Fred's Follies



Author: Fred Cranston

Date:  October, 1988

Keywords: column superspool shanghai game

Text:
Do you work a lot with Excel?  Do you get irritated when you only have
40 rows with data and scroll down to get row 40 but go too far and
reach row 1600?  Do you have a similar irritation with scrolling the
columns?  Last month I heard that there was a way to configure your
Worksheet so that you would not scroll past a working cell.  I called
Microsoft Customer Support to find out how to do it and was told that
there was no way to so configure.  Later that day the mail came with my
Excel 1.5 upgrade.  I immediately tried it out and found that the
upgrade now did what I wanted it to.  It would only scroll in any
direction just a few rows or columns beyond a working cell.  Too bad
Customer Support at Microsoft doesn't know its own product.  There is a
way to reduce the problem with columns, just make all unused columns
zero width.  It can be done with MENU commands; I found out the hard
way that you don't have to do each column separately.  It takes a long
time to zero-width 750 columns.
I asked recently if anyone knew the rule for making the little dots
appear and disappear in the game called LIFE.  I received no response. 
I don't know whether that is because no one knows the rule or because I
am the only one who has that game.  In any event, I now know the rule. 
If you are interested, call me at home and I will tell you.
MacUser reviews some word processing programs in its recent issue. 
Among them is WRITE-NOW upgrade 2.0 which it praises.  I sent for my
2.0 upgrade a month ago and was told that I would receive it in late
October.  Late October is now behind us and still no 2.0.  Is this what
is known as Vaporware?

Copyright © october, 1988 by Fred Cranston