photo credit: gualtiero

A few people have asked me recently why so many of my Tweets or Facebook Updates have “Reading : ” and what it means

I’m an avid fan of Google Reader for consuming the RSS feeds from various sites and keeping up to date in a single location. One of the features in Google Reader is the ability to “Share” discrete items. Basically this means that I have read an article and would like to share with your followers. If you are interested you can see a list of the items that I have shared here : http://www.google.com/reader/shared/RossGoodman.com

Here’s where it gets interesting … the shared items can be read on the page above or can be consumed as an RSS feed, yup, my RSS feed reader also produces RSS feeds.

Next comes the service from TwitterFeed.com which will take an RSS feed and will update either your Twitter or Facebook pages. I selected twitter as it’s the tool that I use more. One of the options you have is to add a standard prefix to these updates, I selected “Reading : “.

I then use the twitter application for Facebook which replicates my tweets into Facebook – job done.

But – why did I chose the “Reading : ” prefix?
This is because I have hooked in a number of different services including favourite images on Flickr or my bookmarks on Delicious etc.

photo credit: laffy4k

If you look at the left hand menu you will see the items:

• Mail
• Calendar
• Contacts
• Tasks
• etc

These can be quickly accessed by using the following shortcut keys:

• (Ctrl+1) – Mail
• (Ctrl+2) – Calendar
• (Ctrl+3) – Contacts
• (Ctrl+4) – Tasks

In addition, when you use Ctrl+1 to access mail, this takes you to the folder that you were last using, if you would rather jump straight into your In-Box – use (Ctrl+Shift+I).

photo credit: therefromhere

Data Entry

All data should be entered in the sheet entitled “Logger”, simply copy the last row with data, paste it on the row below and then enter your values. The cells in grey contain formula so should not be changed.
All data should be entered in KM, I also have a miles to KM converter on the page if you prefer imperial measures. Once you have logged your runs, you will want to see how they are summarised over the day, week, month or year.

Using SQL

When I was trying to get this to work I could not find an example that worked that’s why I’m writing this.
The basic syntax of a SQL statement is:

SELECT “the columns you want to see”
FROM “wherever the data is stored”
WHERE “you filter the rows of data to show”
GROUP BY “if you want to summarise the data”
ORDER BY “if you want your results sorted”

There are a couple of differences when you are using the Google Query syntax:
You don’t need the “FROM” clause in the query it’s self, it’s passed into the function as a parameter.
There’s an additional “LABEL” clause that allows you to change the column headings in your output.

Using The Query Function

A simple example would be:

=Query(Logger!A1:P999, “select C, sum(E) group by C order by C label sum(E) ‘Distance KM’”)

The first parameter defines the data that you will be querying (the from clause).
The second parameter defines the query, in this case, showing the week and the total KM run in that week.
Note you must always refer to the column letters, even if you have put titles in row 1.
These query statements can get quite long and hard to read. What I like to do is to store the queries in a separate workbook “Queries” and then refer to them:

=QUERY(Logger!A1:P999,Queries!B2)

Feel free to take a copy of my spreadsheet and put it to good use!

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.

Update

The laptop was returned all fixed today !

Once Bitten…

Things looked good, they now have the laptop with Windows 7, the last one was XP, they had lots in stock and the laptop was delivered in under a week, great service as usual.
Unpacking the laptop the alarm bells started to ring.

1. The supplied manuals were not in English.
2. The power adaptor was NOT a UK three pin plug
3. The keyboard was a US keyboard rather than the UK layout

Not a problem, I’ll just give Dell a call and get this resolved…
The Dell answer machine confirmed that on a Saturday they are only open from 9am to 5pm, unfortunately I was calling them at 11:30am – why was I getting the answer machine?
Never mind, I’ll use the website and record my problem there. The web site recorded all my details, including my e-mail address. I sat back and waited for the standard template e-mail telling me how important my e-mail was and that it would be dealt with promptly on Monday morning. No confirmation e-mail arrived.
Come Monday afternoon (sarcasm)I’m at a loose end(/sarcasm) and I decide to call Dell to confirm that they received notification of my problem.
I get transferred from Technical Support to Customer Care. I cannot fault the agent I dealt with, he was clear, upfront and honest, but the outcome staggered me.
He confirmed that “We have recieved a LOT of complaints about Romanian units being shipped to the UK”.
My options were:

