Excel VBA code to Delete a Cell

Sub DeleteCell()
'
' DeleteCell Macro
'
' Keyboard Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+M
'
    sCurSheet = ActiveSheet.Name
    sCurCell = ActiveCell.Address
    sCurVal = ActiveCell
    bScreenUpdating = Application.ScreenUpdating
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    Logit "@deleted '" & sCurVal & "' from " & sCurCell
    Range("Backup_data") = sCurVal
    
    Selection.Delete Shift:=xlUp '  1004         Cannot use that command on overlapping selections.
    Application.ScreenUpdating = bScreenUpdating
End Sub

Laser Habit Fail

One habit I've failed at is using a laser to restore my hair every other day. I bought something called HairMax Laser comb many years ago for $500. I have trouble remembering to use it.

One reason I forget is that  I'm supposed to use it every other day. I think I'd be better off doing it on specific days Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

This activity takes 15 minutes and now I'm going to add it to Microsoft Outlook. My Excel to-do list could use a way to automatically add the task to my to-do list.

Daily 5 Minute Journal March 25, 2016

I Think it Moved

If you haven't seen the Seinfeld episode, check it out, it's quite funny. George gets a massage and his reaction is priceless.

Then he breaks the news to Jerry.

Yesterday I went for my yearly urologist appointment. The doctor checked me down below the equator. But this time something was different. The doctor was very gentle and asked me first to drop my pants. The doctor looked and manually checked my private parts but...

                     I think it moved...

and then asked me to bend over to check my prostate. I was getting worried about this, but she didn't say anything so I guess it didn't bother her.

Quiet day due to good Friday

It was very quiet when I arrived at work at 11 AM. There was one guy there and me. It looked like a ghost town. But it was nice that it was pretty quiet. Next week my boss is on vacation and that's always a good thing.

Son back from College

It's always nice when my son is home from college. My other son and the dog really miss him like I do. On the downside when he's home I'm more likely to eat ice cream which I did after he went to Carvel and bought it for me.

Smith Machine

My Gym Habit Continues

I continue to make it to the gym at Planet Fitness. I've picked 3 days per week, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and my goal isn't any particular work out but just to go.

I picked these days because they have the least number of people at the gym. I found this info on Google, I do love Google. 

I find that people are very unfriendly there and I haven't talked to anyone since I joined. I also don't like that there are no Olympic weight lifting bars that aren't attached to a Smith Machine. There isn't a track, pool or basket ball court or class either, though many other machines, steppers, bikes, treadmills. I guess you get what you pay for, $10 per month.

Top Things

Some top things I want to focus on this weekend are:

1. Get Listi to not be unzoomed when using on phone
2. Speed up Listi during adds
3. Be able to quickly go to an item in my focus list
4. Add to a sheet with the shortcut and text
5. Load a shelf to list
6. Blog on one item from my focus list
7. 20/80 the list of items in my focus list
8. Use spreadsheet I've develople to a list into top 50/Bottom 50
9. House chores
10. Read/Record my ideas
11. Record a podcast then transcribe it
12. Record then transcribe model

Using Excel VBA Code to transcribe a podcast faster

I developed some code in Excel that allows me to transcribe a podcast faster. I'm wondering if this is a good idea to transcribe a podcast. This software certainly makes it easier to transcribe them. It uses Excel VBA to type in one window which is a form and control YouTube with Function keys. I use F5 to pause/start the video and F4 to go back 5 seconds. I'll post in a future blog how this works but if you're interested post a comment below and I'll post it sooner. 

I'm going to update the code to track how fast or slow it takes to transcribe a podcast. I've also been considering creating a process that allows me to outsource the creation of the podcast in parts and then charge for the transcription.

Excel VBA Time Tracking via Caption Monitoring

I've used what called caption monitoring at work to automatically track time spent on various tasks. Each window has a caption at the top and this information can be used to monitor what you're doning. This piece of Excel VBA software will log the caption of whatever window I'm on and the class name. Then I have code that looks for keywords in the caption or class name and tracks the time and counts the times I've used the window. I generalized the code where I can just add keywords to a spreadsheet to capture different windows. One thing that surprised me was how much time I spent on Outlook, which was over an hour 2 days in a row. This might be incorrect because if I was on Outlook and went to the bathroom this code would track thatI was on outlook the whole time. The next thing I need is to add is code to track when I'm not using the keyboard or mouse so this won't happen.

