1) Risk
IRISS Conference 19th November 2009, Dublin
LinkedIn group Critical Infrastructure
2) Quality
Nov 11 is World Quality Day
3) Spreadsheets
New: Spreadsheet Safe group on LinkedIn
XLTest: Spreadsheet testing and quality check add-in
4) Off Topic
Sharpeye OMR Music scanner software
8 Web links in this newsletter
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LinkedIn IAIDQ Webinar for World Quality Day
http://events.linkedin.com/Celebrate-World-Quality-Day-IAIDQ/pub/157942
WebinarTODAY at 17:00GMT on the 11th of November. In the webinar, you will share a number of stories from the direct experiences of IAIDQ Directors that give an indication of the future trends, issues, risks and opportunities that exist in the Information Quality profession.
Stories will include:
* The slowly unfolding trends in litigation for poor quality information and what that means for the profession come 2014
* The impact of improved quality information in product development processes in a leading company, how this is increasingly common, and what that means for 2014
* The rising tide of quality information in Environmental sciences and how a leading agency is getting ready to meet the challenges of the future with quality information today.
http://events.linkedin.com/Celebrate-World-Quality-Day-IAIDQ/pub/157942
Keywords: data quality, information quality, data management, information management, compliance, world quality day, quality management
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ScanXLS helps companies cope with the VAT rate change in spreadsheets
http://www.sysmod.com/scanxls.htm
Companies in the UK and Ireland face another enormous task of changing back price lists in spreadsheets because of the VAT rate reversion from 15% to 17.5% in January 2009.
SCANXLS from Systems Modelling lets you scan your entire hard disk or network for spreadsheets that contain 17.5% or 15%
or combinations that result in gross or net calculations such as 1.175, and 40/47.
Systems Modelling can also scan spreadsheet files sent to us. This spreadsheet scanning service suits those who don't wish to install third party software on their servers, or who want an outsourced solution.
Scanxls also reports on other data integrity problems or common formula errors that may exist in the spreadsheet, alerting businesses to problems that they did not know they had.
Contact: Patrick O'Beirne (+353) 5394 22294
http://www.sysmod.com/scanxls.htm
UK VAT Rate Change official information
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Scary Fall Giveaway For Excel Nerds
http://blog.contextures.com/archives/2009/10/21/very-scary-fall-giveaway-for-excel-nerds/
To enter, write an original (and suitable for work!) comment below, describing either:
A) an Excel related costume (real or imagined).
OR
B) your scariest Excel related experience.
The submission deadline is 12:00 noon (Eastern Daylight Time) on Tuesday, October 27, 2009. Winners will be announced here on October 28th.
The Ghastly Goodies
Some scarily smart Excel authors, developers and publishers have contributed a monstrous mound of books and utilities for me to give away as treats.
Thanks to all the contributors – Patrick “Ogre” O’Beirne, Jan Karel “The Creeper” Pieterse, Charley “Crypt-Kicker” Kyd, John “Walking Dead” Walkenbach, Jon “Petrifier” Peltier, “Chiller” Chandoo and Matt “Killer” Kennedy.
From Patrick O’Beirne of Systems Modelling Ltd
one copy of XLTest: Spreadsheet testing and auditing add-in — “XLTest helps you to check the integrity of your spreadsheets far more quickly than with tedious cell-by-cell inspection.”
From Jan Karel Pieterse, of JKP Application Development Services:
one copy of Professional Excel Development, 2nd Edition
one copy of Excel 2007 VBA Programming For Dummies
one USB key (1 GB) with a set of tools like Name Manager and a free RefTreeAnalyser license (1 copy of this prize is available)
From Charley Kyd of ExcelUser, Inc.
one copy of IncSight® DB: Excel Dashboard Templates Linked to Data — “Set up your first Excel dashboard report in less than an hour. "
From John Walkenbach of J-Walk & Associates, Inc.
one copy of the Power Utility Pak (PUP). — “Power Utility Pak Version 6 (PUP v6) is a useful collection of add-ins that brings significant new functionality to Excel. "
From Jon Peltier, of Peltier Technical Services:
one copy of a PTS Charting Utility – “When installed the utilities provide buttons on the Excel menu or ribbon that allow you to select a regular worksheet range and create a specialized and customized Excel chart.”
