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“There are people out there whose jobs force them to be the place where two sources of data meet, and they are the ones who integrate and cross-reference that data to form conclusions…

…I think a lot of the world is like that.

-Bill Gates circa 2002

People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden

I mean, I’m often asked if I ever met Bill Gates during my time at Microsoft.  I did, once, in 2002, when he wanted to review the XML features we were introducing in Excel 2003.

A few things from that meeting lodged in my head, and the quote above is one of them.  The first sentence is paraphrasing on my part as I don’t precisely remember.  But the last sentence, in italics, I remember word for word because I found it so validating of some of my own personal views and experience.

And I just realized, today, that quote should have been attached to one of the previous posts on DataMarket.

Real Reason for the Post:  People with V2 Don’t See the Same Thing?

Last week I posted a workbook that lets you download weather data from basically anywhere in the world, accompanied with instructions on how to customize it for your needs.

The workbook I provided was produced in PowerPivot V1 (SQL 2008 R2, versions 10.xx).

I received reports from a few people that when you got to the step of editing the connection in the workbook, you saw a different dialog than I saw.

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Is This What You See When You Edit Connection In The Workbook I Provided?

What I See

From the previous post, here’s what I see, with the two things you need to change highlighted:

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What I See

How To Make Required Changes If You Are Seeing the “Alternate” Dialog

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Click Advanced

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Fill In Required Info in These Three Places

That Should Do It

Let me know, again, if you have problems.  I am channeling feedback to Microsoft on this stuff so they can address any snags we hit.

Why is Microsoft paying such close attention to us in particular?

Because WE are those people where the data sources come together.