Want Microsoft Excel Articles for Your Site?

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Blogging, Excel | Leave a Comment

Over the last few months I have been guest posting like a maniac, but it is time to offer it up again, so if you would like some free content, check this out now!

Yoav and I want to write free articles about Excel for your website or blog.

All we ask is that we can link back to our site(s) in the “about the author” attribution box. Seem like a good deal?

If so, simply fill out this short form and we will be in touch via email if we have something for you. (If you have multiple sites, please fill out the form for each one).

Click here to add your details and be on your way to getting some free, expert content for your site!

We have already written guest posts for several happy site owners. In the past we have written about all kinds of topics but now we really want to focus on Cogniview’s core expertise which is making your Microsoft Excel experience happier, easier, more efficient.

Cogniview’s expert developers have already supplied me with some absolutely awesome Excel solutions and code to share with you, I just need somewhere to write it up!

While we can’t guarantee that we will write something for everyone, we will think very hard to see if we can come up with something brilliant for you, so don’t delay, fill the form out now!

Your PDF to Excel Conversion Story

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Uncategorized | 34 Comments

Thank you again for your willingness to share your PDF to Excel conversion story with us. We would love to hear why you were looking for a PDF to Excel converter and how using PDF2XL worked for you.

We only ask two things:

1. No foul language please. If your feedback is not positive – that’s OK. In fact it’s more then OK, we learn a lot from feedback. But please… no foul language.

2. If possible, please write your story in English.

And that’s it. Just scroll down to the end of the page and leave your comment there. I am really looking forward to your feedback.

How to Reclaim Your Facebook News Feed

Posted on February 19, 2010 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Productivity | 1 Comment

As you make more Facebook friends you might find the random noise increases. If anything, many of the recent Facebook changes have made this more of a problem.

It is a strange thing when you might regret making and adding friends!

The worst offenders are the stupid farm, mafia, and so on games and applications that spew random irrelevant rubbish into your news feed. When those appear, nuke them!


What if the rubbish is posted by actual friends and not the games they play?

Worry not, it is possible to silence the worst culprits without banishing them from your Facebook altogether. Some people you want to hear everything about, others you are quite content to go check in on them once in a while – this is a good thing and nothing to be ashamed about!


When an offending message appears, mouse over the right hand side and a “Hide” button should show.

Click the hide button that pops up next and you can then hide that person from your news feed.

Next time that person posts a status update you will have to go to their account to see it.

Obviously doing this might be considered “too little, too late” – best is to block people at the source. While you can not predict who out of your friends will turn bad, at least you can only add people who you know, like and trust!



If you change your mind and you find you are missing finding out about your friend’s high scores or most recent virtual flock, you can always go back to the options and allow those “Bejewelled” status updates back into your feed.


Is the Trinidad and Tobago Government a Software Pirate?

Posted on February 15, 2010 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Two weeks ago I was doing a vanity search for Cogniview’s name (for those of you that are not regular readers – Cogniview is the company that hosts this blog and the maker of a PDF to XLS converter).

Back to the story… I was absentmindedly browsing through the search results when I noticed something funny right after Cogniview’s Wikipedia Article…

Vanity Search Results

Well… It seems that for some reason, the Trinidad and Tobago foreign office was selling one of our products. And at a discount. Funny, I thought to myself, I don’t recall signing a distributor agreement with the Trinidad and Tobago government. And we NEVER sell at a discount. So I followed the link to see what’s up:

Eudi Pirated

Click image to enlarge

Apparently, someone at the foreign office of Trinidad and Tobago has set up a store selling pirated software copies. I kept looking around and found out that all the software sold on this site was either bought at “an auction” or is a discontinued product line…

Lies Lies Lies

Click image to enlarge

Well… I can tell you that we never sell software at ‘auctions’ – whatever those are – and we did not discontinue any of our product lines. Besides, I am guessing that Adobe didn’t discontinue it’s Acrobat product line and it’s still being sold at huge discounts on the Trinidad and Tobago software store -

All adobe products stolen

Click image to enlarge

Further investigation into the matter shows that the guys (or gals) at the ‘Trinidad and Tobago software store’ take fraud very seriously…

User Agreement

Click image to enlarge

I am pretty used to our software getting hacked and sold at a discount. That’s the price you pay when you sell software, I guess. But we found out that most people are decent and don’t go looking for pirated copies. (Either that, or they are afraid of the viruses that are installed along with those copies). But this is the first time an actual government office site was used to steal our products.

