New App

I have finally managed to install the Blogger App on my Galaxy Tab. Editing seems to be a problem with it. Once I press finished, published or not, I think I can't edit a post.

So forgive all errors and omissions.

DW

The Master Bedroom

We have bought and had fitted the curtains for our bedroom now. The bedding doesn't quite match, however! There's time for that :)

Puppies ar Six Weeks

Well, one of the two puppies. Stewart (!) Followed me to the lake on the motorbike just as I had stopped to admire some Buffalo taking a dip.

Stewart was fascinated and showed no fear if the water or the steeply sloping bank. He was half submerged at one point!

Here he is, then, six weeks old ...

Misbehaving in a cell? UPDATE

I wonder if this is a feature, a bug or a coincidence within 24 hours of uploading this post it happened again ... see below8w.

Last week I was working on a file in Excel and one aspect the work was to use the COUNTIFS () function. I know this function and have used and demonstrated it many times. Would it work? Yes it did and then it point blank refused.

Yesterday a friend asked me about setting up hyperlinks in an Excel file and then saving that file as a Web Page before uploading it on to an intranet. I set to work and created two basic hyperlinks, saved as Web Page ... one link worked and one didn't. I corrected the error, saved the file again. Did the correction work? Not at all. I went back and checked my work but still it didn't work.

Is there a theme here? Yes!

In both cases, when I deleted the error completely and started again from scratch I got rid of the errors, no amount of editing in these cases looked as if it would work.

UPDATE

This morning I was working through some lookup examples that included a complex formula that included INDEX, ROW and should have been array entered. I copied and pasted an example formula that I knew would not work. Then I edited the formula but just could not make it work. So I started again I a new cell and bingo, it worked.

If something you KNOW is correct is not working: delete, start again.

Let me know if this worked for you too.

Duncan Williamson

We're in

The builder's finished and we have moved in. We built our last piece of furniture last night ... A wardrobe ... Big! It took 3".5hours to build.

Looking good overall I have to say!

DW

London Bound

I start a long trek to London today. Because of bus times I leave here in about two hours, one night in Bangkok then hop over to Kuala Lumpur for the direct flight to Heathrow.

This is all for work.

DW

Wonderful Technology

Yes, modern technology is wonderful, so where have I been, where are my latest posts?

There are two posts firmly rooted in my blogger outbox. I tried to create other posts whilst I was travelling.

Technology is wonderful but just try being a little off centre in your demands and you might as well be trying to use the internet on the moon!

DW

We're in ... Almost

The house is almost ready but not quite. I said, I can't wait much longer. Living in a room in someone else's house, taking up space, trying to keep out of their way as much as possible.

So, we've moved into bedroom two was three and we sleep there. As work goes on, we spend the day in the house with the family.

Every time I look at the jobs that need to be done I see another week or two to wait.

Now, though, I spend my evenings in the new room and the nights snoozing in it!

Here is a photo of what I can see from the bed ... iPad camera, poor quality.

No curtains yet!

DW

Here's Another Contrast

The beginning and the end: the alpha and the omega!!

DW

One Week Old

Here they are after one week, the puppies!

DW

Step One

We are here ...

Hope you can read Siem Reap on that plate!

DW

Shoulder, Shoulder ...

Although my shoulder/chest pain is still with me and I have spent a lot of time in agony over the last few nights, I slept pretty well last night.

I know a lot about the problem I am facing but fully beating it is proving to be a challenge.

This morning my left arm is aching a little but it is inconvenient rather than outright agony. Looks like I might have started to beat whatever I did to start this torture.

By the way, the pain has been so bad that paracetamol and NSAIDs have not helped.

DW

When I'm Cleaning Windows!

Well, I will, once they've put the glass in. Anyway, this is the first window to be fully installed, glass excluded.

I asked to be framed! Suave as ever 😳

DW

Puppies Arrived!

Slutty the dog became pregnant after the dog of her dreams bounded into her life one afternoon. I saw the dog at the same time as she did. I wanted to beat it with a stick but she swooned and ran to him.

I had seen her with other dogs while she was in season and she rejected them all. This one was different: tall, brown and with a hint of ridgeback. I assume he is the father of her pups and when pup number one arrived I said, aha! I was right!

That's why I call her Slutty: a bitch of easy virtue!!

The pups arrived early on Saturday and I was the first person on the scene. My torturing shoulder was keeping me awake and I could hear squealing coming from outside. As I walked out through the back door, the family dog bounded over very excitedly and as I walked on he ran backwards and forwards and led me to a place just behind the washing machine. His look said, look what I found, what do you think?!!

