Smacking lusers with the clue-by-four (the new tech support thread)

[YojimboMonkey]

Also I'd copy each sheet to an individual workbook, archive the original monstrosity of a file, and work in individual workbooks from now on. Right-click the sheet name, click Move or Copy, select new file, etc.

[Good Intentions]

I can rep for moving huge clunky spreadsheets to databases. My lasting legacy at this job will be the fact that I did it for the monstrous record-keeping aspect of the role.

[peacocks]

Oh right yes we use outlook for our email but I thought what dumb fish mentioned could have been a different program or aspect of the email client I wasn't familiar with. I've used access before, a long time ago, and jump- I think. But I don't think we have licenses for those at work. I'm kind of THE biologist in a gaggle of engineers and one hydrogeologist.

Yojimbo! That is simple and so obvious! Every time I thought about doing that I got all "39 tiiiimes?? Uuugggh" but it is better and faster than the whole thing crashing every so often, thanks.

[alistarr*]

If you were committed to keeping it in one workbook for whatever reason then you'd probably get it working better by clearing all the formatting from the sheets. Cell formatting is a huge space (and memory) eater, and behaves in weird ways.

The other really easy thing you can look at is whether you've copied your formulae all the way to the bottom of the sheet. If you only actually need a couple of thousand rows, don't fill your formulae all the way down.

Don't break any data security policies or laws but if it's a workbook you can share then I'd happily have a look at it and see if there are any quick timesavers. Of course, if it'll work just as efficiently in separate sheets then you may as well just do that!

[peacocks]

The way it was set up the formulas had to go across each data sheet that was in the worksheet that was in the spreadsheet file. There were different formats for the species names, the indicator statuses, and the percentages as well as merged cells and color separations and borders. The tables look nice, but I have no idea why they would cram them into one worksheet on top of each other.

When Excel crashed it restored a copy of it that had all the formatting wiped and I was tempted to work from that but it would have taken forever to make it look the way the client wants the tables in the report to look, even with the paint function.

I ended up going to the office of a guy who no longer works here that has a newer computer with a newer version of windows and office 2007. I was able to finish the whole thing and fix all the formatting mess ups without any problems. Weeee!

oh jees I should get the IT guy to trade my computer for the newer one since that one barely gets used anymore. He has been lobbying the owners to get us all upgrades but I don't think that will happen any time soon.

[Thermofusion]

Using Chrome for Mac, I keep having a problem where a page will load and then go completely white, like the page just vanishes. It doesn't happen on every site, just a lot of them (espn dot com, for instance). Any of you guys ever encounter this?

[jebreject]

This happens occassionally for me, but I think only when I already have a lot of tabs open. Usually waiting a few seconds and reloading seems to restore the page.

[clare]

Yeah, I've had it happen too momo... I just tend to assume it's a site:Chrome problem and look at something else instead. I've tried realoading and it stays blank. Having been a Mac user for ever, I often get problems on sites that I assume are because the site developer used Internet Explorer's stupid authoring tool, so I vote with my feet ("if you can't make a webpage that I can see, then that's your problem, not mine. Lots of other places for me to look" etc). I don't have a lot of time for buggering around with that kind of thing these days...

[Thermofusion]

Thanks for the input guys! Closing Chrome and/or restarting seems to help, but the problem eventually returns. I definitely notice a correlation, as Jeb mentioned, between the number of tabs I have open and the likeliness of the problem occurring. Digging around a little bit suggests the problem is Flash-related. What's everyone's Mac browser of choice these days? Chrome is markedly faster than Safari (at least when it's working) but maybe there's something else out there. Basically I don't wanna use Safari if I don't have to.

[RoyBiggins]

At work, a bunch of us use Chrome, and it crashes 1-3 times per day for each of us. It ain't great.  Also weird: we were all using it for about a year before that ever happened.

[edison]

I've been having a similar problem lately, except the pages don't become blank, they just freeze and after a while I get a message saying they won't load.

[alistarr*]

Mine only struggles if I leave the browser open for a few days or keep a whole bunch of youtube/twitch.tv windows open at once.

Shutting down Chrome entirely always fixes it for me.

[clare]

Yeah, despite its bugginess, I'm only using Chrome these days. I was on Firefox, but it was just too fucking slow. Chrome is faster, and it doesn't freeze so much for me unless I have a million tabs open (which isn't unheard of) or haven't closed it for ages.

[milesofsparks]

hey-o, I'm going to Amsterdam in the week.  I'm not sure what to do about my iPhone 3GS...  I'll mostly be with my friend who lives there, so it's not like I'll be needing to consult the map every 2 seconds, but my friend's husband (who is somewhat techy) really wants to switch out my SIM card so I can use my phone without paying a lot of money.  my phone's still under contract, though, so my understanding is this is verboten and might cause problems when I return.  I'd rather not risk any problems since I've, like, traveled to more complicated countries without any phone at all omg in the olden days, but it would be fun to be able to look stuff up.  what do you guys think?  worth the risk for the rare times I'll be on my own?  or don't bother?

[clare]

Worth talking to your provider, I reckon. I'm not sure how locked to network "locked to network" is. I know the bloke has done things OS with his phones while being supposedly locked.

[milesofsparks]

I know they have an international plan, just not sure if it's worth the $$, or if there are consequences of switching out the card.  I'll try giving AT&T a call, though I'm not sure I'll get a straight answer from them...

[peacocks]

oh goodness. excel won't save my work anymore. I want to burn things. another dude has been using the computer with all the new stuff on it buuuut he's not here yet! I'm gonna sneak on and then get into a fight with him or something when he shows up.