Behind the Scenes in My Online Business
To keep track of what I’ve posted on my Contextures Excel tips website, I use Microsoft Access. You can’t do everything in Excel! In that database, I enter a bit of information about each page, and there is a query to create RSS feed entries. I paste those into an XML file, and upload it. Here’s how I create the entries, in case it helps you!
Continue reading “Create RSS Feed Entries in Microsoft Access”
Every Saturday, I use Excel to plan our menu for the upcoming week. Everyone does that, right? Sometimes there are special events or activities during the week, so I take those into consideration when planning the suppers for those days. This week, there is a very important event, and I hope you’re planning for it! Continue reading “Spreadsheet Day 2018 Supper”
It’s hard work to set up a new WordPress blog, even though it’s promoted as “a few clicks and you’re done”. The bare bones might be set up in a few clicks, but there are many more steps to complete, before you’ve got a working blog. I’m making notes here, on some of the key steps, just in case I’m every foolish enough to try this again. And if you’re starting a new blog, maybe this will help you too.
How is your summer going? Are you getting business things done, or taking it easy? I had a few projects planned for my Contextures business, but this has turned into a sidetracked summer. And that’s probably a good thing!
A couple of weeks ago, I got a new iPad, because the old one was acting strangely. It shut down a few times a day, for no apparent reason, and it was “jumpy” sometimes, when responding to taps. I like the new iPad much better, and it cost less than the old one did!
An announcement for an Introduction to R course arrived in my inbox recently, so I checked it out. The course is free, and offered by the Knight Center for Journalism. There are lots of tweets about R, and how awesome it is, so I signed up. Did I make a big mistake, or will this be a good investment of my time? Will it complement Excel?
One advantage of working from home is that there aren’t too many interruptions. Just turn off the phone, shut down the email, and focus on getting things done. Last week though, while I was working on an Excel file, a large message popped up on the other monitor. “Bored with your background? Update your desktop background, or create a whole slideshow of pics.”
Is it easy for you to find an old email in Microsoft Outlook? I always click in the Instant Search box, type a word or two, and hope for the best. That doesn’t always work too well Fortunately, Alex B showed me a few tricks for better Microsoft Outlook searches, and they might help you too. There’s also a big problem with one of these tricks, and Microsoft won’t be fixing it.
