This step-by-step article explains how to share a Microsoft Excel workbook with other users. If you want several users to work in the same Excel workbook simultaneously, you can save the workbook as a shared workbook. Users can then enter data, insert rows and columns, add and change formulas, and change formatting.
If you're in an application that gives you a link that you can click on, the spinning circle usually means that Windows is busy; it's doing something... it might very well be loading IE9. It's not until IE9 has finished loading that it becomes visible and takes over the screen.
Q: distnoted gobbling CPU. I've got a macbook pro, and I have a recurrent problem with performance. What happens is that after running fine for a while the system starts to get slower and slower and the ball starts spinning for almost anything I try to do. When I check Activity Monitor at such times what seems ot be happening is something called distnoted is hogging CPU (up to 85%).