hope that people “get it”.

So despite a lot of cool new features and some BIG surprises, that I can’t talk about, I predict more of the same as we “believers” fight the fight for Excel and Access on our own with little or no help from above.  We all have to ask ourselves whether it’s worth it and each will have to draw their own conclusions.

It’ll be interesting, but let’s keep in touch as it all happens.

Dick

 

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 29,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 11 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

An Interesting (?) Revelation From Working At Home

I know this is slight OT but maybe not totally.

A lot of us work at home right?  Also many of us have dogs (like you Mark in SevenOaks) and because we work at home our dogs are with us all day.  I have definitively proven that my Labrador Bella has learned not only to come to me and ask to be let out or walked AFTER I finish a phone call (every time) BUT she actually comes to me as I’m wrapping up the call (??).

In other words, something in how I close out conversations (tone or certain words or phrases) makes her realize that I am ALMOST  done talking and she should come to me and ask for my attention at that point.  That’s amazing to me !

This is only 1 of my 2 dogs BTW ..  her sister Mae, (also a Lab), is oblivious ).

There’s no question that our dogs (well the smarter ones) are really in tune with us and that is cool to me…

Dick

p.s. Can you guess which one’s the one I’m talking about?  Pretty easy isn’t it

The Court Jester Gets It!

Haven’t posted in a while because I am outrageously busy with personal and business things. Sorry.

But one thing that’s making all the work a lot harder is all the f***ing PASSWORDS I have to remember over and over !!

Every system or network I log into has different rules for passwords and different expiry dates and I am getting stumped regularly trying to keep all of them organized.  I am as I write this on hold with a guy in India trying to get my password for the internal MS Time Management system.  I have to log in twice with 2 different logins to get stumped on yet another dialog !!  The guy has now put me on hold…

Here is my favourite Dilbert on this topic:

http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Squirrel%20Noises

Why is Scott Adams the only person who speaks up on these annoying tech issues?  It reminds me of how Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert seem to be the only people who clearly see the absurdity of American politics. Where would we be without the Court Jesters?  Where are we going when the only ones who see the truth and speak up ARE the Court Jesters?

Dick

Excel Goes Gangsta (?)

As a Grandfatherly Canuck I am somewhat ignorant of the “Gangsta” reality in the US of A but on this week’s wonderful visit to the Collie’s in Cleveland I was pressed into displaying my complete and utter uncoolness (while watching Rob Collie’s wife Jocelyn playing hockey – and yelling “Shoot the puck !!” and “Keep your stick on the ice !!”.  Rob has just posted about this and exposed the picture here:

http://www.powerpivotpro.com/2011/12/friday-bonus-excel-goes-gangsta/

The reference to Wilford Brimley is a bit sobering but tragically accurate …

Thanx Rob and Jocelyn for you great hospitality and your sweet dawgs.

Dick

 

UK Excel User Conference

My pal Simon Murphy, aka Smurf, is hosting another Excel User Conference in January in London on Wednesday, Jan 25th, 2012.

Here is a link to info on this session.  I think if you’re in the London area and you care about Excel you will  not be disappointed with the kind of stuff Simon and his presenters will show you.  I hope to be able to be there myself if things work out.

http://xlconf.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/uk-excel-developer-conference-date-and-location

Dick