Friday, September 26, 2008

Ganz ohne Excel Exceldateien erzeugen, öffnen, ändern, speichern...

Vorhandene Exceldatei bearbeiten? Hier - http://sheet.zoho.com/excelviewer - hochladen, im Browser editieren, mit "Export" wieder lokal speichern.

Neue Exceldatei? Leere Datei hier - http://sheet.zoho.com/scratch - öffnen, im Browser bearbeiten, mit "Export" abspeichern.

Für beides ist nicht mal ein Account erforderlich! Und dass die Spreadsheets bei Zoho auch VBA Makros (VBA? Ja, VBA!) und Pivot Tables können, habe ich das schon erwähnt? Ziemlich faszinierend, oder?

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Amsterdam

Christopher Alexander on Amsterdam:
"If we look at the evolution of traditional Amsterdam, we see how gradually the canals were formed, bridges were built to span (and thus enhance) the canals, edges were formed for the canals, houses were built one by one along the canals - all enhancing the canals - and slowly, over two or three hundred years, a wonderful living harmony was built.

And why did it work? Because, again, all or almost all the actions were structure-preserving, structure-enhancing. At every step, minute adaption was occurring. Everything fit perfectly into the whole.

What is remarkable is that the structure-preserving process which goes on in the large scale - as we see from the evolving plan of Amsterdam, the entire structure of sea, land, canals, and bridges - is accomplished by a parallel process which forms the streets and allows them to unfold. This, in turn, is followed, in parallel, by another process, in which the windows, doors, steps, buildings, flower boxes, and railings are unfolded too - all going forward in parallel - and leads, in the harmony which results, to the almost bursting joy we see in the skaters on the canal.

It is true, too, that the very largest and most imposing structures were built by the unfolding process. In the houses along the canals of Amsterdam, you can see the impact of time. Each board, window, step, was added in enough time for it to be fitted perfectly for use. Thus the whole governed the position and shape of each board as it was added. We can see and feel the underlying sequence of unfolding. Just to look at the resulting structure, we can feel the sequence of what it must have taken to make it.

Imagine a process in which, at each step, some new center is created (or intensified), and that this center is already present weakly in the previously existing wholeness. Under these conditions, what is done next always has a natural and comfortable relation to what existed before: it has a similar structure and never violates the previously existing structure."