repetition

The stuff I've written in the past has already explained everything at least as good or better than I could do now. Is there really anything new left to write?

This post from 2008 says much the same as this recent one, without as many boring details.

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I was debating for a bit whether to go to the Pride festival today. But I know that it would play out nearly the same way as it did this time. So I don't think there's any benefit to going. It would just stress me out and feel pointless.

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I've finally got things in motion for getting my roof replaced. I am getting regular architectural shingles. The first estimate I got seemed quite a good/fair price, and the person seeemed to know his stuff, and it seemed like he would do a good job. Originally, I had planned to get estimates from 2 other roofers, but after the first one, I decided there was no need. Even if they were to give better estimates, it would probably come at the expense of quality. And the fewer phone calls and appointments I need to make, and the fewer people I need to wait on and interact with, the better. I was quite relieved after talking with that first roofer. It went so much easier than I had been expecting. Here's hoping that the rest of the process goes as well.

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deletions

Deleting one's old posts which seem insignificant is a bad idea. The seeming significance of various entries varies over time, and perhaps based on one's mood. Better to tag them with some unique value, if you want to be able to filter them out for whatever reason. Or better to make them private. That's easier to reverse, if you later change your mind.

I rarely ever completely delete things I've written - I keep copies on my computer. But in the past, I deleted various entries from LJ, which in looking at them now, I don't understand why I deleted them and wish I hadn't.

Excel 2007 auto-complete feature

The Excel auto-complete feature sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. I've figured out some of the reasons why.

Auto-complete can be enabled or disabled in Excel's Options, under Advanced - Editing options. There is a checkbox for "Enable AutoComplete for cell values" which is selected by default.

With Auto-Complete enabled, when you type into a cell characters that match a previous entry in the same column, Excel will auto-complete the rest of the entry so that you can simply tab out without typing it all.

But sometimes, Auto-Complete doesn't work.

At first I thought it was related to there being any blank cells in the column above. If you fill each blank cell with a single period character, then sometimes Auto-complete starts working again, for lower cells. However, sometimes Auto-complete works fine, even when there are blank cells right above the cell you are typing! The explanation is that blank cells on their own don't interrupt Auto-Complete, but that a completely blank *row* does interrupt it.

In another situation, Auto-complete wasn't working, even when what I typed exactly matched the value in the cell right above it. This was due to my having set the column format to "Numeric". I had done that since the first 20 or so columns had numbers in them. Once I set the column formatting back to "General", then auto-complete started working again.

In another situation, Auto-complete stopped working, but after closing Excel and then reopening the spreadsheet, it worked again.