Today I found a WordPress app that lets me write posts for the blog, so this is my test post. It’s hard to type on the on-screen keyboard, so please ignore any typing errors.

I also bought Numbers for the iPad, and will let you know what I think of it, after using it for a while. It’s very different from Excel, so it will take some time to figure out.

If you have an iPad, and know of any useful apps, please let me know in the comments.

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In Twitter, Dick Kusleika said that he’s using CodeColorer too, and it works well. I decided to test the plug-in here, before installing it on the Contextures blog.

The CodeColorer feature list looks promising, especially these items:

• syntax highlighting of code in comments
• code protect from mangling by WordPress (for example, quotes, double-dashes, etc would look just right as you entered)

Installing the CodeColorer Plugin

The installation was quick and easy, using the WordPress dashboard. After activating the plugin, I went to the its settings page, to see what could be adjusted. What’s the fun in having a new toy, if you don’t try to break it?

There is a preview of the code, at the bottom of the settings panel. I changed the Theme, from the default of Slush and Poppies(!) to Vibrant Ink. The preview only changed after I clicked the Save Options button.

Yikes! That’s not the look I’m going for.

Twitlight (yes, TwiTlight), looked about the same. At the other end of the code formatting scale, Dawn is a bit too subtle.

So, back to Slush and Poppies it is. Is it just me, or would Slush and Puppies be a better name?

The Formatted Code

Here’s the snippet of code that I copied from Excel VBA.

And this is how it looked in Excel

Formatted Code in Comments

The CodeColorer plugin is supposed to format the code in the comments too. You can test it here, and please let me know if you have any trouble, or suggestions.

To format your code in the comments, use this syntax:

Thanks!

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Update: Here are the instructions for embedding Excel files (thanks JP!)

So, here’s my Excel file — a very simple table with a Total column. I’ve turned on interactivity, so everyone should be able to edit the numbers.

If you try to edit the numbers, please let me know if you were successful. Thanks!

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"I figured you might be interested in including a guest article for contextures.com about the story of an Ann Arbor couple that ‘greened’ up their wedding."

As tempting as that sounds, I’ll pass, thanks.

What Went Wrong?

How can I pass up this irresistible offer? It was self-centred, completely off-topic, and had a "do-gooder" approach that made me suspicious. Here are just a few things the author did wrong:

• didn’t bother to find out who owns the site, and there was no salutation in the email
• obviously has no clue what my site is about — no mention of how the article would fit the site’s theme
• in first 3 sentences, "my" and "I" used 8 times, versus "you" and "your" used once each.
• return email address has event planning theme, but the article pitch was for environmental awareness –"With your support we can educate the public about the dangers of excessive wastes and hopefully help people lower their carbon footprints."

What Could Go Right?

I don’t really have guest posts on my blog, but have written about a few sample workbooks and macros that people have sent to me. If someone really wanted to do a guest post on my Excel blog, a random email wouldn’t be the first time I’d ever heard their name. They’d have added comments to the blog in the past, or emailed me previously, without pitching something.

Someone who wanted to write a guest post would know that my blog is about Excel, and would suggest an article tied to that. For example, instead of ‘greening up’ a wedding, an article about tracking wedding costs in Excel would be relevant. Or, for a green theme, the article could explain how to calculate a cost comparison of energy sources in Excel.

Also, if you had an article to share on my blog, you’d tell me how your article will help my blog’s readers, not you. What interesting Excel tips will you share, or fabulous new template design?

Finally, the author should include a link to his/her website or blog, and be clear about its purpose. Don’t try to guilt me into posting your article, by claiming it will help the earth, if your site is all about selling something. I’m not opposed to business, but I don’t like feeling conned.

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It’s easy to do — just fill in the website address and your email, then click the Generate Report button. There’s also an option to enter the website address for competitor sites, so you can compare your results with theirs. I picked a couple of other Excel sites, so I could see where Contextures stood in comparison.

A couple of minutes later, the results were shown, and Contextures scored 96.8 — pretty good, with room for improvement.

Website Content

Website Grader was impressed that I had a blog, and posted there recently. It told me how many Google index pages are on my site (156), and said, "Generally, the more pages your site has within the Google cache, the better." So, I’d better add a few more!

The readability score surprised me — College Undergraduate. I try to avoid five-dollar words, and describe things as simply as possible, but if you read my website, you’re obviously pretty smart.

There’s a link to a Blog Grader too, if you want to try that.

Website Optimization

The report warned me that my Page Title was too long — by 1 character, so I’ve fixed that. It also recommended that I get the font tags out of the page. I’m starting an online CSS course next week, so I’ll improve things after that.

Website Promotion

The report even gives you a Twitter Grade, if there’s an account tied to the website. I was surprised to get 91.36, since I only have a few followers, and don’t tweet very often.

Monthly Reports

I signed up for the free monthly report, so I’ll see if the minor changes that I made had any effect. They’re also promoting a paid service, but it starts at $250/month, so I’ll pass on that.

What’s Your Grade?

