Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

I have lots of things in draft format to be posted on here. I will endeavour to get them all written in the near future. Some pressing client issues are to be dealt with first however.

So in the next few days look for posts on:

• Why I was in hospital most of last night
• Live Mesh - How to set it up and use it (being written by aManda)
• Photosynth – what it is, how to use it and the ones I have created so far
• Books I have read lately (mostly so i can stop tripping over the stack beside my desk that isn’t getting put away until I write this post)
• And if I get time, the next VBA primer.

Ok back to work!

On the 28th of August 2008, about two weeks ago, Tim and I attended the Girl Geek Dinner in Brisbane which was held at a Turkish restaurant.

The food was amazing!! It was worth going that night just for the food, seriously. But, besides the food, it was really interesting to spend that time with other women who are also involved in computer related work. Some people showed up already knowing other people there, others showed up not knowing anyone… it was interesting to observe the different ways everyone interacted with one another. We’re all so different! I was pretty quiet, but I wasn’t afraid to make conversation with other people, I actually enjoyed talking to some of the other girls during the night. However different from me, some ladies were quite loud and outgoing. Some ladies moved around and talked to most of the girls who showed up, whereas others stayed in their own seat the whole night and just talked with the girls sitting near them. But either way, everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and I’m certain everyone loved the food.

I promised to start writing a series of VBA primers. This is the first one.

For many using Excel is a daily thing. From office secretaries who manage the petty cash through to financial whizzkids who monitor stocks and bonds, Excel is a very versatile tool. It also has a lot of potential for automating repetitive tasks easily by being able to create macros.

A macro is a simply a “recorded set of instructions”. These can be as simple as saving two different sets of print options so you don’t have to continually change them. Basically the concept of a Macro is that you can get the computer to record the key and mouse strokes you use and save them so they can be repeated. While the reality is that the macro that is recorded is written in a language called VBA (visual Basic for Applications) this is irrelevant to people who first start using it.

Wow! what a day yesterday was. I have never had so much fun as a coach! I thought the athletics was fun but this was even better!.

First I had to get all the girls from the convention site down to the gym and ready to play. This was harder than it sounds. It was absolutely belting down with torrential rain, I was looking after my two youngest girls – who were very well behaved, and some of the girls were doing other performances beforehand. Also the captain was too sick to play.

We all got to the courts and started warming up – and dodging the rain that was falling onto the court through holes in the roof – it was so heavy the roof leaked! we did have a good warm up which was great and the girls were the first team there which is also a psychological advantage. They were not very switched on for a while but eventually we got them into some drills that made them focus and get the blood pumping. My fantastic assistant coach aManda was also sick so that made it even harder as I had to do all the other organising things I usually left her to do.