Name Conflict: Print_Area

While upgrading our Windows XP PCs from Microsoft Office 2000 to Microsoft Office 2003 I encountered a strange bug in the way Excel stores the print area settings.



A user with Office 2003 could not open an XLS file created with Office 2000. An error dialog box would appear titled "Name Conflict" and containing the message "Name cannot be the same as a built-in name. Old name: Print_Area".

After some online research using the very helpful Name Manager I realized that there seemed to be a bug in the way the newer Excel interpreted the way the older version stored the print area that a user had set via the File->Print Area->Set Print Area option.

Opening the file with another copy of Office and clearing all the set print areas (using File->Print Area->Clear Print Area) allowed the user with Office 2003 to successfully open the file. This problem is also solved in this forum post although I didn't find it until I had a good idea of what was going on.

More detail: a different install of Office 2003 had no problems opening the file from the beginning. The problem file had originally been created and last modified using Office 2000 on a Windows 2000 PC.

Japanese Keyboard Undetected

After installing a Japanese edition of Windows XP onto an HP desktop with a Japanese keyboard I was surprised to discover that it thought it was connected to a keyboard with a US "international" layout. When I installed the OS it had been attached to a US keyboard, but Windows hadn't updated when I swapped the proper keyboard in.

In the "Regional and Language Options" control panel "Text Services and Input Languages" was set to "Japanese." I couldn't find anywhere else to change the setting until I found this helpful entry. Windows needs to be forced to use the Japanese driver.

Windows Updates Fail: Register wups2.dll

Working on restoring a bunch of desktops to their pristine state I discovered that one of them could no longer install Windows updates.

It's an HP Compaq d530 SFF, although I'm not sure that the hardware had much to do with this problem. After restoring the HDD to the factory state using the original Windows XP SP2 CDs, and installing SP3, I discovered that every Windows update attempt failed.

Apparently there is a dll that needs to be registered and installing SP3 right after restoring the system can cause this.

It's a Jungle in Here

Earlier this week the company that checks our school's safety equipment came in to do some more testing. The refrigerator-sized rack of equipment is two meters from my desk, so I'm able to peek over their shoulders while they work. During part of this testing they plugged in a portable CD player and broadcast that over the speakers that cover the school grounds. Presumably the constant audio from the CD let them test that announcements could be heard everywhere.

They could easily have used a CD with some elevator music or some sort of digital tone, but we were all pleasantly surprised to hear the chatter of birdsong fill our office for the afternoon. Occasionally this was interrupted by a woman announcing ongoing tests of the emergency public address system, but it was generally very peaceful. It actually made me want to pick up a set of those nature sounds CDs.

The next day I was doing some network maintenance in our ground floor main office and had to wheel some desk drawers out of the way. As I did so I exposed a tiny, light gray lizard no bigger than my pinkie finger for about half a second before it disappeared under a different desk. I succeeded in flushing it from cover a second time but really had no chance of catching it. I couldn't even locate it after that. We're not far from the garden beds and forests that surround the school, but there are no doors that communicate directly with the outside from the office where I spotted it. What's next, a raid on our snack stash by wild monkeys?

Glowing Sky

Another relaxed weekend. I logged a 9.6km jog on Friday night, my longest so far, the disembodied voice of Paula Radcliffe informed me. Saturday was spent relaxing, cleaning, and scouting for wedding supplies. Sunday was spent looking at some more invitations at Itoya's headquarters in Ginza, enjoying some choice an-pan, and then heading to Futago-shinchi for pickup. The IKU ladies' team has been practicing in a serious way already- they had been out there for three hours in the AM. Our men's squad has yet to begin drilling, which has me a little worried. The next tournament is the first weekend in September, men's nationals.

It has been hot and humid for the past couple weeks, and the cicadas are out screeching away in the cherry trees on our street. A cloudy sky and a little bit of rain helped cool things down during pickup on Sunday, and then led to a spectacular sunset. People were stopping in the street to gawk. Myself included. The sky in the east was a dark blue, changing to mauve overhead, and bright, glowing orange in the west. Some lightning was doing its thing to the north for good measure.

Earthquake in Iwate

Despite the high heat and humidity (currently 29C/74%) we had a good pickup ultimate game in Hiroo last night. Many of the normal handlers on our team were not there so I got a chance to pretend I was handler.

Afterward I made a quick dinner with miso soup, grilled aji (horse mackerel), rice, green salad, corn on the cob (JPY300 for two ears), and leftover okonomiyaki.

Just as I was getting ready to shower before bed last night the building began to shake, and continued to do so for about 30 seconds. Nothing fell over. The earthquake was centered in Iwate prefecture and although it struck when most people were already at home, some 90 people were taken to the hospital with injuries. NHK coverage showed lots of broken window glass, fallen brick, and cracked ceilings. As a result of watching the coverage I didn't get to bed until 2am.

These events are always good motivation to inspect the contents of my "evacuation" backpack. Time to restock as it turned out.

Too Many People In the Subway

The first line I ride in my morning commute is the Marunouchi line, one of the oldest subway lines in the city. Somehow they haven't yet lengthened the platform to handle more subway cars. In addition it travels to some of the places where office buildings are most highly concentrated here, such as Otemachi, Tokyo, and Shinjuku stations. As a result it's jam packed during morning rush hour. As I got on this morning carrying my gear for this evening's ultimate pickup, I couldn't squeeze into the car fully and my cleat bag got squished in the closing doors. The nice lady next to me helped me to pull it out when they briefly opened them again.

A few stations down the line some poor woman's sweater was hooked by the fastener on some guy's satchel. He dragged her out of the train car before he realized what had happened.

Now that the G8 Summit has concluded, the police presence is back to normal, the trash cans in the stations are back in use, and the vending machines are once again accessible. I can't say I understood the security risks posed by machines selling fizzy drinks in plastic bottles and canned coffee to start with.

I noticed a guy standing outside the small bookstore by Myogadani station this morning with a banner, making some sales pitch. When someone is doing this at 8am here in Tokyo, it usually means they are running for a political office, but then I noticed he was wearing a vivid, pointed turquoise cap and the banner informed passersby that the Japanese edition of the last Harry Potter book was now on sale. That's almost exactly one year later than the English language edition, by my estimate.

In other news, butter seems to be slowly returning to the stores. My local supermarket now has it taking up a tiny corner of the refrigerated case that is full of 30 different types of margarine. The cheapest price looked to be JPY480 for 200g (that's about USD4.50 for 7oz.).

Made hiyashi-chuuka again last night, leaving out the ham as usual. A simple, satisfying summer dish.