A text summary for pasting into a Newsgroup posting (#paste)
Google Advanced Groups Search -- http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=group:*Excel*
Find messages with all of the words: __
with the exact phrase: __
Help with Excel in Google searches
~extract related words
file* use of wildcard based on root
sub OR function OR must be in caps
Groups Search additions:
groups:*excel*
Web Search additions:
Excel useful in web searches
inurl:edu restrict to educational sites
-filetype:pdf excludes PDF files
-HTH exclude most newsgroup postings
|
with any of the words: __
without the words: __
Newsgroup: *excel*
Subject: __
Author: __ (if appropriate your own email address)
Message ID: __
When looking at your results be sure to
look also at: (#thread)
- Previous Article
- Next Article
- Current Results
- Thread
- Author
When using a search engine you should learn all the features generally
referred to as Advanced Search or Power search options permitting use of
AND, OR, NEAR, and parentheses. Unfortunately Google does not provide
a Boolean search.
There is about a twelve hour delay for postings to make it into Google
so it does not provide a useful means to relocate your own postings in the
same day.
Suppose someone posts a long URL in a newsgroup pointing to archives
at Google, also see
TIP: Pasting a long web address into your browser (discussion
2001-03-15)
Using a colon in a subject title is a bad idea it
will not sort properly, thinking it is a Reply Prefix (Re:, Se:)
that appears as follows:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=spline+group:microsoft.public.excel.*&hl=en&lr= &safe=off&as_scoring=relevance&as_drrb=quick&as_qdr=&as_mind=15&as_minm=8&as_miny=2000&as_maxd=15 &as_maxm=3&as_maxy=2001&rnum=1&seld=964837763&ic=1
You cannot use it as it is shown, you would have to paste each line onto the
end of your entry line of your browser. That is tedious. Better to open
up Notepad and paste the whole thing there then remove the hidden new line characters at the end of each line. Paste the cleaned up URL into your web browser.
[test long link here**]
(note this link is so long that you will not see it in the status bar, look at address after invoking the link)
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=spline+group:microsoft.public.excel.*%26hl=en%26amp;lr=
%26safe=off%26as_scoring=relevance
%26as_drrb=quick%26as_qdr=%26as_mind=15%26as_minm=8%26as_miny=2000%26as_maxd=15
%26as_maxm=3%26as_maxy=2001%26
rnum=1%26seld=964837763%26ic=1 The above link is impractical to post into
a newsgroups, and it requires a search to get you to the location. To post
a reasonable link, go to the above link then click on Origin Format in the upper
right hand corner.
View: Complete Thread (3 articles) | Original Format
which will provide the following link, from which you can strip off the unwanted
&output=gplain to provide you with:
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=3A11AD33.B1438202%40rochester.rr.com
or made shorter by stripping out the first use of "groups" which is redundant
http://google.com/groups?as_umsgid=3A11AD33.B1438202%40rochester.rr.com
As you work more with this you discover you can get directly to the entire thread
by substituting &as_umsgid= with &threadm= here is an example along
those lines for a different thread.
Another way to find the Message-ID is to find a message in Outlook Express.
Thunderbird (mozilla.org) users can skip these steps altogether with
mozdev.org - messageidfinder: index.
Make A Shorter Link, I find this rather annoying in most cases because the
Google Newsgroup archive or something similar later on will be able to locate newsgroup articles
based on the Message-ID contained in the link for the next hundred years. But those who rely on a third part to make the connection between a temporary proprietary link to a newsgroup archive are rather short sighted in my opinion, because if they cease to exist the connection
to a message-id archived postings is broken. Don't expect those those companies
to all be around years from now to connect a real message-id to link with something like http://makeashorterlink.com/?T26F32A62
to refer to:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en%26lr=%26ie=UTF-8%26newwindow=1 %26threadm=OzaP
%24pFQBHA.948%40 tkmsftngp05%26rnum=1%26prev=/groups%3Fas_oq%3Dorlando
%26safe%3Dimages %26ie %3DISO-8859-1
%26as_ugroup%3Dmicrosoft.public.excel*%26as_uauthors%3Dwillwest22
%40yahoo.com%2520%26lr%3D%26num%3D100%26hl%3Den
without the message-id. The above links can be
reduced in Google Groups to the specific message by choosing the link for "View This Article Only" message which appears as:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en%26lr=%26ie=UTF-8%26newwindow=1 %26selm=OzaP
%24pFQBHA.948%40tkmsftngp05
and you can pare it down by removing English language, and substituting threadm= for selm=
http://google.com/groups?threadm=OzaP%24pFQBHA.948%40tkmsftngp05
Which includes the all important message-id and because threadm= is used instead
of selm= you can see the relative location within the thread.
Some Tips for posting links in a newsgroup article:
- Place a space in front of the link so that a quoted copy of your post
doesn't mess up the link
- Do not put punctuation or other characters immediate in front or after
the link.
