Excel auto-fill keyboard "shortcut"

Excel's AutoFill is usually activated by selecting a group of cells and dragging the fill handle (the black square on the bottom-right hand corner of a selection) with the mouse until you have the range you want. The keyboard "shortcut" (more a sequence of keystrokes than a simple shortcut) is to select the range you want first then type: Alt+h,fi,s,Alt+f,Return. The breakdown of the steps are:

1. Select the range you want.
   
2. Alt+h: show the Home menu strip.
3. fi: show the Fill sub-menu.
   
4. s: show the Series dialog.
   
5. Alt+f: In the Series dialog, select Type=AutoFill.
   
6. Return: In the Series dialog, press the OK button.
   

SVG Clocks

Display UTC and local time using analogue clocks. This document uses Javascript and inline SVG code in an XHTML document. It can be viewed using a SVG-capable browser such as Chrome. I wrote this page nearly a decade ago and only ported it to Blogger.

Activation context generation failed ... HsxClient.dll

After a server patch, the HFM (Hyperion Financial Management) Windows client could not start. Below is the error message in Event Viewer.

SideBySide,
Activation context generation failed for "... HsxClient.dll". Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC80.MFC,processorArchitecture="x86",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="8.0.50727.4053" could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.

Oracle Support suggested reinstalling VC++ Redistributable 2005. Searching for the version number brings up "Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package ATL Security Update". Installing the x86 redistributable package solved the problem.

Excel cannot find the data you're searching for

Sometimes Excel cannot find text in a cell that is clearly visible. Some workarounds and solutions:

• In the "Find and Replace" dialog, untick "Match entire cell contents".
• In VBA, specify the LookAt parameter, .Find(..., lookat:=XlLookAt.xlPart)
• In your worksheet, remove custom formatting from the cell range you are searching.

The last workaround is pretty weird. One would think that formatting shouldn't affect searching for data!