During college, I was on a academic track that required me to take four semesters of physics. For a year and a half, I took in the theories of physics and had everything down pretty well. Then, at the start of the 4th semester, I walked into the auditorium at Nieuwland Hall on the campus of Notre Dame for the final course in the series, Quantum Physics.

The professor walked up to the board, wrote the familiar equation that was the basis for Newtonian physics, "F=ma". This stands for Force = Mass x Acceleration. Then, he dropped a bomb shell. "Everything that we have taught you over the last 3 semesters is wrong. F does not equal ma." He went on to say that F=ma works for the world of bowling balls but falls apart when you get to electron-sized particles. When you get to that size particle, the equation becomes F=ma + some other thing. I never learned that part, I was too in shock that everything they had taught me was wrong.

Well, MrExcel readers, some of the things I taught you a long time ago are outdated. Working as a full-time Excel consultant, I am learning faster, easier ways of doing things all the time. Some of the weekly tips from the Tip001.shtml through Tip020.shtml were written before I learned a lot of tricks. It is somewhat embarrassing to go back and realize there are incredibly faster ways to handle certain coding situations.

When I wrote tip009.shtml about user forms in 1999, I had done a total of one user form in my life. Now, I've done 100's of them and actually have a little more insight on the matter.

So, starting today, I am launching a concerted effort to modernize the old tips of the week. I will go sequentially, and will add the "Last Reviewed on " tag after the original published date. I'll update any links, try to make things less ambiguous, and add any new insights that a few more years of experience have provided.