Diners, Drive-ins and Dives Spreadsheets

Did you know that there’s a blog for fans of the Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
tv show? Best of all — it has spreadsheets!

Scroll down a bit, and in the right-hand sidebar there are links to Google
spreadsheets — one for the locations, and another for recipes. Below that, you can click on a Flavortown Menu name, to see a filtered list
of recipes.

Have fun, and eat at your own risk!

http://dinersdrive-insanddives.blogspot.com/

Shrink Long URLs With Google URL Shortener

When you’re adding a link in Twitter, or in an email, you might not want to include a really long URL. In the past, I’ve often used a site like bit.ly or is.gd to create a shortened version of the link, and use that instead of the long link.

Now there’s a Google URL Shortener, that’s built in to your Google account, so I’ve just switched to using that. It’s easy to use, and I can quickly see all my shortened links, and track the clicks.

[Update: 2023-07-02]

  • Google URL shortener is no longer available, so now I use BL.INK to create short links, and highly recommend it. I bought a lifetime deal from AppSumo in 2021, and it was a great investment!
  • Or, if you don’t create many short links, Bitly has a free version that you can try. I used Bitly for a while, after Google’s shortener shut down, and it worked reliably.

Google Short Link Example

For example, I created a short link for this Contextures Blog post.

Create a Shortened URL

To create a shortened link:

  • Copy the long link
  • If you want to track the click on the shortened link, log in to your Google account
  • Go to the Google URL Shortener page, and paste the copied link into the URL box

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  • Click the Shorten button, to create the shortened URL
  • Copy the short URL, and paste it into your tweet or email (or anywhere else you need a link)

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Track the Shortened URL Clicks

To see the details on clicks for the shortened links:

  • Log in to your Google account, and go to the Google URL Shortener page
  • In the list of your shortened URLs, click the Details option for any of the links

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  • You’ll see the information about the clicks on the selected URL, such as Referrers and Countries.

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Save

New Volume Setting for Google Alerts

Do you have Google Alerts set, so you can keep track of specific topics online? For example, you can get an update in your RSS feed if your name appears in a blog, or discussion, or in the online news.

I keep track of a few topics, including my name, with Google Alerts, and just discovered there was an automatic change to the settings.  A new column, Volume, has been added, with a default filter for "Only the best results."

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This setting will reduce the number of alerts that you get, so you might want to change the Volume setting to "All results", at least of a while, so you don’t miss anything.

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Spot the Differences

Today I was looking through my photos, and found this shot of my office peripherals table, taken in November 2001.

DebOffice2001

I had two large phones, a huge scanner, an answering machine, giant router, and a business card Rolodex file. You can see the top of a filing drawer under the table, and the corner of my Apple printer at the left.

There’s a modem sitting on top of the scanner, but I’m not sure why it’s there. And yes, despite its enormous size, that’s just a scanner, not an all-in-one machine that also does the laundry and cooks dinner.

Today’s Peripherals

Here’s a picture of the same table, taken today, almost 9 years later. The current scanner is much smaller, as are the two phones. Each phone has a headset plugged in, which makes it easier to talk and type at the same time.

DebOffice2010

The filing drawer is gone, and you can’t see it, but there’s a UPS under the table. It has saved me from considerable aggravation any time the power has flickered, because it keeps the computer and monitor running while I save and close my open files.

A new modem is under the printer table, and an external hard drive, lamp, BlackBerry and iPod have been added. The business card file is still there, but moved to the printer table. Funny that it has survived, while lots of high tech stuff has come and gone.

Your Office

What did your office look like 9-10 years ago? What does it look like now?

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Like Google Reader’s Track Changes? Too Bad!

In January, Google proudly announced a new feature in Google Reader — Track Changes. You could quickly set up an RSS feed for any page that didn’t have one, and be alerted when that page was changed.

I liked the feature, and set up feeds for several pages. It’s great for individual pages on a website, when you’re not interested in every update to the site.

Unfortunately, Google is killing the track changes feature at the end of this month. There’s no mention of the reason it’s disappearing, and my fist shaking doesn’t seem to have any impact on their decision.

The Google Reader Blog did provide a link to a similar service, Page2RSS, so I’ll switch to that. Now I have to find those special feeds, in my long list of feeds. But I’m not bitter about this! 😉

And remember, export your RSS feed list occasionally, so you have a backup.

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Testing the Office Live Excel Embedding

Today I read that you can now embed Excel files into your blog, by using Office Live. After I figured out how to log in to my account (it’s been a while), I created an Excel file to test here.

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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How NOT to Offer a Blog Guest Post

Some of the blogging expert sites suggest that you write guest posts on popular blogs, to get a bit of publicity for your own blog. Today I got an email from someone who offered to supply a guest post for my Excel website.

"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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Personalized Twitter Background

While reading my morning RSS feeds, I saw an article about creating a custom Twitter background. Since I didn’t have anything else planned for the day, I decided to attempt an update on my profile.

Previously, I had a picture of a lovely orange day lily, with the Contextures web address added at the lower left side. It was better than using one of the standard backgrounds, but didn’t reveal too much about me, or what I do.

The RSS feed article had a link to a blog with Twitter background templates, and instructions for creating your own. My Photoshop skills are minimal, and I’m using a really old version of Photoshop, but I plunged in anyway.

The article gave me some ideas for adding things to my background, and links to some graphic effects (although a couple of them were dead pages).

Instead of lined paper, a coffee mug and stains, I went with the cover of one of my pivot table books, the Contextures logo, and a goofy picture of me. (Yes, I know that every picture of me has some level of goofiness!)

Then I added my email address and Contextures address. They aren’t clickable links, but at least they’re on the page for reference. The image background is white, and I changed the Twitter theme colours to have a white background too, so it will blend in.

Here’s the finished background, which I saved in png format, and uploaded to my Twitter profile. It’s not great art, but it tells people a little bit about me, and livens up the page. If I can manage to do this, imagine what you can do!

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