From Chandoo of Pointy Haired Dilbert
one copy of the newly released Project Management Bundle of templates for Excel — “The bundle contains 24 highly reusable excel templates for project planning, task management, timesheets, issue tracking, risk logging, status reporting and more.”
From Matt Kennedy of Apress, 2 prizes – e-books that you can download from the Apress website:
Pro Excel 2007 VBA, by Jim DeMarco (e-book)
Pro Excel Financial Modeling: Building Models for Technology Startups, by Tom Y. Sawyer (e-book)
From Debra Dalgleish of Contextures – 3 prizes. The 3 winners can each select one of :
Beginning Pivot Tables in Excel 2007
Excel 2007 PivotTables Recipes
Excel Pivot Tables Recipe Book
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PraxIS Oct 2009
www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0910.htm
1) Risk
Fraud check list
"What am I supposed to do with this security prompt?"
2) Spreadsheets
Guidelines for Spreadsheet Development
Excel User Conference UK Oct 7,8
3) XLTEST Spreadsheet Checking Add-In
Version 1.09 released
5 Web links in this newsletter
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PraxIS Sep 2009
http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0909.htm
Excel Development Guidelines
Named Ranges are being talked about
Eusprig 2010 Conference theme
Two MS employees want your help in making Office Better
Spreadsheet.com auction
Spreadsheet and other Tech Cartoons
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epicenter 2009
The Irish Software Show - epicenter 2009 August 26 - 28th 2009
To receive updates join the epicenter Community or follow us on Twitter.com/epicenter2009
Kindly Sponsored by
- SUN Microsystems - Vodafone - ESET - Salesforce.com -
- Provident CRM - Realex Payments - Hosting 365 - Agile Technologies - Avnet Technology Solutions -
Barry Alastair says:
We have lined-up world class evangelists, expert technology sessions and a free-to attend expo - so whether you are looking to get stuck into new technology, meet people to do business with, or get a grip on the latest offerings, simply kick back at epicenter because it will be sure to satisfy your needs.
Tickets start at €99.00 and they give you access to all streams.
Additionally, we have put on some complimentary vendor and tech sessions at lunchtime, so feel free to drop in to Trinity College if you're coming by! See expo page for more details.
Keynotes
Weds - Jennifer Condon / Enterprise Irelands 4yr strategy for software companies
Thurs - Prof. Barry Smyth / Co-Founder of ChangingWorlds
The Secrets of an Irish Software Entrepreneur
Friday - Colm Mulcahy / Cloud Evangelist, Founder & CEO of Saaspoint
Why Cloud will shape the Irish Software Industry
Web
Marc Grabanski / MGL Consulting / JQuery Fundamentals / JQuery Advanced
Eugene Ciurana / Independent / Mission Critical Enterprise Cloud Applications
Barry Smyth / ChangingWorlds / Web Search 3.0
Paul Lynch / Hosting 365 / Cloud Computing: The Future Hosting ?
Robin Christopherson / AbilityNet / Don't Make Your Web App a Web Wannabe
Helgi Thormar Thorbjoernsson / Echolibre / Coping with Cyber Monday
Dermot Daly / Tapadoo / Objective C for the iPhone
Damian OSuilleabhain / OS3 / Building iPhone Apps in an Hour
Romans Malinovski / &3% Less Fugly - the Making of epicenter.ie
David Rook / Realex Payments / Web Security #1 / #2
John Wood / iQ Content / Adapting the Agile Agenda to Interaction Design
Eoin Keary / OWASP / Application Security Verification Standard
John Mountjoy / Salesforce.com / The Force.com Cloud Platform
Andy Gibson / Independent / Web Application Testing With Selenium
Peter Kovak / ESET / Malware, Cyber Law & Security Solutions in Practice
Urban Schrott / ESET / Cybercrime
Kevin O'Connor / Hosting 365 / A Market Overview.
Jonathan Forde / Realex Payments / Integrating into Realex Payments
Microsoft
Marco Amoedo (MVP) / MS Dynamics CRM
Jon Skeet (MVP) / Google UK / C# / Code Contracts & Parallel Extensions
Robert Hogg (MVP) / Black Marble / OSLO / PM War Stories
Barry Carr / Independent / F# - What is Functional Testing?