- Remove the redundant portions of the link, and test it before posting
the link. The visible portion of some of the above links have had some
spaces added for illustration purposes so that the lines will wrap nicely within
an HTML web page.
TransURL - URL Translation Utility,
converts funny URL's back to a normalized readable URL.
|
What Happened to Deja Archives (#deja)
Bottom line is Google took over the archives.
Before Deja suddenly disappeared on Feb 12, 2001 lots of strange things had
happened. A move of servers in 1999 dumped all but the last three days
and they slowly recovered back to about March of 1999 by the time it was
announced that Deja was no more and had been taken over by Google.
Eventually Google restored archives back to March 29, 1995 which is where
they currently stand. Deja had promised at least seven years previous
to that to essentially pick up every newsgroup posting that was ever posted.
Lack of information is not uncommon. When stock quotes are not available
Intuit will not tell you on their site, nor will those responsible for the feeds. When MS newsgroups are down, Microsoft will not tell you about problems on their site. When computer viruses take down sites, you may hear about it from other news sources but never from the affected sites. What we consider a lack of integrity in keeping you informed, they consider it poor business sense to keep you informed. Possibly because they could be tracked on uptime/downtime or reliability, and possible to a different standard than others are tracked.
|
Some newsgroups of possible interest to Excel users (#xlgroups)
Please read articles on posting to Excel Newsgroups,
netiquette, plain text posting.
Lists of newsgroups on Microsoft servers can be found at
http://support.microsoft.com/support/news/default.asp?FR=0
Go through Office products to get to the
Excel for Windows Newsgroups.
Connect directly to the free Microsoft public servers. There is not need to
pay for a newsgroup service. There is no need to register with a site to
obtain a password. Subscribing to a microsoft.public newsgroup only means
that your newsreader is keeping track of postings to your selected newsgroups, not that any
registration is required. Connect as shown below use this link, which
will allow you to subscribe to these groups: news://msnews.microsoft.com
The ONLY reason to ever use a web based newsreader is if you are behind a firewall.
Everyone should be posting in plain text (No MIME, No HTML) and there are indications that some ISPs (Freeserve) drop HTML postings altogether, which may explain many missing postings. Clicking on a newsgroup link below will bring postings in that newsgroup into your Outlook Express, or Windows Live Mail, or other newsreader. Be selective in what you ask for.
The Big Three Excel Newsgroups is now Four (#big4)
-
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.misc
Is for General topics, like when you don't know where to post. aren't
familiar with specifics, used by new posters and old posters
alike. This is the group to start with. People who only want to post
a single question for charts for instance and don't want to hang out there,
might post here instead. In areas
other than Excel this group might be called "General" but in Excel it is "misc" for
miscellaneous. The next group you would probably be interested in would be:
-
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions
which deals with Worksheet Functions which are the builtin functions
and the MS provided addins which add more functions. You may
see a group worksheetfunctions it is long defunct and not on the MS
servers but you might see people posting to it, those connected to
the MS servers would never see it. And the third major group is:
-
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.programming
which is where one looks for programming (VBA coded) solutions.
About the only requirement is that unless you say otherwise, it will
be assumed you want or think you need a programming solution and
have installed and used at least one macro -- you may receive macro
solutions in the other groups but in the other groups it may be assumed
you have never used a macro. A couple of pages of mine that would,
hopefully, bridge that gap with installing a macro.
-
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel.newusers
This is the latest addition to the main Excel newsgroups.
It is now being archived.
The startup of this newsgroup was shaky, except for a few cross-postings,
Google Groups did not archive any posting
between startup in early Dec 12, 2002 until July 8, 2003 despite being
announced, being picked up by major usenet servers that automatically pick
up all the public Microsoft newsgroups, and despite several people requesting
this group be added
to the Google Archives via groups-support@google.com
as a result many unique postings were lost.
Additional Lists and Alphabetized Archives (#moregroups)
-
MS Excel General
Q & A List (http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/excel-g.html).
EXCEL-G is a list where the general or casual user of EXCEL can get
help for more everyday questions.
-
Microsoft Excel
Developers List (http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/excel-l.html)
The Excel Developers List serves as a forum for people who are doing,
or want to do, sophisticated things with Microsoft Excel.
Related Lists -- Microsoft Office (#office)
Clicking on a newsgroup link below will bring postings in that newsgroup into your Outlook Express, or Windows Live Mail, or other newsreader. Be selective in what you ask for.
- Office misc (news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.office.misc)
- Office (news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.office.setup)
Test Posting (#testposting)
It is rather annoying that people send posts to a newsgroup
to find out if they are connected or not.
Seems to me that simply posting a question or replying to someone
else's would do the trick.
