Bill's econ stuff

Unexpected discoveries

2008-10-11T01:21:17Z

One unexpected discovery I made in the course was Google Docs. Having just finished developing an Excel spreadsheet with Bob Koehler down at Tracy, and with a couple other people, made me appreciate the hassles of emailing multiple copies of a spreadsheet or other file between collaborators. If Google Docs gets developed to the point where it will handle a larger file or one with macros, it would be really great. I need to try Zoho sometime and see if that works better for my needs.

If we are able to blog from Brazil, that should be an interesting experience.

I have to end this here. I need to go and delete all those old spreadsheet emails from my sent-mail folder.

UMconnect

2008-10-06T15:18:54Z

I did the homework assignment (the first one). Everything seemed to work fine. I've participated in a few of these in the past that other people have set up. Setting it up seems pretty easy.

Instant messaging

2008-09-26T01:21:26Z

I used AOL instant messaging (GAIM rather than AOL, actually, because GAIM doesn't have ads) a couple years ago to chat with a colleague in Bulgaria. I also used it quite a bit last year to communicate with my daughter who was studying in Senegal. I've looked at the twitter stuff here, but I still don't get that.

Anyway, I think IM is okay, but if the internet connection is adequate, I think a Skype phone connection is vastly better. I did one Skype call with a webcam, and I'd like to do that more in the future.

Social networking

2008-09-18T00:50:28Z

I have read the latest lesson about social networking. It is an interesting concept. My daughter studied in Africa last year, and my wife and I were able to view the Facebook entries that she and the other American students uploaded there. I even went so far as setting up my own Facebook website once, but I haven't had the time or incentive to go ahead and actually upload anything to it. I'm still a little concerned about the privacy issue the risk that someone might read it who might not have my best interests at heart.

Productivity tools

2008-09-11T21:43:35Z

I tried the productivity tools mentioned under the week 7 lesson. I looked at Google Docs and Zoho, and I already use UMcal.

I thought that Google Docs would be a good way to collaborate with a couple other people who are working with me on development of a complicated Excel spreadsheet. However, I was unable to upload it into Google Docs. It is below the 1 mb size limit, so I could not figure out why it wouldn't upload. Perhaps it is because it contains macros, although I didn't see that mentioned as a limitation. I was able to upload another, much smaller spreadsheet.

First posting

2008-08-15T19:25:26Z

Hi, this is my first posting. It has been a busy summer. A few of my current projects are: a set of crop budgets looking at the economics of energy crops relative to normal agronomic crops, an economic impact analysis of short rotation energy crops, and a spreadsheet for analyzing the economics of the "other fertilizer", ie swine finishing manure.