Have you graded your website? Did you agree with the outcome? Please share your results in the comments.

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There’s a header picture option with the Twenty Ten theme, so this blog has a bit of colour now. Exciting, I know!

I’ve added a Recent Comments list in the right sidebar, and a list of categories, to make it easier to find things.

If you’re reading this in your RSS feed, you can wander over to the blog, and see what you think.

I like the clean look of the theme, and nice big font, and it’s easy to change the column settings and layout.

So far, so good.

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For example, WordPress 3.0 was released today, so I decided to test it on this blog first.

Backup First

Before installing the upgrade, I did an export of the blog’s data, from the WordPress dashboard. It would be smart to do a full database backup too, but I felt like living on the edge.

Find the Upgrade Button

For previous upgrades, I’ve seen a notice near the top of the dashboard, advising me that a new version of WordPress is available. There wasn’t anything visible when I logged in to WordPress, and I found the Upgrade option under the Tools menu in the dashboard’s sidebar.

Automatic Upgrade

You can download all the files and manually install the upgrade, but I opted to click the Upgrade Automatically button.

Everything went smoothly, and only took a few seconds.

New Features in WordPress 3.0

You can read about the new WordPress 3.0 features on the WordPress site.

The new feature that I noticed immediately is the Updates option under the Dashboard menu in the sidebar.

It was highlighted with a 1 symbol, and showed that my Theme had an update available. It’s handy to have everything in one screen, instead of individual lists.

So, I updated the theme, and even remembered to re-install the Google Analytics tracking code in the footer!

Will You Upgrade?

I’ll wait a day or two before installing WordPress 3.0 on any other blog, just to be sure everything REALLY went smoothly.

How about you? Will you upgrade to WordPress 3.0, or stick with your current version for a while?

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The map never changes, so I usually glance at it and move on. Today though, I clicked on Canada and it showed a dot for each city with readers. Hello, Yellowknife! And apparently they don’t have the Internet anywhere Sault Ste. Marie and Winnipeg, or maybe they have the Internet, but no Excel users.

Coincidentally, the second city in from the right is Sydney, Nova Scotia, and the second city from the left is Sidney, British Columbia.

The line of dots along the border reminded me of a comment that David Letterman made last week, after the Olympics. He said the USA wouldn’t have to invade Canada to overtake it, they could just move the border 1° north.

If you zoom out from the map, you get a regional analysis of the visitors. No surprises there, with most readers from the Americas.

And finally, I checked a larger version of the dashboard map, that gives better detail on the world countries. The only surprise here is that no one from Greenland has visited the Contextures Blog in the past month. I’ll have to get the marketing team to look into that.

So, are there any surprises in your Google Analytics maps?

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So, I decided to test my website and blogs, to see how they’d be assessed. Here’s the description of how the analyzer works:

It uses Artificial Intelligence to determine if a homepage is written by a man or woman. Behind the scene, a text classifier hosted over at uClassify.com has been trained on 11000 blogs written by men and women.

I figured that the Excel sites would lean to the male side, because of the technical material. Probably more men than women are blogging about computer stuff.

And I was right – here are the scores:

1. We think http://blog.contextures.com is written by a man (82%).
2. We think http://www.contextures.com is written by a man (84%).
3. We think http://www.pivot-table.com is written by a man (84%).

It’s interesting that my Contextures website is slightly more manly than my Contextures blog.

This blog though, is gender neutral, despite having a female name.

• We guess http://debradalgleish.com/blog/ is written by a man (55%), however it’s quite gender neutral.

So – how does your blog/website rate?

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Some of those Excel help requests come with a file attachment, but most files are fairly small – in the 50-200 Kb size. I’ll admit to opening some of them, if the help request is interesting, and the problem is well described.

Today I got an email with a 2 Mb Excel attachment, from someone I’d never heard of, let alone had any prior interaction with. He was offering me an “interactive workbook” that I could put on my Sample Excel Files page.

Through careful research, he learned that my name is “Hi”, so that impressed me. (Many people believe that my name is “Sir”, so “Hi” is an improvement.)

I deleted the email immediately, so I can’t quote it exactly, but it had only a short paragraph with a vague description of the attachment. There were no details about sender or the file that made me want to take a look.

Sharing Your File

There are some files on my Sample Excel Files page that other people have created. You can learn amazing things by taking a look at someone else’s work.

Both Ron Coderre and Roger Govier have generously provided so many sample files that I created separate pages for them. Dave Peterson has contributed several files too, like his popular Navigation toolbar. But even they wouldn’t send a random 2 Mb file without asking if I’m interested.

If you have an Excel workbook that you’d like to share on my website, please let me know. Maybe it would be perfect for my website visitors.

If we haven’t met, or emailed, before, tell me a little about yourself, and the kind of file that you’ve created. I try to keep the sample files pretty small, so they’re quick and easy for people to download, so I probably won’t be able to use your file if it’s too big. 

Does This Happen to You?

Do you ever get giant Excel files that you didn’t ask for, and weren’t expecting? How do you handle that?

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