20-80 Rule vs. 80-20 Rule

The 80-20 Rule also known as Pareto's Law. This basically states that 80% of your outputs comes from 20% of your inputs. 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your customers. 80% of the time you wear 20% of your clothes. 

I don't like calling it the 80-20 Rule as I think 20-80 Rule better describe it. What 20% of the tasks I do give me the 80% of the desired results? I want to focus more on this 20%.

Car Shopping and Buyer's Remorse

I'm in the market for a new car since my lease is up. I first went to a Buick dealer to see what their new car is. Their commercial worked. I thought about the attractive women looking at the car and saying is that a Buick! The Enclave is a nice looking car, but the trunk was too small. Their other model the Buick Encore was okay but too expensive. The dealer also sold GMC cars. There was a blue GMC Terrain that we test drove. Our salesman Roberto was nice and the car was okay but the price of $258 was higher than we liked.  

We then went to a Honda dealer to look at a Honda CRV. We wound up leasing a Black Honda CRV. with 10,000 miles per year for  36 months for $279. Of course my buyers remorse has set in. Will black get too dirty? Will it be too hot in the summer? It certainly looks nice. I could be an Uber driver with this color. 

For those not familiar with the term buyers's remorse or seller's remorse it's pretty self-explanatory. After you buy something or sell something you'll be sorry that you did wondering if you made the right decision, got the best price...

I violated one of my rules. "Never buy something the day you see it."  So when you go car shopping or shopping for any big purchase, go home and mull over it for at least one night. Though doing this could cause another problem "analysis paralysis."

The negotiation was simple. We were offered $279 a month and wanted to get it down to $250 a month or avoid the $400 return fee on our current lease and $850 damage fee. So we asked if the $1250 could be waved. The salesperson Briana went to her manager and came back and accepted our offer. This made me a little suspect that my counter offer was too good.  We did take the car for a test drive and we already have a CRV so the risk is low. At first I wanted a grey version, but then thought the black would look nicer. 

Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

I developed a way to transcribe a podcast by using shortcut keys instead of the mouse. Am I wasting time transcribing the podcast? It's the efficiency vs. effectiveness debate introduced to me by +Tim Ferriss.  Now I can transcribe a podcast faster than ever before, but is this an effective use of my limited time. 

There is something about transcribing what +Seth Godin says that makes me learn it better so that's good. 

I was getting very annoyed at the previous method which was way to much typing and switching windows, moving the mouse back and forth. But on the other hand now I have a transcription of Tim Ferris and Seth Godin podcast. 

I did notice that Tim and Seth aren't as good speakers as I thought they were and could improve. Tim's questions would start somewhere and then go somewhere else and Seth's answers were also long winded. I guess they could both be more concise. Of course I'm not close to their skills but the transcription process taught me something.

I vs. You vs. People

One thing I'm not sure about in writing is when to use I, you or people. Recently I've notice that I use the term "you should" when I mean "people should." Even when blogging I'm not sure. I do know too much "I" is bad as I'm just talking about myself. I could DAMAGE (Don't Ask Me Ask Google Everything). I have software that does word counts so it would be interesting to analyze the number of times I use "I", "I'm", "my" or "we" vs. "you", "they", etc. I could also use a list of positive words or list of negative words to analyze my mood or a writer's mood

Don't Bother Me

Yesterday both of my son's wanted me to do things and I said "No." One  wants to go to city, Yankee game, and the other to play chess. I'm not sure why I said "No." I'm looking for someone to be closer with and my family is right there. Why did I avoid these. I believe that part of the reason is that these things aren't fun to me. Each one has it's issues. Maybe I need to have them do something for me first.

I work in New Your City everyday and walk between 1 - 3 hours there. It's not how I want to spend my weekend. But I would go to take the dog as I'd be interested in how she is with all the other dogs around. Chess is okay but I do find it boring. I've beaten my son and I'm also afraid of losing. I feel my time could be better put to use doing something else. I think I'll make a list of trades of things they could do for me if I do these things for them.

