Database Query Parameters in Excel

My friend called and asked me how to change Query parameters from a cell in an Excel document. His worksheet is bringing in data from an external database. This tip assumes a basic understanding of retrieving external data from a database.

Here's what I sent him:

1. Open the Query Editor.
2. For the criteria you want to be parameter-driven, identify them with square brackets - "[" and "]" as shown below:
   
   
3. Close the Query Editor and place the cursor somewhere in your output
4. Make sure the Query Toolbar is open. Click on the "Query Parameters" button.
   
   
5. For each parameter, indicate where to locate that value:
   
   
6. The "Refresh automatically when cell value changes" is a very helpful feature.

American Violence

Regarding the recent tragedy in Tucson... Has anyone considered the fact that God is not American and he just might be quite appalled at the level of violence we Americans condone? In one year more than 30,000 Americans die from gun violence. I'd say that's an epidemic and something to pray about.

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

Fiverr Worked Out For Me

I just re-designed the website. Funny how every re-design takes less and less time as I strip this thing down to bare bones. Now it's just a main page pointing people to where I spend time (Twitter, FB, etc), this on-its-last-legs blog, and my tunes. I had that sweet cartoon image of me (also adorning the main page of my site) done over at Fiverr. I don't know how reliable anyone else is, but relaxabe is good.

I scanned a few jobs of people that would draw pictures from photographs. I put in two orders and relaxabe came in right on time and did a better job than I expected. The other job is still in progress

Overall, the Fiverr experience is pretty well designed. Although some of the jobs listed on there: "I will sing, play and record a short jingle for $5", "I will do a 1 hour marketing consultation, helping you develop a strategic and tactical marketing plan for $5" seem a little far fetched for $5 and I seriously suspect the quality job you're gonna get.

A Lesson in Search Engine Keyword Management
So I was perusing my Google Webmaster account and looking at this website that I have been neglecting for months. Glancing over at the top keywords, I was slightly horrified to see the following:

My initial reaction was that the site had been hacked. This is a home-made blog that pre-dates Wordpress, Blogger, etc., so it wouldn't take a l33t hacker to hack this. (I've never gotten around to converting over to a real platform.) So I checked everything and there was no hack-age. My 2nd thought was that someone was link-spamming my site. This was a stretch - anyone taking the effort to google-bomb this website would be a pathetic individual.

So I did what I should've done in the 1st place - I used my search for some of the keywords above and voila - I had actually written a blog post with those keywords. You can see it here. I have since replaced the offending keywords with characters.

Lesson learned.

Hey Internets, You Let Me Down
Being a) a fan of Dave Grohl's various musical adventures and b) a fan of Queens of the Stone Age and c) being a lifelong Zeppelin fan and d) Online ALL the time, I was more than mildly surprised to be learning about a new band featuring Grohl, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones upon receiving this month's Guitar World magazine.

They are Them Crooked Vultures. I saw them on SNL last night and thought they were good, although the sound was kind of off. (Seems like this whole season, the mix has been f'd up for SNL musical guests.)

Anyhoo, I'm heading over to iTunes to buy the album. Hope I'm not disappointed.

Kind of Like a Mule...
Things are progressing rather well at our natural pet products venture HeavenSentNaturalPets.com. So far we've been generating about 90% of our business online with Google ads and eBay. We're now starting to get quite a bit of repeat business, which speaks well of the product quality. Hopefully in the next month or so, we'll be available in some local stores.

Don't Call It a Comeback
Hey there!

How are ya?

Cool. I'm good too.

Just finished a cowboy song for Audiojungle, the stock music site.

Check it out (and buy it dammit):

Or listen to it here without the watermark.

(Installed) Wordpress and .htaccess
On the recommendation of websitegrader.com, I added an .htaccess file to a client's website. The function does a re-direct to "www." if the visitor types in the domain name without "www".

I have a Wordpress blog on this website. After I added this .htaccess function, I couldn't log in to the Wordpress Admin. After beating my head against the wall for about an hour and repeatedly setting and re-setting my password in the wp_users table, I remembered having set up that .htaccess file. After deleting .htaccess (that 301 re-direct was the only thing in it), everything was peachy.

Woops.

Truly...The Worst Fight Scene Ever

Me and Darryl Talley Playing Golf
I played in a golf scramble today at The Legends at Orange Lake sponsored by Universal Studios and RCI. On one particular par 4, we were getting ready to hit our 2nd shot from about 160 yards out. A group fron the next fairway over came over and had to play their ball out of our fairway. They were about 15 feet behind us and let us hit first. I absolutely nailed my shot to within about 6 feet from the cup. One of the guys in the other group said "Nice shot, man." I said "thanks" as we drove to the green.

As we're riding away, two guys in my group chuckled and informed me that I had just been complimented by Darryl Talley. Yes - Mr. 4 Super Bowls, 2 Pro Bowls Darryl Talley.

As someone that never sees (or recognizes) famous people, this was pretty cool. Although may have been cooler had I known who he was at the time of the compliment. Oh well...