Problems with Google

[Harlan Grove]

INTENTIONALLY CROSSPOSTED!

Just found out that VBA code in the beta Google Groups archive can be fubar.
The article http://makeashorterlink.com/?R1EA128AA, which is a link to

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.excel.worksheet.functions/msg/e249f6c074a3adfd

includes the statement

Set xlapp = CreateObject("Excel.Applicatio­n")

which includes an embedded HTML hyphen (decimal char code 173) between the o
and n. Copy this line and paste into an Excel cell to see it.

The article in original format (http://makeashorterlink.com/?E1FA328AA,
which is a link to

http://groups-beta.google.com/group...t.functions/msg/e249f6c074a3adfd?dmode=source

doesn't include this unwanted character.

So, if you're going to paste code (or maybe formulas as well) from the beta
Google Groups archive, you'd better do so from original format articles
rather than from HTML formatted versions.

 

[Ron de Bruin]

Hi Harlan

Last week I copy paste a link from Google in a thread and
in the link there was a hyphen after I paste it that don't belong there.

You can send a bug report to them if you want
http://groups-beta.google.com/support/bin/request.py

Last time I did that I get a very fast response from them

 

[Dave Peterson]

Ahhhh.

Sorry for the vicious accusation last week. <bg>.

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Harlan,
The whole Beta Groups is a mess. There are a few possible solutions.

If using the links with the message-id in them you can change
google.com/groups to google.co.uk/groups
this is Google's "divide and conquer" solution, keeps those who know
what they are doing happy before the fatal blow and advertising keywords.

The other solution for this particular thing is to click on the show options
and then show original.

In your example: view parsed, view options, show original
each of those is found near the top of a page as you drill down
through the maze of links.

The ONLY good thing in the beta I've found is that it hides the previous
reply within a reply, which you can choose to show or to hide.

The ONLY other thing which might be considered good by some
is the masking of Email addresses, the downside of that is that
it is a bad idea, makes it so Google controls the archives and
can do whatever they want with your postings because nobody
watches the gatekeepers (googlewatch.com perhaps), this could
mean that they charge for or restrict access for what you freely provided and
believe to be a permanent and free archive. that is one of the things that
is most scary. Anyway it was implemented
poorly and programming code and message-id with an @ gets destroyed,
and you have to hunt then for the google.co.uk archived posting,
if it is messed up in the "show original" view.

It took awhile to figure out why my links weren't working that I was
creating from a Google archive copy, and the tinyurl links that had
previously been created were working which defied all logic, until
I discovered Google was messing up the message-id. Only some of
them ("divide and conquer") those with @. The fact that this has
continued since November is a pretty good indication they don't
really care what other's think.

You might have also noticed the switch to a proprietary database
id number instead of the message-id similar to what Deja used on
some of it's searches and what Google tried to foist on us when they
took over. The complaints probably forced them back to the
universal message-id until November.

You can create your own newsgroup on Google -- which is another
aspect of taking over newsgroups, because newsgroups would then
become synonymous with Google. Then watch out or the wording
anything that was yours is now ours and anything that is ours is still
ours when you sign up and register with Google ...

I did not get a response from Google when I complained about
Beta Groups unless possibly it got suppressed. About time I
created a betagroups.htm page from another page.

 

[Ron de Bruin]

Hi Dave

Sorry for the vicious accusation last week. <bg>.

No Problem.

Now I can blame Google <g>

 

[David McRitchie]

Didn't realize, I had already started a
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/betagroups.htm in Feb
so I'll add in some links to there for now.

--

 

[Bob Phillips]

Absolutely agree. When they first put it up, I posted then and asked for
comments. No-one seemed to like it and for a while it seemed they had taken
note and withdrew it. But it came back unfortunately.

Bob

Hi Harlan,
The whole Beta Groups is a mess. There are a few possible solutions.

If using the links with the message-id in them you can change
google.com/groups to google.co.uk/groups
this is Google's "divide and conquer" solution, keeps those who know
what they are doing happy before the fatal blow and advertising keywords.

The other solution for this particular thing is to click on the show options
and then show original.

In your example: view parsed, view options, show original
each of those is found near the top of a page as you drill down
through the maze of links.

The ONLY good thing in the beta I've found is that it hides the previous
reply within a reply, which you can choose to show or to hide.

The ONLY other thing which might be considered good by some
is the masking of Email addresses, the downside of that is that
it is a bad idea, makes it so Google controls the archives and
can do whatever they want with your postings because nobody
watches the gatekeepers (googlewatch.com perhaps), this could
mean that they charge for or restrict access for what you freely provided and
believe to be a permanent and free archive. that is one of the things that
is most scary. Anyway it was implemented
poorly and programming code and message-id with an @ gets destroyed,
and you have to hunt then for the google.co.uk archived posting,
if it is messed up in the "show original" view.

It took awhile to figure out why my links weren't working that I was
creating from a Google archive copy, and the tinyurl links that had
previously been created were working which defied all logic, until
I discovered Google was messing up the message-id. Only some of
them ("divide and conquer") those with @. The fact that this has
continued since November is a pretty good indication they don't
really care what other's think.

You might have also noticed the switch to a proprietary database
id number instead of the message-id similar to what Deja used on
some of it's searches and what Google tried to foist on us when they
took over. The complaints probably forced them back to the
universal message-id until November.

You can create your own newsgroup on Google -- which is another
aspect of taking over newsgroups, because newsgroups would then
become synonymous with Google. Then watch out or the wording
anything that was yours is now ours and anything that is ours is still
ours when you sign up and register with Google ...

I did not get a response from Google when I complained about
Beta Groups unless possibly it got suppressed. About time I
created a betagroups.htm page from another page.