jgubbins207

I didn’t have much time for tech “stuff” this weekend and was kind of feeling guilty about it. It was my daughter’s fourth birthday party on Saturday. So from 5 a.m. to just after midnight, it was non-stop setting up, cutting cake, opening presents, cleaning up. Sunday was spent watching TV and playing with new gifts. They grow up so fast and I realize that every moment counts. Yet somehow, I still felt guilty…until I read the following…Yes, I know it’s a little sappy…

Five More Minutes !

While at the park one day, a woman sat down next to a man on a bench near a playground. “That’s my son over there,” she said, pointing to a little boy in a red sweater who was gliding down the slide.

“He’s a fine looking boy” the man said. “That’s my son on the swing in the blue sweater.” Then, looking at his watch, he called to his son. “What do you say we go, Todd?” Todd pleaded, “Just five more minutes, Dad. Please? Just five more minutes.”

The man nodded and Todd continued to swing to his heart’s content. Minutes passed and the father stood and called again to his son. “Time to go now?” Again Todd pleaded, “Five more minutes, Dad. Just five more minutes.” The man smiled and said, “O.K.”

“My, you certainly are a patient father,” the woman responded.

The man smiled and then said, “My older son Tommy was killed by a drunk driver last year while he was riding his bike near here. I never spent much time with Tommy and now I’d give anything for just five more minutes with him. I’ve vowed not to make the same mistake with Todd. He thinks he has five more minutes to swing. The truth is, I get Five more minutes to watch him play.”

Life is all about making priorities, what are your priorities? Give someone you love 5 more minutes of your time today.

I usually would not post what I call “Happy Spam,” but this one just reminded me how short life is and how we need to count the blessings that we are granted. If this is the kind of stuff you like to read visit Inspiring the Spirit

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As an account administrator, I often need to take chunks of information from excel cells and merge them with other cells. For example, if I receive a spreadsheet with a few hundred first names and last names and need to create users based on first initial last name, I could spend a few hours cuting and pasting the first initial to the last name. Or, I can use a few fairly simple formulas to shorten the process to a few seconds. Let’s use the following as an example:

The first step is to use the CONCATENATE argument to combine cells A and B. This formula is an excelent way to combine cells of almost any type. In this example I have placed =CONCATENATE(A2,B2) into cell C2. This effectively combines the text of cells A and B. For more on this formula please follow this link: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HP100625621033.aspx

Once you have combined your first name and last name you will want to add the LEN function to a macro. You will want to select Tools –> Macro –> Record new macro. Immediately stop the recording. This will leave you with a “blank” macro. Again select Tools –> Macro –> Macros. Select the macro you just recorded and click edit.

Paste the following into the module that opens:

Sub <name of macro>()
‘
‘ <name> Macro
‘ Macro recorded 5/27/2008 by <name>
‘ Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+<Letter of your choosing>

‘
Dim cell As Range

For Each cell In Range(”A1:A600″)
If Len(cell) > 1 Then
cell = Right(cell, Len(cell) - 1)
End If
Next cell

End Sub

Close the editor, place your cursor in Cell D2 and run the macro. The result will be the cell below:

As you can see, the r characrter has been stripped from the First Name and has been properly concatenated to create a first initial last name user ID.

So let’s break down the macro a bit (undelined, italic and red to define what each part of the macro does):

Dim cell As Range (selects the cell range as defined below)

For Each cell In Range(”A1:A600″) (defines the range)
If Len(cell) > 1 Then (states that if the length of the cell is greater than 1)
cell = Right(cell, Len(cell) - 1) (command removes all but one character starting from the right)

And that is how easy it is to remove portions of a cell! For more info on the Len function visit:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP100625691033.aspx

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This weekend marked the first in a series of tutorials I plan on conducting on Ustream.tv. The half hour broadcast focused on setting up a gmail and Blogger.com account. If you missed it, please take a few moments to view it by selecting menu in the UStream box at the bottom of the page. By selecting View profile you will be able to watch the taped show. I plan on continuing to experiment with this exciting new medium on a weekly basis. Keep your eyes peeled for future installments and a calander of upcoming topics.

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Today, while creating summer school teacher accounts, I came across a user that had been a summer school teacher in the past who’s account had not been deleted. When I went to change the password I was faced with the message in the title. Hmmm…that’s odd, it’s worked for everyone else? Tried a few methods to change the password and still nothing…Till I realized require unique passwords was checked. Once I changed that setting I was able to reset the password and re-enable requiring unique passwords….364 more things to learn this year!

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O.K., so that sounds somewhat like a bad injury. For the past few weeks I have been trying to figure out why my Xanga has been “out of wack”. The modules wouldn’t line up right in Internet Explorer. Everything was fine in Firefox. Go figure. Basically to get the look I wanted I had to re-arrange my layout, drag my maincontent content into one of the columns and widen the column. Added benefit is that it throws the advertising to the bottom of the main page. Not a bad little trick, just frustrating as all heck getting there!

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