I received the following email today:
Hello Ricemutt
My name is John D. [name edited to protect privacy] and I am a tutor in the School of Engineering and Computing at Blackpool & Fylde College in England. I found one of your tutorials on the internet and find it to be superior to the material I currently use when teaching my students this aspect of spreadsheets. I would like to ask your permission to use the content for the purpose of a student excersize. In this regard, I have taken the liberty of creating a PDF from your content, and editing as I felt was appropriate for the students (adverts etc.). In addition, I have accredited yourself as the creator of the document. I have attached the PDF for your inspection. If you would be so kind as to allow me to use your material, I would be grateful. If not, I will of course delete the PDF and it will not be used.
Kind Regards
John D.
So yes, I have ads on my blog, and yes, I do make money from them, but it’s really emails like these that always make me feel good about the time it takes to do all these Excel function tutorials, which require screen captures and writing detailed steps. (I’ve been meaning to write a simple one on pivot tables, but having a 3-month old to take care of has delayed this.)
I’m also pleasantly surprised that there are still people out there on the Internet who do the right thing and take time to ask for permission first before using other people’s work.
I sometimes get requests to work on actual spreadsheet problems people are dealing with for their business or job. I’ve honored a couple of these, usually asking them to just make a donation to a local charity. I’m considering setting up a donation button on this site for things like that, or when people find the information on here useful enough to donate a small amount, which I’d then collect and donate to a different charity each month. Any opinions on this?
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frank
Wait a min, who said those tutorials were boring?
tony
thanx for the post.
Anandi
That’s totally cool.
I vote in favor of a charity button on your site. Not sure if you
could track who uses it, but if you support a microfinance
charity or something suitably non-controversial, it makes it
more likely that the person you’re helpng out will actually do it.
(Make it easy for them)
Paul in HK
This is a gag question:
The other day you wrote about the cost of delivering a baby. Have you tracked any other costs or do you have any comments on the marginal cost per unit?
Economist
Hey
sory to write to you like this, but i could not find the contact form. I really like your blog and i was wondering if you would maybe like a link exchange with my website http://www.sayeconomy.com . My site has many good articles and gets many new visitors each day. I think we would both benefit out of this exchange alot.
Next to link exchange i would like to offer you an option to publish some articles of yours about economy on my blog, send them to me and i will publish them. You can add link to your blog under each article and i will publish it as a source.
Well let me know on info@sayeconomy.com . I would really like a link exchange with your blog (i like it alot).
Thank you in advance for your reply.
Cheers,
Matt
dividend tree
your excel sheets are great exercise.
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