Slutty was hiding in the bottom of an old wardrobe when I walked past and she came over to us too, looked at the puppy, rolling around and squealing. Her body language said, this just sort of popped out ... no idea what to do with it!! The little thing had been licked clean and was already dry so he had been born a while before.

I called for backup and within minutes there were four people, two dogs, the kitten and Slutty's first born.

I couldn't sleep because of my shoulder so I hung around for a while until puppy two  arrived. I had seen the waters break   for this one so knew it wasn't far away. It took a while though.

Photos done I went to bed and managed to sleep.

In the morning there was great excitement outside as puppies three and four had arrived while I had been asleep. They arrived together, literally inseparable, as they were conjoined twins. I had never seen such a thing before and there they were: six legs, two tails and they didn't, they couldn't, survive.

Two healthy puppies, two unhealthy puppies. A decent result for Slutty, first time mother!

Photos below.

DW

Discombobulated Chest and Brain

By the time I got onto the plane to Bangkok the strained muscle in my chest was annoying me and the sleep cells in my brain were shouting ... we neeeeed to go to work ... go to sleep!

I had checked in the lounge if there were business seats available and they said no but check once you're on board. I checked and there were a coupe of seats free so i bagged one!

We were delayed taking off for an hour and i slept all of that hour and continued to sleep for another two hours or so. I did need that sleep!

DW 

Windows ... Who Wrote that Sh*t?

In transit at Dubai airport and the phone hooked up with the wifi in the lounge. The laptop wouldn't connect: Windows couldn't  connect ... Loose cable ... See the administrator ...

So I rebooted and tried again. After a few twiddles, Windows' prognostications were looking expensive.

I went to the connections list, right clicked the one I was trying to open and found ... the password that had been saved was wrong. I changed it earlier this week but it looks as if that loose cable was preventing the saving of it!!

DW

Julius Nyerere Airport Tanzania

I have to say a big thanks to the men and women at the JN Airport, Dar es Salaam.

I arrived with $50 to pay for my visa ... it was $250!

After some faffography I enlisted the help of a kindly member of staff and she got me through the airport to the ATMs but it wasn't her fault that there was no money in either of them. She went out of her way for me!

Then there was the rather severe acting immigration officer who allowed me to get a visa with an IOU stamp in my passport! Bark worse than bite: thank you!

Today I learned that I should have paid the extra $200 in the office in the city. 😳

Another severe type man went out of his way at the airport and was very helpful as he took me through the airport to solve my problem. Again, thank you, sir.

A positive experience all told!

DW

We Made the Bed!

For reasons i will report on later, we decided to build our IKEA bed. I meant to take a photo at every stage but of course I couldn't. Here are the photos I did take!

DW

Yellow Tie

I am the one wearing the yellow tie!

My group in Dar es Salaam this week.

DW

Speed, Distance, Time Left, Petrol Consumption

Average Speed

This is not complicated but it's what I did as I was travelling from A to B on a long bus journey: I set up a spreadsheet to deal with the following.

Although there should have been nothing to worry about, I wanted to be sure that I would make my connection at my destination.

So I wanted to know how fast we were going. There were kilometre posts on the road side for most of the journey and my phone has a stopwatch utility. I found the speed of the bus by combining the distance travelled, one kilometre; and time taken to travel it. I could check our speed whenever I wanted to now!

Then I wanted to know how long it would take us at the last recorded speed to get to our destination B. All I needed to know was the distance to B and then use my knowledge of speed to estimate the time remaining. I could find the distance to B every now and again from the sign posts on the road that told us!

That's all I really needed to know but then I enhanced my spreadsheet by adding these calculations too:

Time to cover one kilometre:

In minutes
In seconds

I considered creating a table to record all of the speeds I found together with distances remaining etc but decided that was academic!

Finally, this spreadsheet can cope with kilometres or miles ... and can convert from one to the other.

Petrol Consumption

As I bought a new car recently I decided I would keep a record of all of the petrol I buy for it. I have also kept a record of the kilometres driven. I record the litres of petrol bought, odometer reading at the time I bought the petrol, cost of petrol, type of petrol: my car can use either E20 or gasohol 91 petrol.

My very simple spreadsheet shows all of the above data and the calculation of kilometres driven per litre of petrol and average cost per litre.

At this stage there are very few data points and the consumption averages have yet to settle down.

Duncan Williamson