1. He sends me out a new power supply in the post, I don’t need to return my Romanian one.
2. He can arrange for the keyboard to be replaced but this may take a while, he knows of other cases where this has taken over two weeks.
3. He can arrange for my laptop to be completely replaced by a UK unit and I can keep my Romanian one until a UK one is sourced but he cannot confirm the timescales for this, it may even be months.

This seems fair at first but after some clarification.

1. If I accept a new power supply, I cannot then have the keyboard replaced.
2. If I wait until a new keyboard is available, he cannot send out a new power supply before that (rendering my laptop unusable)
3. If I accept a replacement unit, again a power supply cannot be shipped to cover the indeterminate period

I decided to take option four and go for a complete refund.
The galling thing is I have an agent that claims that there are no UK spec Inspiron Mini 10s in stock and no sight as to when one will be available. (177 inspiron mini 1011 laptops are listed on the web site at the moment)
In the meantime http://twitter.com/DELLOUTLETUK are proudly proclaiming that there is loads of stock and they are even giving money off!
Are they giving money off as they know that these are non UK spec laptops?
To make matters worse the call lasts an hour, yes sixty minutes !

PS
My wife’s mini 10 has a bent palmrest which has scratched the screen, this is being collected for repair “sometime this week or next, will someone be in between 9 and 5?”

In Summary

The two laptops I bought for the kids have been fine!
The laptop I bought for my wife has been rebuilt incorrectly, damaging the screen.
My first laptop was not registered to me, had a hard disk swapped and Windows reinstalled, motherboard replaced and two (incorrect spec) LCD screens sent out before I opted for a refund.
My second laptop is non UK spec with an incorrect keyboard, no power supply and no firm date for a resolution.
Should I buy another Dell?
Discuss!

Unfortunately, in the meantime my laptop had started to work as expected. This made me uneasy as I had not done anything to fix it so I knew that it could “break” again with no warning.
Between Christmas and New Year, the original fault returned.
This time tech support would speak to me. We ran a diagnostic and the only error reported was “multi format card reader error – device not ready” (I’m paraphrasing the error). I explained that I did not have an SD card in the slot and that’s probably why the error was displayed. The engineer insisted that this was actually a hard disk error and that was the cause of the incorrect display resolution.
An engineer was dispatched, who replaced the hard disk, re-installed windows and confirmed that the fault still existed.
The engineer also highlighted that as the boot screen and the bios screens were running at the wrong resolution there was no way that it could be a hard disk, Windows or drivers issue.

He diagnosed the fault as a faulty graphics card, which is built into the motherboard.
A replacement was ordered.
The motherboard was replaced and the fault persisted.

The only component left (apart from the case) that had not been swapped was the LCD screen.
A replacement was ordered.
To replace a screen the laptop has to be completely dismantled, motherboard and everything must be removed.
Once in bits it was found that the wrong screen had been sent out.
The mountings on the hinges were completely different and the wiring was different.
A different LCD was ordered.

Again, the LCD screen was of the wrong spec and did not fit.
The response now was to return the unit to Dell for a repair.
I declined the offer and arranged for a full refund.

The laptop was scheduled to be collected that Friday and my refund would be processed within 5 working days.
The laptop was not collected on the specified day.

The laptop was scheduled to be collected the following Friday and my refund would be processed within 5 working days.
The laptop was not collected on the specified day.

The next time I called Dell they claimed that the reason my unit had not been collected was because they did not think I owned it!
Apparently this has now been resolved and the laptop will be collected tomorrow.

Only a day later than claimed on Wednesday 27th January at about 16:30 my laptop was collected by the couriers for returnin to Dell.

Watch this space.

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!

Twitter

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.

Flickr / Photography

I can’t find a way to get stats for the year so here are my top five photos:

Web Site / Blog

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.

Personal Stuff

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

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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 !