Barry Dorrans (MVP) / Independent / Securing .NET Apps
Bob Duffy (MVP) / ProData/ Microsoft BI / SQL Server Virtualisation
Keith Eccles / Oracle / Oracle & .NET Operability
Richard Fennell (MVP) / Black Marble / ALM with VSTS2008 / Visual Studio & TFS 2010 for the QA/Tester
Niall Flanagan (MVP) / Independent / SQL Server
Aidan Gallagher / Inish Technologies / Software Licensing for .NET Apps
Alex Mackey / Independent / Visual Studio 2010
Craig Murphy (MVP) / Independent / Introducing OpenXML
Phil Bourke (MVP) / Tipperary Institute / A Classic Games Portfolio
To Be Confirmed / Silverlight & Azure
Java
Jeff Genender / Independent / The Rules of SOA
Eugene Ciurana / Independent / Google App Engine - A Java HOWTO
Doug Clarke / Oracle / Developing with JPA and JAXB / JPA 2.0 What's New
Simon Cook / SUN Microsystems / GlassFish / Java & Java FX
Werner Keil / Independent / STEM (Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler) / JSR-275 Measures and Units
Owen Hughes / Oracle / Oracle Database Evolution
Barry Carr / Independent / Scala - What is Functional Programming
Kevin Noonan / Cannibalising the Google App Engine
Rob Lally / A Scala Web Framework / Intro to Lean, Kanban & Theory of Constraints for Software Managers
Ian Sutton / Visualizing and Measuring Emergent Design
Tim Hodkinson / Liberty IT / Agile Development with Scrum
Anthony Swart / SUN Microsystems / Sun's Identity Management Products
John Meere / Sun Microsystems / Thin Client Computing Live Demo
Tony Jewtushenko / Product Innovator / Software Globalisation for Java Developers
Open Source
Francesco Cesarini / Erlang Consulting / Erlang
Jan Lehnardt / Independent / Couch DB
John Smedley / Ingres / Ingres CAFE / Ingres within Open Source Community
Helgi Thormar Thorbjoernsson / Websites Releases with PEAR / Migrating databases, just because MySQL sucks
Mel McIntyre / OpenApp / The Health Service Atlas - Python & Zope
Jeff Genender / How to & Being a Good Open Source Committer
Andrea Magnorsky / Monorail MVC
Current Ticket Prices
One Day €99.00
Two Day €158.00
Three Days €197.00 plus free O'Reilly book
Contact: Barry Alistair Skype: IrishDev.com LoCall 1890 812 100 / International +353 1 443 4131
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Overconfidence - an optimal margin of illusion
As we grow older and more experienced, we overrate the accuracy of our judgments.
http://chance.dartmouth.edu/chancewiki/index.php/Chance_News_52
Chance news quotes from an article on the collapse of Bear Sterns:
"Cocksure: Banks, battles, and the psychology of overconfidence” by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, July 27, 2009
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/07/27/090727fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
The author describes examples of a phenomenon that psychologists call the “illusion of control.” This phenomenon obtains when “confidence spills over from areas where it may be warranted (‘I’m savvier than that schnook’) to areas where it isn’t warranted at all (‘and that means I’m going to draw higher cards’).”
[A psychologist] had subjects engage in a betting game against either a self-assured, well-dressed opponent or a shy and badly dressed opponent (in Langer’s delightful phrasing, the “dapper” or the “schnook” condition), and she found that her subjects bet far more aggressively when they played against the schnook. They looked at their awkward opponent and thought, I’m better than he is. Yet the game was pure chance: all the players did was draw cards at random from a deck, and see who had the high hand. ”
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PraxIS August 2009
www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0908.htm
1) Risk
Hackers unmask fake ATM
450 year old document control processes
McAfee data loss
2) Software Testing
Salesmanship
3) Spreadsheets
Antipodean Spreadsheet Gurus
LinkedIn proliferates Excel groups
4) Off Topic
Holidays
20 Web links in this newsletter
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PraxIS July 2009 newsletter
http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0907.htm
1) Spreadsheet risk
Report from Eusprig conference in Paris
2) Excel
Hotfix for vanishing range names bug in Excel 2007
3) Off topic: LOL
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Dundalk Inst Tech Student Awarded Prize at Eusprig Conference in Paris
http://irishdev.com/Home/News/581-DKIT-Scoop-Prize-at-Paris-Event.html
Ruth McKeever, Kevin McDaid & Brian Bishop of Dundalk Institute of
Technology, have won the Student Prize this year's annual conference of
the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group (EuSpRIG) in Paris.