Google Ad Annoyance

One thing I've been finding annoying is seeing the same ad on every webpage I visit.  Once I search for something on Google this happens. I was looking for a car and now every ad is a car ad. If I buy protein bars then every ad is a protein bar ad.

On the other hand the content on the internet is free because of the ads. I don't mind seeing non-flashing type ads that I can ignore or view if they are something I'm interested in. But once I bought a car I don't want to see car ads over and over again.

Facebook Posts without Permission

I was searching for a solution to a problem on one of my spreadsheets. I wasn't seeing the grid-lines in Excel anymore. I tried everything I could easily think of and then searched Google and found a website with a very nicely documented answer at GuidingTech.com. I went to post a comment but my name showed via Facebook on the post. I didn't want to post it with my name but it did.

A Larry David Moment

My son told me about an incident at college that was right out of Curb your Enthusiasm. He can't find his Yankee hat and he sees a kid wearing it in his frat house. He says "That's my hat" and the kid says "My dad gave it to me." This reminds of where Larry's Joe Pepitone jersey goes missing and he sees a guy on the street wearing. Leon leaves the car and gets it for him.

Daily 5 Minute Journal - March 24, 2016

Garry Shandling died today

Twitter always seems to be the bearer of bad news. I didn't know his work that well but the few times he subbed for Johnny Carson I thought he was very funny.  Recently he was on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
Garry Shandling - It's Great That Garry Shandling Is Still Alive - Episode - Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee by Jerry Seinfeld

4 Coincidences

I was sitting in the conference room at work while Evan ate his lunch. We were talking about my brother. I want my brother to meet Yanek a guy I work with. A second after I mention Yanek's name he pops into the conference room.

I'm walking my dog and we pass a male dog Rocky's house who for some reason my dog loves. All of a sudden the owner and Rocky show up in the car. It's stranged that our paths coincided at the exact same time.

I'm singing a song from Blazin Saddles the movie and my says that Madelin Kahn died at a young age. I asked her to check my list 187 Famous People Who Died Before Their Time. Tonight Garry Shandling passed away and I have to update the list

The final one was that I was working on a Comedy List today which was randomly selected for me and a comedian died so now I'll try to learn from his work.

Tweet comparison

I do two tweets and the results are interesting.

the first one was generated by YouTube when I liked the video. I didn't know it was doing this. The second was my tweet of the video. The tweets were 1 minute apart.

1. I liked a @YouTube video http://youtu.be/RkAxbHrwtpI?a  Happy Guy (1988-11-03)
2. "Time keeps ticking away" - #Devo - #Happy Guy

The key to why the second tweet had more engagements is likely the #Devo and #Happy hash-tags. I'm not 100% sure of this so I'd have to do more testing.

6 take-away's to improve your tweets

1. Use #hash-tags in your tweets
2. Keep the link at bottom not embedded
3. Use readable text in the link then a random set of characters
1. RkAxbHrwtpI vs. bit.ly/HappyGuy
4. Use an interesting quote from the video
5. Keep it short
6. Don't use the standard text from a system like YouTube

Daily Journal March 22, 2016

Excel To-do List

Today I got a lot done at work.

And why?

I have a great tool to help me.

It works on a pretty simple principle. It answers the question "What should I do now?"  

Now as I get distracted it also answers the question "What should I be working on?"

In addition, it time-boxes the task so I can use Parkinson's Law to set a limit on time I spend on it.

The basic idea is to capture things I have to do into 3 columns of a spreadsheet. 

1. The first column is the highest priority stuff to get to
2. The second column is the next level priority
3. The third column is the backlog of stuff I need to get to

The I randomly select a task to do from the 1st column. The spreadsheet selects it and I start to work on it. I can select 15, 30 or 60 minutes to work on the task or skip it if I want.

When the task is selected it shows me in a form what I'm working on with the elapsed time. When I finish the task I use the Strike-through font (Ctrl+5). .  

I'm sure that doesn't make sense so I'll have to put a video together showing the power of this tool.

Caption Monitoring

One thing I'm working on is better time tracking. I was wondering how much time I spend in Outlook so I developed some Excel VBA code to monitor the Active window and track the amount of time I'm in Outlook.  I think this could be useful for detecting time other software is being used. After developing it I'm not sure that it's that useful as there is a process that I take when I get emails. There are 3 types of emails:

1. Useless stuff that I didn't need to look at
2. Information that I may need in the future
3. Some request that I need to answer

Now the 3rd item can take me from minutes to days depending on what the request is. So knowing that I was in Outlook gives me some information but it doesn't track well the issue that I'm working on. I would be nice to be able to track information related to the request that came in.

