Alan, Yes it did take some time but not as much as you would think.
Why do it? Wordsmiths do games like chihuahua to keep mental acuity at a high level. Others do number games and logic problems. People who were systems analysts, albeit forty odd years ago, like the opportunity to develop processes to achieve an output to see if they can still do it. If the result is useful, that is a bonus.
The data collection was conceptually simple.
1. Copy the 11 pages of the members data base to a spreadsheet
2. Split the screen into 2 – spreadsheet on one side; browser on the other
3. Click the username of the first member, bringing up the profile in the browser
4. Copy the date last active to the spreadsheet
5. Repeat for each member
Then you have all the data you need to produce the tables with simple spreadsheet manipulations.
Publishing the tables without attaching a spreadsheet, word processor or PDF document proved more difficult. I wanted to use the instructions of
Bulletin board Coding system to set up the tables. I found an
insert table tag but in the end it, or my knowledge of it, proved it to be unsuitable. So I dumped the table into the post, converted the text font to
courier, a fixed-width font, with the
font tag and formatted it by inserting spaces to line up the columns.
It was an enjoyable exercise. I am just a bit sorry it didn’t turn out to be useful.