There is at least one newsgroup specifically for placing test postings,
testing connectivity with your newsreader, and testing replies to your
test postings. Posts in a test newsgroup are intended to expire (not be archived),
but mainly so that you do not disrupt usage in working newsgroups.
When testing to the test newsgroup, you want to make sure you are
not posting in MIME (/HTML) and that your formulas appear correctly
make sure you include some equal signs (=) and less than (<) and
greater
than (>) signs in your testing.
Posting Directly to the Microsoft Newsgroups (#postdirect)
Posting directly to the Microsoft newsgroup servers results in the
quickest connection and turnaround.
If you have posted a question or a response look at
the path in your headers. Each exclamation mark (!)
represents passing off to another server. Reduction to
a single exclamation point is the goal. See if
you can directly access with:
news://msnews.microsoft.com
and then subscribe to microsoft.public.excel.misc
Post through "forums" such as excelforum and other are simply trying
to force fed you advertising, and getting you to click on advertising.
The newsgroup are text only there is no need for HTML pages. The worst
problem is that they store postings and replies as their own HTML pages and
are picked up in web searches and they should be ignored by web searches.
Those that are actually posted to newsgroup should only be seen in a
groups (newsgroups) search. not in web searches.
Connecting directly to Microsoft servers is not possible for everyone.
Many people on AOL or behind firewalls cannot connect directly.
For those using MS Outlook Express, or Netscape there
should be no problem. You can post and check your
headers by posting to a test newsgroup.
Setting Up to read Newsgroups in Outlook Express,
How to connect to the Microsoft Newsservers, then continue
Setting up Message Rules (filters) to help find your own postings,
block postings, or making your own postings set on the watched
indicator so you can quickly identify replies or related information to
your own postings and replies.
When directed to a specific topic on a page, please read
the entire page so you don't miss important material.
Microsoft Technical Support -- Knowledge Base (#mskb)
Access Microsoft's Knowledge Base (MS KB), Troubleshooting Wizards,
and downloadable files
Correct syntax for URL's to access a specific article
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;kbnumb
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=kbnumb
where kbnumb is strictly numeric, the recognizable "Q" prefix has been dropped.
You should be able to pick up a Knowledge Base article in
Google with:
kbid=kbnumb
Meaning of q= the IE header as in HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE:en-us,en-ca;q=0.7,fr-ca;q=0.3
is a selection preference number explained in RFC 2616 (rfc2616) - Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1
You can often pick up both general information and specific information in the MS KB (Microsoft Knowledge Data Base). It may be necessary to register first in which case try starting at http://support.microsoft.com/support/
http://support.microsoft.com/support/search/c.asp?SPR=
Fill in the product, type of search and question, as follows:
1) Excel for Windows or
leave this empty
2) Keyword
include XL
3) conversion and (1-2-3 or lotus)
Full Text
Titles with excerpts
An interesting site to see the number of postings in newsgroups group
can be found at MSR Netscan (Microsoft Research). Fill in contains with ".excel." as the newsgroups name or begins with
"microsoft.public.excel".
If you are
just interested in Excel you can visit Mehta Tuschar's site
Excel Newsgroup Statistics
I have a Search page that sets out
several search sites and places to obtain information. My favorite web
search engine is still AltaVista, but Google web search is also very good,
and because it has more content it is the one I use the most. You
will find them both there and references to the MS KB, phone directories,
airplane arrivals/departures etc. You might want to bookmark this page.
Also have a page on Web Search perhaps a little dated
now that Google web search is so popular. Also check out my new page ...
A page to help you specifically search for Search for Excel content on the Web
Some information on using Outlook Express 6.0 as your newsreader. Setting
up Message Rules (filters) to block postings, and Message Views to help find your own postings, or making your own postings set on the watched indicator so you can quickly identify replies or related information to your own postings and replies.
Also check this page if you are having problems not seeing any new postings in the Microsoft newsgroups, you will probably need to RESET that newsgroup.
Forte Agent, some people prefer Agent as their newsreader – Agent Download Page (English), Agent and Free Agent are combined in a single download.
Defining Google - transcript CBS 60 minutes (2005-01-02).
Remediation for Disastrous Google Beta Groups, Latest Disaster for Newsgroups, continuing since Nov 2004,
is the HTML versions of threads that destroys message-id, destroys code, makes for a big screen footprint, creates readability problems, and has slower access speed than plain text in the Classic search.
Hints for New Posters,
on Chip Pearson's site, is
a general introduction to what is considered proper netiquette (net etiquette)
in the
Excel groups. If interested in more detail as an introduction see my
page on Posting to Newsgroups, which was actually started
earlier with information on MIME postings and then later incorporated the early discussion
for Excel groups as it progressed and Chip started posting his hints and
later created a web page..
MSKB 555375 -- How to ask a question,
some general guidelines for asking questions in newsgroups.
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(Extensive revision June 4, 2001 for transition
from Deja to Google, said revisions completed Aug 24, 2002).
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