Categories
Microsoft Office Work

Update All Fields In MS Word

Sometimes you find a feature in a product that is just blatantly missing. One of those in Microsoft Word is the ability to update all the fields in the document with the latest value in a field.

I use both the built in fields e.g. Author, Version, Title and custom fields e.g. Project Code. I set the values once in the document properties and then insert the field codes in the document rather than the text. All is well. If you change the value of a field you can press F9 and all of the fields update to the latest value EXCEPT if you have used the fields in the document header or footer, these do not get updated for some reason. I would classify this as a bug, why would I not want all instances of the same field to be in sync throughout my document.

The solution is remarkably simple. Create the following macro:

Sub UpdateAll()
Dim oStory As Range
Dim oField As Field
For Each oStory In ActiveDocument.StoryRanges
For Each oField In oStory.Fields
oField.Update
Next oField
Next oStory
End Sub

This can be saved in your normal.dot file and will be available in all your word documents.

Categories
Misc

Scottish Football – My Solution

Today the Scottish government, police, SFA and the old firm are having a summit to address the problems following last weeks match.

The problem is, the football clubs are a business and unless everyone is involved, shareholders included, then this will go nowhere. There is also the problem as to how to make this fair and equitable for smaller clubs as well as the very top tier.

My Solution:

The Players
Any player recieves a yellow card they forfeit 1 weeks pay.
A red card – forfeit two weeks pay.
i.e. two yellows and a red is four weeks pay forfeited.
Even if a player recieves a red and then continues to protest the ref can issue another yellow or red as he sees fit.

The Management
The referee or another official has the ability to issue yellow and red cards to the touchline management staff with the same forfeit as above.
Now the management will loose their pay if their behaviour is not up to scratch.

The Team
A yellow card equates to one point, a red gives two points. If a team (players and management) accrue over 5 points in a single game, they forfeit their share of the  gate money for the match. If the team accrue over 8 points in a single match they loose all income from the match gate, TV, food etc.

Who Benefits
The teams do not get to choose, the SFA or public can choose a charity every week or month and all fines get paid to them. This way the team is still out of pocket as they have to pay the player’s wage even though the player will not recieve it.

Lets see how long it takes for the teams to get their act together and play in a responsibe, respectful and sportsman like manner.

Categories
Fitness Fundraising Marathon Ross Running

Run To Date – Just over 100 miles

As you may knowI am planning to run 1000km in 2011 to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

To date I have run 164km or 16.4% of my target distance – unfortunately I am only at 4% of my fundraising target – Never mind I have the Meadows (half) marathon, the Kilomathon and the Edinburgh Marathon in the next few months to give the fundraising a boost.

I thought it would be fun to visualise just how far 164km is, turns out I would be almost at Newcastle by now!

You can see this by clicking here.

Continue reading “Run To Date – Just over 100 miles”
Categories
Email Me Productivity

EMail–How I make it work for me !

I have been reading a few articles recently on e-mail etiquette and thought that it was about time I described how I use e-mail.

Inbox Zero

You can read the concept behind this here.

My inbox is normally empty. If you have sent me an e-mail and then pop over for a chat to chase me up and don’t see the mail in my inbox, don’t panic, if it’s not in my inbox it means that it has been filed, if required it will be on my To-Do list (http://www.RememberTheMilk.com) or will have an Outlook reminder tagged on it.

Yes I do have two separate systems, this is due to client confidentiality issues. I use a single system where possible.

Conversely, if you see my inbox is full, don’t panic, it just means that I’m busy working and have decided to not process my inbox at the moment, I’ll get to it when I have some more bandwidth.

Priorities

As alluded to above, I don’t slavishly watch my inbox, I deliberately ignore it at times. If I’m really busy I’ll even close Outlook/GMail/Pidgin/Blackberry to ensure that I’m not disturbed. If something is urgent and I haven’t responded, IM me, or call me or come and see me. (I may tell you that I can’t respond at the moment, but at least you will know I’m alive!)

I have some colleagues that use out of office responses when they are “busyâ€?. I don’t like this as it just adds to the “noiseâ€?. I may however book a meeting with myself to block out my calendar to prevent meeting requests when I’m working to a deadline.

Efficiency

To make e-mail work best:

  1. Have a meaningful subject.
    I will read the “blankâ€? subject emails last!
  2. Have a “management summaryâ€? at the top of the e-mail that includes what if anything you expect me to do and when.
  3. Be concise.
    If I know it will take me 10 minutes to read the body of the e-mail, I’ll do it later unless you grab my attention quickly (see my previous bullet)
    This is one of the common comments on the e-mails that I send, they appear to be quite “terseâ€?, this is not deliberate it’s my attempt at concise.
  4. Carbon Copy (CC)
    If you are just sending me a mail for “informationâ€? CC me rather than sending it TO me, it will get automatically filed into my CC folder which will get processed after my inbox.

Responses

If you must, feel free to send me a “Thanksâ€? e-mail but it is not expected, I only send these occasionally, again to cut down on the “noiseâ€?. I can’t think of the last time I sent a “Your Welcomeâ€? e-mail, although I do really appreciate you all!

Categories
Fitness Fundraising Ross Running

1000K In 2011 – My Dashboard

As you know I have pledged to run 1,000 kilometers in 2011 For Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Here is the first draft of the dashboard I’ll be using to communicate my progress.

Click here for the bigger version.

The JustGiving page has also been set up here : http://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011

Categories
Fundraising Running

2011 – Fundraising Challenge – Run 1000km

Marie Curie Logo

In 2011 I plan to run 1000km to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

This will be spread across multiple events including the Edinburgh Marathon and all of my training sessions.

If you would like to donate please visit http://www.justgiving.com/1000k-in-2011

Continue reading “2011 – Fundraising Challenge – Run 1000km”
Categories
Fitness Fundraising Hobbies Me Running

Marcothon (December Running) Update

Fast man!
Creative Commons License photo credit: Nick-K (Nikos Koutoulas)

The concept behind Marcothon was simple : run every day in December for at least 25 minutes or 3 miles.

My results:

  • 15 days out of 31
  • 18 runs in total
  • 75.51km or 46.92 miles covered
  • 10 hours 30 minutes running time

Officially that is a “fail” but it is my fourth best month in the year for distance and time but by far my best for actual number of runs.

I’m counting it as a HUGE success as it has been the ideal “warm up” for my 2011 running challenge.

Continue reading “Marcothon (December Running) Update”
Categories
Twitter

Reading : What it means

Notturno
Creative Commons License 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

Continue reading “Reading : What it means”
Categories
This Site Wordpress

WordPress Blog Upgrades & Re-Design

I have been a bit negligent in blogging recently, including ensuring that my WordPress installation is up to date.

Continue reading “WordPress Blog Upgrades & Re-Design”
Categories
Fitness Running Xcelsius 2008

Running – Dashboard – Marcothon

I’m building up for my running challenges of 2011 and breaking in my new treadmill so I am slowly building up my miles.
On incentive is the Marcothon group on FaceBook, the basic premis is to run for either 3 miles or 25 minutes in every day in December.

I have also been mucking around with Xcelsius for a parkrun project, more on that later.
To keep an eye on my progress I have built a dashboard to track my running over the current year and so I can visually compare my training year on year.