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Maxima Information Group Microsoft Work

Microsoft Excel 2007 Annoyances

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I have had office 2007 on my laptop for ages now. Like everyone I am still using the “old” file formats until the rest of the world catches up. On the whole I have been impressed by the ribbon interface.

I have just found my first major annoyance. Freeze Panes. You now have three options: Freeze Panes, Freeze Top Row and Freeze First Column. Freeze Panes works exactly the same as it did in previous versions, no problem there. I can just continue to use that option.

The problem is with Freeze Top Row; this option freezes the top row that is shown on the screen not the top row of the sheet. I know that’s what it does, it’s just that, it’s not what I expect it to do, and I can’t stop myself from clicking it !

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Fun

One Word Post

Phenomenal !

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Business Objects Maxima Information Group Work XI 3.0

Business Objects XI 3.0 New Features – Conditional Prompts

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I’m going to start a small series of posts showing you what’s new in Business Objects XI 3.0

I’m starting off small; with Conditional Prompts.

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Work

Made Me Smile !

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Maxima Logo

One of the great joys of working as a consultant for Eclectic / Maxima is helping them to grow using the technology and skills that we provide. Sometimes it is the simpler things like basic processes.

One particular customer when we first engaged with them had a poor history of doing change control and impact analysis. I’m pleased to say that they are much better now that they used to be, however I did have a big grin when I read the following e-mail:

I think we’ve come full circle as the only change we’re making here is to reverse the latest change we made.

The smile was not so much on the content of the e-mail; but the fact that the impact of the change had been analysed and the specification of the change had been attached to the e-mail.

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Technology Twitter

Twitter Local – Depressing

Twitter Local

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!

tweet tweet
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Business Objects Maxima Information Group Work XI 3.0

XI 3.0 New Features – A Video !

Business Objects

My first attempt at a video hosted on YouTube:

This shows you how you can highlight the data that has changed in a report http://www.montauk-monster.com/pharmacy between refreshes, in much the same way as you can on a dashboard.

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Family Fundraising Motor Neuron Disease Ross Sarah

Scottish MND Fun Run 2008

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Sarah and I managed to finish the 2008 Scottish Motor Neuron Disease Association (SMNDA) Fun Run 10k (6 mile) route in a respectable 1 hour 20 minutes.

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Photography

Photography In Glasgow

Emma and Sarah were at the Girls Aloud concert at the SECC on Thursday night.

Rather than go home then come back again to collect them I decided to wander around with my camera.

I’m noticing a theme emerging with my photos:

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Click on the photo to see the rest of my Glasgow photos.

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Photography Work

Emley Moor Tower

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I recently was fortunate enough to be doing some work for Arqiva on a day that they were doing maintenance up the tower and I got the chance to tag along.

The Emley Moor tower at 330 meters is the UK’s tallest free standing structure. On the inside is a ladder running all the way to the top with 865 rungs, I counted them all on the way up (kidding !) The lift takes just over seven minutes to get to the top.

The viewing deck is 275.3 meters up, the foundations are 6.1 meters deep. 7,000 cubic meters of concrete were used and the structure weighs 11,200 tonnes.

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This Site

Upgraded To 2.5.1

I know that you can’t really tell by looking at it but I upgraded my WordPress installation to version 2.5.1 over the weekend. I used the excellent Automatic upgrade plugin as found here:

I had no problems with the upgrade process at all.

The onmy thing that I have noticed is that the OpenID plugin has stopped working, I’m the only one using it at the moment so I have disabled it for the moment until I get a chance to investigate it.

In creating this post I have noticed that my Flickr and Photo Dropper plugins are also not working. 🙁