I tried contacting the Trinidad and Tobago foreign office several times but to no avail.

So… What do you think we should do next? Can we ask that the Trinidad and  Tobago official site be de-listed from Google? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

The Hidden Productivity Benefit of Slow Software Tools

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Productivity | 3 Comments

As a geek, I thought I would ever say this. But the day has come where I finally found a reason to be happy with slow software!

I know, crazy, right?

When we all want bigger, better, faster, more, to actually be happy something is running slowly seems … well, just wrong.

And I thought the same, until it happened to me.

Or rather, to my email.

This strange realization happened when I moved my email from an assortment of cobbled together solutions, to (mostly) Gmail. Or rather, Google Apps for domains.

Google has put out a cool software tool that allows you to upload your mail.app email up to a Google Apps email account. I took this as an opportunity to unify my ~10 years worth of email into one online, searchable, central database. Google search is very efficient, plus  the tagging and filters will be a real boon.

One weekend of uploading later and I had my email all ready and waiting at my finger tips. Awesome!

Turns out though there is one flaw I hadn’t considered.

Man, is my mail sloooooooooooow.

I mean, really slow.

Why is this happening? What is the cause? Could be because I am forwarding my chrisg.com email to the apps mail. Could be just that Google is a slow service. Maybe it is because their IMAP implementation is poor. Not sure yet.

What I do know is this whole slow mail situation has had a side benefit that I never expected.

When it takes ten minutes to get an email reply, I am less likely to get involved in email chit-chat, and I get more work done!

Previously I would immediately respond to any email that arrived within seconds, and again and again until the natural end of the email thread. I can’t do that now, the response times have been taken out of my hands. When I alt-tab to another application and alt-tab back there are no new messages waiting for me.

OK, yes, I should shut my email off (and that is probably the real situation), but being an email addict, I will take this solution for now.

Thank you slow email!

iPad Vs Geeks

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under IT | 3 Comments

I am a geek but sometimes even I get mad at the geek mentality.

You can’t have missed the bru-ha-ha over the Apple iPad.

Apparently it’s all wrong …

Now, some of that stuff I think will be present in version 2 (the camera seems pretty much guaranteed) but it amazes me how so many geeks think this product is aimed squarely at them.

Not for Geeks

OK, so the mighty Steve made a big play about it being better than a netbook, but in my view this has always been a Kindle killer.

It’s a colour Kindle that runs applications.

A computer Grandma will love

Regardless if you think this is an ebook reader (I do, but you do not have to agree with me), ask yourself what your parents and older relatives do with computers, or want to do. Think about your friends and relatives who are not IT savvy but would like to be more online for whatever reason.

Which of those things really need a fully equipped computer, operating system, or even multi-tasking? None is the answer.

Flash could help some of that, but it is by no means essential to the experience.

Geeks need not apply.

I think geeks need to remember that IT is not their sole territory any longer. When the iPod came out the geeks revolted saying it was all wrong, but those white earbuds soon became a badge of cool (something we geeks do not understand) and the geeks were silenced by sales data.

I’m not saying the iPad will be as big as the iPod. I am saying that the geeks need to butt out and let the actual target market decide.

Personally, I never buy version 1 of anything unless I absolutely have to. I’m waiting for the iPad 3gs like I did the iPhone ;)

Use Gravatars in Your Own Site and Software

Posted on January 8, 2010 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Software Tools | 2 Comments

Gravatars are becoming not just a popular addition to your website or service, but an essential part of making your users feel part of a friendly, welcoming community. You will  have seen the small smiling faces around websites, blogs, communities and web service software tools.

If you are using WordPress then Gravatar support is now built in. Other software or services might be supported too. When you are developing your own software tool or service though you might feel out of luck.

Well, good news! Adding Gravatar support to your own software is easy :)

A gravatar is simply an image hosted centrally at Gravatar.com using the following URL structure.

