Over the weekend, we spotted some unusual activities in our email system. A user had abused our system by using our Invite Friends function and sent out invitation emails which included a private message that solicit personal and/or financial information to his/her list of recipients. It’s unknown how many were affected, but would like to inform all of the situation.

If you have received an email from an unknown sender and by way of the EditGrid domain over this past weekend requesting personal information, bear in mind that it might be spam or a possible phishing attempt. Please note that EditGrid will never ask for passwords nor will we ask for financial-related information in emails.

In response, we have banned the user, set a limit on the number of invitations you are allowed to send and we are also seeking additional ways to improve so this and similar activities will not happen again.

We want to remind everyone that EditGrid will not tolerate this type of activities. We take user privacy seriously and our Privacy Policy outlines EditGrid’s commitment to protecting our users’ privacy. Those registered users who fail to abide by the Terms of Use will be dealt with according to the Terms.

Just like how we are required to have an ICQ account here at EditGrid, we are bringing back some of the features found in the old EditGrid website. We are the classics type here. For those unfamiliar with the old site, I’ll fill you in quickly here.

Previously, we list the most popular spreadsheets in our front page, unfiltered, have a look at the results found in Internet Archive Wayback Machine and see for yourself. We have found over the course of redesigning our new website in the latter part of 2007 that displaying popular spreadsheets was a hit with users and visitors and have had harsh criticism when we changed it.

So here we are, the latest design in our website which includes a Featured Spreadsheets section highlighting the most exciting and popular spreadsheets created by our users and the EditGrid Team, a rebirth of our popular spreadsheets found in the past designs. These featured spreadsheets are submitted by our users and reviewed by our team before going on the mainsite, an opposite approach to our earlier website. We also have crawlers team members search through the EditGrid community for the coolest spreadsheets available.

Have a look at our latest redesign and let us know what you think!

May 2008 Release (rev 17656)

The most notable enhancement in this release are:

• Remote Data - Fetch data from within a cell by using our new remote data functions. Learn more.
  
  - YSTOCK(): =YSTOCK(symbol[,field])
  ex. =YSTOCK(”YHOO”,”price”)
  - YCURRENCY(): =YCURRENCY(to,from)
  ex. e=YCURRENCY(”USD”,”JPY”)
  - WEB(): =web(website,regex), =web(”editgrid_cell_permalink”)
  ex. =web(”http://www.editgrid.com/user/username/bookname/Sheet1!B5″)
  - ALEXA(): =ALEXA(website[,field])
  ex. =ALEXA(”editgrid.com”,”rank”)
  - COMPETE(): =COMPETE(website[,field])
  ex. =COMPETE(”editgrid.com”,”rank”)

And some major bug fixes:

• Fixed Replace All function (#8041)
• Fixed cursor focus when using Share to Email function (#8043)
• Fixed text selection in Internet Explorer (#8042)
• Fixed auto fill right and down and to not overwrite existing data ((#7609)
• Fixed =hyperlink() function to not show up as HTML in linked sheet (#7969)
• Fixed Javascript Error On Cell Comment RTU (#8080)
• Fixed Grid UI malfunction in 800×600 screen resolution (#7893)
• Added auto line break in edit mode for when entering long text that runs beyond the screen (#7680)
• Fixed double-click action in Internet Explorer to not erroneously hightlight textarea (#7899)
• Fixed widget to work with Internet Explorer 6 without causing it to hang (#8039)
• Fixed widget auto filter to allow first column to filter when row header is enabled (#8908)

The Sichuan earthquake which struck last Monday has brought more than 32,000 dead and 220,000 injured, in addition to making many more homeless.  The whole EditGrid Team has been very concerned of the earthquake’s impact and has been tracking the earthquake closely.

As a tiny token of our empathy to those affected by the natural disaster, we have pledged a HK$30,000 donation to the relief effort.  We know we are not in as good a financial position as the other Chinese Internet giants’ to make substantial donation — what’s important is that we think we’ve done our part.  And we encourage all our users and readers to consider donating to the relief aid fund as well (see this spreadsheet for more details), if you haven’t already done so.

Today marks one week since the earthquake struck and also sees the start of a 3-day national mourning period.  During these three days we’ll re-paint the EditGrid site banner black as a sign of mourning.  Spend a little thought over to the earthquake victims whenever you notice the mourning black banner — they’ll need and appreciate every bit of your concerns.

Update: our user war-god, publisher of the most popular spreadsheet on EditGrid, played his part as well:

(Contrast the above with the spreadsheet’s normal form as reported here.)

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Sichuan, China earlier in the week was so powerful that the impact was even felt here in Hong Kong, some 1500km away. While Hong Kong was not affected, the same cannot be said for those in Sichuan and surrounding provinces, where tens of thousands of familes have been impacted by this disaster. The estimated death toll has reached close to 20,000 with many still unaccounted for, not to mention the millions of homes that were destroyed.

We have created a spreadsheet with information pertaining to the earthquake, donation status and ways you can help out. Everyone is welcome to help update it with the latest information, stats and donation efforts.

Along with the many companies, individuals and governments who have made contributions, EditGrid’s parent company Team and Concepts is also doing their part by making a donation to World Vision Hong Kong to help the quake victims, our neighbors up north.

For those who want to contribute, you can do it through World Vision Hong Kong, or through other organizations. We have created a list of organizations from Hong Kong, China and US who are accepting donations to aid the relief efforts.

Seems our blog widget has had some nice pick-up. Zillow just used EditGrid to post their Q1 Home Value Report data to their blog.