Twist on Multiple Monitors

I came across this the other day on Techmeme.  Its a pretty neat idea.  To bad it weighs to much and the specs aren't more up to date.  So what do you guys think?  Would you or your users ever use a machine like this?

Winding Down

My career has taken me to another company.  As a result I will no longer have access to ProSystem fx Engagement.  I'll still be around to answer questions as they arise but I'll only be able to comment from memory unless access can be arranged.  If there is no activity or interest by the end for this year (2011), I will delete this blog.

Thanks for all the comments and reading.  It has been fun.

UPDATE: Portable Monitors

We still haven't received our order of Field Monitors from Mobile Monitor Technologies so no review yet.  However, you can see some feedback from others here, here and here.  I can't wait to play with it for myself.

ISSUE: Personal.xlsb doesn't load

ISSUE:  A user may have setup some personal macros in the Personal.xlsb file but those marcos don't seem to be accessible when opening Excel files from within an Engagement binder.

CAUSE:  Apparently, the Personal.xlsb file doesn't load when Excel is started with automation (think opening Excel files within Engagement).

RESOLUTION:  Navigate to the location of the Personal.xlsb file and open it.  You may need to unhide it before continuing.  Do a "Save As" and save the file as an Excel Addin (".xla") which should save the file in to the appropriate directory on the user's machine (which should be in the "C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Addins\" directory for Windows 7 users).  Once the Addin file is saved and Excel has been closed, move the Personal.xlsb file to a different location (just to make sure it doesn't get loaded) and reopen Excel.  If the Addin file isn't loaded, make sure the Addin file is set to be loaded (meaning "checked") in the Excel Addins dialog (Excel button | Excel Options | Addins | Excel Addins).

Any Addin file that is set to be loaded should be available when opening files from within Engagement.

Mobile Monitor Technologies Display

Just a quick update.  We ordered two displays from Mobile Monitor Technologies today.  We were told that they couldn't get the order in for the Feburary batch but that we'd be in the March batch.

Issue: Large Excel Files

We have a client that provides large Excel files (.xls) that contain 60,000 to 100,000 rows of information.  That equated to a 38MB file.  We wanted to reduce the size of the file for our binder so we saved it as an Excel binary workbook (.xlsb) and then inserted it into the binder.  To our surprise, when we tried to open the file from within Engagement it didn't open.  Tried opening it on different computers and still no luck.

I called Engagement Support and was told that Excel binary workbooks were not listed as compatible file types but that "if it can be opened outside Engagement you should be able to open it from Engagement."  I was also told that no one on the product team had tested compatibility with Excel binary workbooks.

So, in short, no luck with binary workbooks for now.  If it's any consolation, a request for enhancement was filed.

Another Portable Display

I came across a tweet from Roman Kepczyk when he was at the CCH User Conference back in November.

...Just tested new mobile (2nd) monitor with 195 page PDF and performance was great. Check out at mmt2.com ($279)...

I looked at the website and it looks pretty cool.  We're going to get one with the key pad to test it out for our needs.  Have any of you out there used this model before?  What have your experiences been?

And thanks to Roman for putting the word out.