Microsoft Excel Workbook Links

Opening certain Excel or Comma Separated Value (CSV) files in Excel may (correctly or incorrectly) produce the following error message:

This workbook contains one or more links that cannot be updated.

Depending on how the file was opened (either through the GUI or programmatically), the following message box may appear:

Clicking the "Edit Links..." button opens the following window:

Selecting just about any option continues loading the file; however, if the files was accessed programmatically, user intervention is required through the GUI (even when the application has set Application.DisplayAlerts = false).

To disable the automatic update of Workbook links in Microsoft Excel 2007, which suppresses the prompt:

• Open Excel
• Click on the Microsoft Office button (in the upper left corner of the application)
• Click "Excel Options" near the bottom of the menu
• Select "Trust Center" tab
• Click the "Trust Center Settings..." button
• Select "External Content" tab
• Select "Disable automatic update of Workbook Links"
• Click "OK" button to close the "Trust Center" window
• Click "OK" button to close the "Excel Options" window

Addition information pertaining the issue is available through Microsoft's support website:

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813977

Visualizing Numerical Data

I was looking into visualizing numerical data and came across the following website:

• http://www.visitmix.com/labs/descry/theobesityepidemic/

Overall, MIX Online does an impressive job of allowing an average user to quickly and easily understand complex three dimensional data: time, space, and value.

Based on the visualization, it was interesting to see that the number of obese people in most U.S. states has approximately doubled since 1994. It was also interesting that the research does not take into account people who are underweight.