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Where xxxx would be replaced with the unique identifier for the particular users Gravatar.

How to do you discover the unique ID for a user? Simple – the key string is simply the person’s email address put through an MD5 conversion.

So my Gravatar is http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/772bb0ad28f9cdd045aca3ac25500a12 which is chris ..at.. chrisg … .com, and when used, creates the following JPG image. If you want to convert an email address to an MD5 hash, simply use this helpful web service. Enter the email address, convert it, then copy and paste the result at the end of the Gravatar URL above, replacing the unique ID with your new one.

Most programming languages have an MD5 function available, for example in PHP you would use the md5() function:

echo md5($email);

.. to output the MD5 hash of a supplied email address.

You can also optionally add a size parameter in the form ?s=300 where the size is in pixels.

Eg.

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/772bb0ad28f9cdd045aca3ac25500a12?s=300

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/772bb0ad28f9cdd045aca3ac25500a12?s=300

And the winner is…

Posted on December 9, 2009 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Uncategorized | 5 Comments

A couple of months ago, we celebrated the 4th birthday of PDF2XL – Cogniview’s flagship product. As part of the celebration, we invited you (our blog readers and customers) to leave a birthday greeting on the blog.

We also promised that the authors of the 10 best greetings will receive a $15 Amazon gift card. And that the best greeter will win a Flip Mino Camera. Well the party is over and it’s time to give out the prizes…

But before I reveal the winners, I’d like to say that we were really moved by your reaction. I’ve personally read the 190+ greeting several times and I’d like to thank you for letting us know that we make a real difference in your lives. It means a lot to me and the rest of the team here at Cogniview.

And now the winners…

Vaughn said…

“Happy Birthday PDF2XL! You deserve it because you have made my birthdays much happier since I started using you. You see, I have the worst birthday imaginable, April 15! Tax day!!! Before you came into my life I spend most of my birthday manually typing data from my brokerage accounts into Excel. Now just a few mouse clicks and my PDF reports are nicely transferred and formatted into Excel just the way the IRS folks like them. So you have not only reduced my procrastination induced stress, you have also made some revenuers very happy. I guess that’s a good thing, huh? Happy Birthday!”

Shawn Setnicky from the Sonali Corporation NJ, USA said…

“I’ve been using PDF2XL for awhile now. It has saved me MANY, MANY hours of time. Each year I get a list of about 8000 names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, etc. The only problem is it’s in PDF format, and not easily manageable. If you want a nice Excel format they charge you 25 cents per name! That’s $2000, I’ve done it three or four times now, you do the math. I’ve estimated I’ve saved over $10,000 using this software and countless hours.
Happy Birthday! Thanks for the great product.”

Raja Sharma from Assurant Inc., Tustin, CA said…

“Our PDF’s were wild, and our morale was low.
Then came PDF2XL, and our faces began to glow.

What took 6 hrs to decipher can now be done in 1.
Now for the other 5 hrs, we just party and have fun.

Thanks to you for this tool and I’ll put it to you straight.
I’ll recommend it to everyone, because Cogniview is great.

So for this 4 yr anniversary, it is my pleasure to say….
Keep “excel-ing” in what you do, and wish you a Happy Birthday!!!

Good Luck n’ Happy 4th Anniversary!!!”

Pierre Mantha from the Britec Computer Systems Ltd.,Toronto, ON Canada said

“As major integrators of Sage BusinessVision software, on a recent upgrade from a competitive product the client could only provide us with PDF files.

From everything from Customer Databases, Vendor Databases, Inventory Databased – all form of reports came in PDF format only.

PDF2XL saved the day (or really the month). Based on the volume of data there is no way we could have tackled this project without PDF2XL. What would have taken litterally months of work to rebuild new structured tables took a 4 to 5 days.

Keep up the great work Cogniview – A Happy Birthday and to many more to come.”

Kris said…

“The day you were born of your parents minds was the day the world changed forever! Happy 4th birthday PDF2XL.
You took a 12 hour job and made it into a 2 hour job by reading over 500 pages of cell phone activity and creating an Excel document that was sortable and searchable. You save my company at least 10 hours of work. You saved my client three days of reading, high-lighting and writing down the activity. And you saved her thousands of dollars to have someone compile the information.
GREAT JOB!”