Their work, "Analysis of the Impact of Named Ranges on the Debugging
Performance of Novice Users," was described by the international panel
of judges, which included Martin Erwig of Oregon State University, as a
'well-designed and thoroughly executed piece of research.'
The research directly challenged the common advice to use range names.
The results show that for novice debuggers "a spreadsheet that contains
range names in formulas will be more difficult to inspect and correct
than a spreadsheet that does not use names in formulas".
http://www.eusprig.org
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EuSpRIG 2009 : Spreadsheet Gurus Meet in Paris
Experts From Europe and North America meet to discuss the role of spreadsheets in organisational excellence at the 10th annual spreadsheet risks conference on July 2-3 in Paris, France.
Cardiff, UK, June 16, 2009 -- The European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group (EuSpRIG), is holding its 2009 conference "The Role of Spreadsheets in Organisational Excellence" on the 2nd – 3rd July 2009 at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, Paris, France.
The keynote speakers are Dr Louise Pryor, Director of Actuarial Standards for the UK Financial Reporting Council’s Board for Actuarial Standards, and Dr Martin Erwig, Associate Professor of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University, USA.
Grenville Croll, EuSpRIG chair commented “We welcome our delegates and presenters to Paris and to the 10th Annual EuSpRIG Conference. It is a considerable achievement for any organisation, especially a non-profit and voluntary organisation such as EuSpRIG, to be able to celebrate this important anniversary with such an interesting, expansive and international programme”. Croll cautioned that “Most people do not appreciate the important role that spreadsheets play in our modern society. Nor do they appreciate the risks that we are running with this out of control but ubiquitous technology”. On a happier note, he concluded: “Here at EuSpRIG we offer thought leadership and guidance on the technical and human aspects of examining, containing and controlling spreadsheet technology”.
Speakers include: Susan Allen of HBOS who will be discussing Excel Modelling, Transparency, Auditing and Business use; Grenville Croll of Spreadsheet Engineering Ltd who will be introducing his paper on Spreadsheets and the Financial Collapse; Angela Collins of BDO Stoy Hayward who will describe her work as an Embedded Spreadsheet Modeller and Drs Sriram Iyengar and John Svirbely of www.medal.org and the University of Texas, who will describe their monumental Medical Algorithms project.
Bill Bekenn & Ray Hooper from Fairway Associates will present their curiously, but very appropriately entitled paper “Some Spreadsheet Poka-Yoke”. Professor Tom Grossman and colleagues will be travelling from the University of California, San Francisco to present their work on using the Lookup Technique to Replace Nested-if formulas. The host team of Françoise Tort, François-Marie Blondel and Éric Bruillard will discuss their findings regarding the relationship between errors detection and behaviour observation. They will be joined by their Belgian colleague Étienne Vandeput from the Université de Liège who will look at some milestones involved in teaching spreadsheet programs. A team of five students from the Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland, led by Dr Kevin McDaid will present research on Bayesian error estimation, the impact of named ranges on debugging, and a natural language approach to spreadsheet information.
Matthew Dinmore from the University of Maryland Baltimore and a number of individual consultants including Patrick O’Beirne, Angus Dunn, Sebastian Dewhurst and John Hunt complete the line-up of seventeen papers in total.
About EuSpRIG
EuSpRIG (www.eusprig.org) offers Risk Managers the world's only independent, authoritative & comprehensive web based information describing the current state of the art in Spreadsheet Risk Management. We run a well-established annual conference which provides a forum for researchers, practitioners, trainers, vendors, consultants and auditors. EuSpRIG's entire peer reviewed proceedings are published on the publicly accessible Cornell University moderated scientific repository www.arxiv.org. EuSpRIG provide speakers and content for professional societies, associations, conferences and journals. EuSpRIG is a not-for-profit organisation governed by an elected committee operating under the terms of a written constitution. Committee members include senior managers and directors of leading accounting firms and senior academics from European Universities.
EuSpRIG 2009 Conference Co-Sponsors
The following organizations are pleased to support the EuSpRIG 2009 Conference: Baker Tilly, Spreadsheet Engineering Ltd, AuditNet, Systems Modelling, Information Systems Audit and Control Association - Northern UK Chapter, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, University of Greenwich and STEF ENS Cachan. There is an opportunity available for a main conference sponsor.
