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Kent Ahrens

My Windows Live Space
August 08

How to use dates and times in Excel

This step-by-step article describes how to use the built-in date and time functions in Microsoft Excel to perform complex date and time calculations.
August 04

Yellow Nutsedge - that pervasive light green wide leafed weed in lawn

240px-Chufa Cyperus esculentus (Chufa Sedge, Yellow Nutsedge, Tigernut Sedge, Earthalmond) is a species of sedge native to warm temperate to subtropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It is an annual or perennial plant, growing to 90 cm tall, with solitary stems growing from a tuber. The stems are triangular in section, and bear slender leaves 3-10 mm wide. The flowers of the plant are distinctive, with a cluster of flat oval seeds surrounded by four hanging leaf-like bracts positioned 90 degrees from each other. The plant foliage is very tough and fibrous, and is often mistaken for a grass.

Nutsedge Control

From Landscape-America,

Control is difficult and should be started as soon as plants are discovered. One-shot weed control will not work, and multiple applications will be necessary. Traditional annual grass weed or broadleaf weed control products will not control yellow nutsedge. Specific herbicides are required for control. Herbicides are most effective on young, actively growing plants.

Nutsedge is difficult to control culturally because it produces numerous tubers that give rise to new plants. Pulling nutsedge often increases the number of plants because dormant tubers are activated. However, small stands of nutsedge can be controlled by persistent pulling. Pulling will eventually weaken the plants and cause them to die out.

Herbicides may be required when large patches of nutsedge are present in the turf area. For homeowners, a herbicide containing methanearsonate (this material may slightly discolor Kentucky bluegrass, but no serious injury should result if used at the rate and under the conditions described on the label). This is often sold under trades names like “Crabgrass Killer.” Consider the following steps in order to be successful in reducing the nutsedge contamination.

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August 02

How much energy does Vista save in 'sleep' mode?

According to James Senior, Vista's power consumption isn't much different between "sleep" and "shut down" mode.  In response to the question, "Should I turn my computer off overnight to save energy?", Senior writes:
If you are using the sleep feature, you do not need to turn off the PC each night. The majority of computers will use less than four watts of energy in overnight sleep mode and a little less than 2 watts if it is shutdown all the way. However, if you are taking an extended vacation, you may want to turn your computer off and also unplug the AC power adaptor. Even in off mode, most power adaptors will continue to draw around a half a watt of power.
 
 
July 31

Windows Vista Performance and Tuning Guide

This Vista Performance and Tuning guide focuses on performance improvements on a single computer, but also takes a look at some of the tools used in enterprise environments to help make performance tuning manageable on a much larger scale. (via Digital Inspiration)
July 30

Shortened URLs

Because space is limited on apps such as twitter, it appears that many users shorten URLs when linking. Here’s a nice overview of different services.
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