Ernie Belittles me

My friend Ernie at work belittles me because I told him about my list of  > 100 things I'm focusing on. He's a Buddhist and to him it's the opposite of focused.  "You can't do that!" But maybe I can and maybe it's exactly what I want to do. I can explore new things and put to rest tasks that I don't want to do and figure what to work on. I got the idea from +james altucher who says to be working on 20 ideas because you don't know which one will get traction. Then he minimizes my video on how to transcribe a podcast with shortcut keys.

Left out again

Not sure why I wasn't included in a meeting this morning. My boss invited everyone on the team but forgot to invite me. WTF. He realized it an then invited me after the meeting was in progress for 10 minutes.

Interesting Titles

I was at Barnes and Noble and they had a number of interesting titles. I bought War of Art

• The Art of Thinking Clearly
• This Book will make you Smarter
• Idiots Guide to unlocking Creativity
• Wired to Create
• The Art of Creative Thinking
• Why we Snap
• One Simple Idea

Voice Recognition to Transcribe a Podcast

I tried to use the Windows and the Google software to transcribe a podcast but it doesn't work. I think it's still quicker and better to just type it. The software could barely understand any words. The only thing that worked partially was playing the podcast to headphones and repeating what the guests were saying. I'm going to try a test for a fixed time say 10 minutes and see which has better results.

Yesterday I posted a video on how to transcribe a podcast using short cut keys. The main keys to use are:

Key	Action
Alt+Tab	Switch Window
Alt+Shift+Tab	Switch Window
Space	Play/Pause YouTube video toggle
Left Arrow	Back video 5 seconds on YouTube
Right Arrow	Forward video 5 seconds on YouTube
Ctrl+PgDn	Next tab in Chrome
Ctrl+PgUp	Prev tab in Chrome

Nice Guitar

While napping yesterday I awake to the following video on PBS of Paint it Black.

Daily 5 minute journal - March 21, 2016

At work there was a networking session for an hour where you chatted with a co-worker. There was a basket where you could put your business card into or just write it on an index card. A pretty woman named Patina picked my card so she talked with me. She was from India and was very friendly.

We watched video feed of a boring meeting, with 3 executives on stage. One them Lori was asked a question and went on for 15 minutes with a boring corporate speak answer that could be right out of Al Yancovic's song Mission Statement

Today I collected information for my taxes. Tax day is coming up soon. I have a corporation that doesn't sell anything and every year I pay $250 to have my taxes done.

I looked at Amazon today and see that they have many ways of making money, maybe too many so that you get overwhelmed and don't sign up for anything.

It was a cold and windy day in NYC, I walked 3 - 4 miles in the evening with my fried Evan.  I'm looking forward to watching "Better Call Saul."

I want to transcribe these executive talks and get word counts.

5 Keys to Success at Work

Today I felt left out. Ivan and Mary were working on a problem and a demo and I wasn't included. I haven't been invited to meetings with the user and have been left out of important emails that would help. This angered me a little. I've been left out in the past. I remember at an old job all the traders were going out for drinks, but I wasn't invited. I need to get this email and read email's I've received.

I worked on something I find very boring. Working on something that you find boring is a guarantee for failure. This is a process that I took over from someone else and I'm not even sure if it's still used. I did some research and sent out some emails. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to get an answer.

My success at work always came from spending more time at work than others. At my current job I really haven't spent much overtime at work.

I've been interviewing people lately but don't feel I've been prepared enough for the interviews. I have it on my to-do list but don't seem to be able to make the time for it.

There is also lots of technology I need to improve at and business concepts that I don't know that others are more familiar with. Some of the tech is:

• Java
• Debugging Java
• IMM Basel
• Basel
• Tableau
• MapR
• Apache Drill
• Application Database
• Other systems
• Unix
• SVN
• Jenkins
• JQuery
• Build/Release process
• Terminology

To summarize the key take-aways:

1. Work overtime
2. Read important emails
3. Follow up
4. Be prepared
5. Spend time learning each day