EuSpRIG Contacts
Grenville Croll, EuSpRIG Chair, Spreadsheet Engineering Ltd, +44 (0) 7935 323499
Pat Cleary, EuSpRIG Secretary, UWIC, Cardiff, +44 (0)2920 416070
http://www.eusprig.org
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PraxIS June 2009
sysmod.com/praxis/prax0906.htm
1) Risk
ISSA Ireland open event on Microsoft Security 10th June
Google Books Settlement Class Action
2) Quality
Softtest Ireland : Professionalism
CSE / ICS free event on Agile
SoftTest free events June 16-18
3) Spreadsheets
Eusprig 2009 registration open
Excel 2007 unpredictably losing defined names
4) Off Topic
Double-take exteriors of buildings by a trompe l'oeil artist
15 Web links in this newsletter
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PraxIS May 2009
http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0905.htm
1) IT
Java upskilling in Dublin for only 45 euro
The end of the e-Voting Saga
2) Research
Online Meeting Rooms
DropBox
3) Spreadsheets
Eusprig 2009 Conference
Framework Development Project
Can you describe a financial model as a city?
4) Off Topic
H1N1
19 links in this newsletter
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PraxIS Apr.2009
http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0904.htm
1) IT Risk
EuroCACS 2009 Frankfurt
2) European research
EuroAfriCa ICT Forum
The Informatics Development and Social Research Institute
3) Spreadsheets
Plus Prefix entry weirdness
Plus wait, there's more...
XLTest 1.06 beta version available
4) Off Topic
April Fool stories
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PraxIS March 2009
http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0903.htm
1) IT Risk
Survey on risk and rationality
2) Quality
SQC Conference Report
3) Spreadsheets
Ray Butler and Patrick O'Beirne at EuroCACS Frankfurt 15 March 2009
4) Off Topic
Graphing website structure
8 Web links in this newsletter
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PraxIS Feb: Modelling Manifesto, Conferences, 30 years of spreadsheets
http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0902.htm
IN THIS ISSUE
1) IT Risk
The Financial Modeler's manifesto
2) Quality
20% Discount on Software Testing Conference Dublin 4 March
3) Spreadsheets
Thirty Years of spreadsheets
Ray Butler and Patrick O'Beirne at EuroCACS Frankfurt 15 March 2009
VBA + Excel Performance: MS asks for your Feedback
4) Off Topic
Michigan man freezes to death after electric company cuts power
10 Web links in this newsletter
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PraxIS Jan. 2009
09-01 Contents: EuroCACS, SSQC, Euro news,Spreadsheet cleanup
http://www.sysmod.com/praxis/prax0901.htm
1) IT Risk
Presenting at EuroCACS 15-18 March
Software & Systems Quality Conference Dublin 3-4 March
A lesson in application acceptance testing
2) European news
Slovakia Enters Euro Zone
European art and culture archives online
Unfair commercial practices: advice to consumers
3) Spreadsheets
Cleaning up sloppy spreadsheets
4) Off Topic
Christmas 2008 souvenir
15 links in this newsletter
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PraxIS Dec 2008
Dec. 2008
1) IT Risk
Redaction Redux
Irish Reporting and Information Security Service
2) Euro debates
In or out?
3) Spreadsheets
The Daily WTF on the Uncertainty Principle of Spreadsheets
4) Off Topic
Office Offline web comic
14 Web links in this newsletter
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ScanXLS helps UK companies find VAT rates in spreadsheets
http://www.sysmod.com/scanxls.htm
Companies in the UK and Ireland face the staggering task of changing price lists in spreadsheets because of the VAT rate reduction from 17.5% to 15% in Chancellor Darling's stimulus to the British economy, and the increase from 21% to 21.5% in Ireland
SCANXLS from Systems Modelling lets you scan your entire hard disk or network for spreadsheets that contain 17.5% or 21%
or combinations that result in gross or net calculations such as 1.175, and 40/47.
Systems Modelling can also scan spreadsheet files sent to us. This spreadsheet scanning service suits those who don't wish to install third party software on their servers, or who want an outsourced solution.
Scanxls also reports on other data or formula integrity issues that may exist in the spreadsheet, alerting businesses to problems
that they did not know they had.
Contact: Patrick O'Beirne (+353) 5394 22294
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PraxIS Nov. 2008
Nov. 2008
IT Risk
Barclays plead lawyers' mistake in Lehman purchase
Spreadsheet Safety course
Software to help keep your spreadsheets safe