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I am in the process of booking myself a holiday – and not just any ordinary holiday!

Most people will have heard of Brindabella, the most famous Sydney to Hobart yacht race winner. Well the man who is managing her this year is also in charge of Kioni. I am booking myself a ten day sail from Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays down to the Gold Coast as part of the transfer process of moving the boat up and down the coast. I am super excited. My mate Sharpie has set me up and I’m super excited about the opportunity. Check out this YouTube channel for some videos of Kioni in action.

So I had authorised Vista SP2 in my WSUS server and i had noticed other machines on my network installing it. But my machine didn’t show it up in the updates to install list. I eventually went and downloaded the full standalone version. In the meantime i came across this post by Susan Bradley about having important updates not installed stopping SP2 from being available. I went and checked but that wasnt my problem.

When i tried to actually run the SP2 download I got this message:

I went into the control panel to Regional and Language Settings

I have been doing a lot of photography lately. Something to do with getting my new gear! I’m playing with White Balance, ISO, Aperture and Shutter settings and trying different things. A lot of these things I have of course done before, but now I am doing it with good gear and I am starting to get some good results.

I’ve put some of my good photos into this article. There are lots more in my flickr account, and for those connected to me on facebook a few there as well. A couple of very good shots have made it to my red bubble account where they can be purchased.

We went on a fun run on Sunday morning. I entered int he 5km run, but had to pull out early due to an injuury sustained at squash last Friday. I have pulled / damaged / twisted a nerve in the side of my left calf and it is very sore. The good thing was that as I got back to the finish line before most people I was able to take a large number of photos that have subsequently been made available for the runners to access.

My apologies for no Excel tips in here lately. I have been asked to write some specific things that will take some time to put together as they involve explaining complex conceptual approaches to solving the problem as well as the specific excel solution. However they are coming – thanks Nicola and Traci. Anybody else want to send me ideas for posts or requests for help feel free.

Today I am just emptying my browser from a whole bunch of other peoples Excel posts I had found interesting and wanted to share.

This one actually answers one of Nicolas questions – kind of – what are the differences between Excel 2003 and 2007. While not specifically answering this question, Allen explains how to find the differences in VBA. Excel 2007 VBA differences

One of the most common problems we have in Excel is using dates and times in relation to calendar years and financial years. In Australia the financial year ends June 20 so financial years cross two calendar years. This also causes issues with the financial year quarters. DataPig Technologies has a post on the BaconBits Blog about Choosing Quarters in Excel.

Jan Karel Pieterse, a long time Excel MVP I have read for a long time, has a extensive Excel website. His comprehensive series on Using Range Names is very useful.

While working on a major coding project we needed to remove sensitivity to case. This article from OzGrid provided the answers we needed. Stop Excel VBA Macro Code Being Case Sensitive & Compare Text. Excel VBA Case Sensitive.