Jenna Z said…

“Dear PDF2XL,
Happy birthday from a user
Through documents I’m a cruiser.
It may sound cheesy
But with your help it’s easy
And you’ve kept me from being a boozer!
Thanks for the time-saving, sanity saving help! Happy fourth birthday!”

Eugene Hashimoto Said…

“Happy B-day to you and the team. It is really impressive to see the list of customers who have written. Definitely a sign of you superior product and more so, you excellent client service. BTW, you can keep the $15 gift card if I win and invest it back into your company. We really need companies like yours to succeed.
All the best,
Eugene”

Dan Wilcox said…

“My head felt as big as the Liberty Bell.
My brain was smoking like the ashes from Hell.
I was pulling my hair
And was full of despair.
Suddenly I found PDF2XL
Now everything is just going so well
And I am always so eager to tell
How I convert all day long
And still keep going strong
Thanks to Cogniview PDF2XL
Happy Birthday”

Victor Guettlein said…

“Congratulations on your 4th anniversary.
What an awesome product PDF2XL is. Do you know how much time and money PDF2XL has saved me? Literally hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars! Plus it makes me look like a genius to both my vendors and clients. I am actually a genius, and owning this software is just further evidence.
Keep up the fantastic work and innovation!”

Tracy Duke Said…

“PDFXL2,
My job would surely suck without you,
I used to type for 2 days straight,
Then there you were like a soul mate,
Happy Birthday four years old,
To other offices your story I’ve told,
May you be downloaded for many more years
Resting the fingers and bringing good cheers.
Congratulations and Happy Birthday!”

Leisa from Cedar Rapids, IA said…

“Because of your product I have been able to be more productive in my job. What used to take me days to convert by hand now only takes me a couple of minutes. I would like to applaud you in your quest to make life easier for us who have to work with .pdf files. I love this software so much that I have told others within my company and they have purchased it as well.
You are unsung heroes in my opinion!! Who would have ever thought that there would ever be software that could transform .pdf files in a click of a button! Thank you so much!”

And the 1st place goes to…Peter Dallimore from Stanbridge’s Hobbies, Australia which said…

“Happy Birthday and THANK YOU. What a terrific product. For years I struggled to get my suppliers to send me their invoices as an electronic file – I tried and tried – I even offered to send them my Purchase Orders electronically – but no – they are a backward looking lot!!!! A little glimmer of hope – I bought a scanner and some opposition software to make my own PDFs of invoices – it did not work – that was a was of money. Then success came – I was able to get my suppliers to send PDF invoices via email and then I found COGNIVIEW – IT WORKS – SO EFFORTLESSLY – Last night after a long day at work I received into our stock system a 24 page invoice – 320 lines – from one supplier – it only took 20 minutes to receive into stock – all because COGNIEVIEW created a csv file that I could then import into my system.
Why am I so grateful – you let me have 2 hours extra sleep last night!

Thank you – PS I do not want the gift – the software is enough – and by the way – your support is fantastic too. With 90000 product lines and 250 suppliers you help make it all happen.”

Success

Posted on December 8, 2009 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Success

Announcing Cogniviews Excel-to-PDF-Converter (and a bribe)

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Cogniview | 11 Comments

I am very proud to announce that we have released the beta version of Cogniview’s Excel to PDF converter.

The ‘Excel to PDF Converter’ is the first out of several open source projects we will be releasing in the coming months and it is the only free Excel-to-PDF converter that supports hyper-links.

here is the official Excel to PDF Converter product page.

Plus… we need your help to make ‘Excel to PDF Converter’ better. That is why we are offering the following ‘bribe’:

We will be giving away 10 Amazon Gift-Cards, worth $15 each, to people that will download ‘Excel to PDF Converter’, play around with it and post their feedback as comments on this blog post.

The gift cards will be given to 10 most helpful commenters.

I know that you’ll find Cogniview’s Excel to PDF Converter useful and I hope our little bribe can convince you to get involved with this project.

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