Courtesy of Lifehacker, this slick Excel trick can help you do a brief analysis of a simple column of data. Clever!
Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Become an Excel master in hours!
I use Microsoft Excel for work and have frequently been trying to use more complex formulas, macros, etc, to make my life easier. However, sometimes you can't learn what you don't know, which is where a nice tutorial comes in handy.
So here's a plug for the good folks behind this site, who have created flash video Excel tutorials for the many more powerful formatting and data sifting functions in Excel. It won't teach you to do multivariate regression, but it may make finding reading your data table a little easier.
The site is run by CASTLE, self-described as:
So here's a plug for the good folks behind this site, who have created flash video Excel tutorials for the many more powerful formatting and data sifting functions in Excel. It won't teach you to do multivariate regression, but it may make finding reading your data table a little easier.
The site is run by CASTLE, self-described as:
The UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE) is a program center of the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) hosted by the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. Directed by Drs. Scott McLeod and Joan Hughes, CASTLE is the nation's leading authority on the technology needs of K-12 school leaders.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Quote of the Day
Courtesy of the latest Slashdot poll:
If learning to drive were like learning [Microsoft] Office, parallel parking would be performed with the jackhammer tool and the Create New Curb wizard.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Microsoft's excellent software support
I've never bothered to contact Microsoft about a software problem before, figuring that I would a) have to pay and b) be able to find a solution on the web somewhere. Well, it turns out neither were true when Microsoft Graph (the chart plugin for MS Word for Mac) recently went haywire on me.
Since I use this program daily at work, finding a solution was essential and I finally went looking for real help. It turns out that for each piece of MS software you own, you can receive two free technical assists. Fortunately, no previous user of the program had used any of them, so when I emailed for help last Friday, I was told to expect a response within one business day. Not bad at all!
It got better. Jack, the MS tech, responded with a solution on Saturday and even wrote back Sunday to ensure I had received his first email. By Monday when I came to work, I had the three emails from MS, including my solution - which worked perfectly.
That's exceeding expectations.
Since I use this program daily at work, finding a solution was essential and I finally went looking for real help. It turns out that for each piece of MS software you own, you can receive two free technical assists. Fortunately, no previous user of the program had used any of them, so when I emailed for help last Friday, I was told to expect a response within one business day. Not bad at all!
It got better. Jack, the MS tech, responded with a solution on Saturday and even wrote back Sunday to ensure I had received his first email. By Monday when I came to work, I had the three emails from MS, including my solution - which worked perfectly.
That's exceeding expectations.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Many Linux users are wankers
I tried to install Linux a few weeks ago. I thought it'd be nice to completely cut the tether to commercial software and see what would happen. The answer? A whole lotta of command prompts and time wasted.
I tried to install Slackware, a form of Linux that's supposedly fairly compatible with games and the like. In particular, I wanted to set the system up to emulate SNES and NES games. But there's very little that's intuitive about switching from Windows to Linux. All the terminology is different. There are "kernels," which you can compile yourself. The graphical user interface (GUI) is independent of the operating system (think Windows 3.1 and DOS). The most annoying this is that configuring system settings seems to be done almost entirely at the command prompt. Hey, I used to use DOS, but this is 2006 and I like my control panel. So to configure my video card, I had to go online and look for the command that I could type in to load drivers. Same for my NIC card. I had to know my monitor's horizontal and vertical sync rates, for Pete's sake!
Yeah, I know that Linux users hold people like me in complete scorn - you n00b! Go back to your Micro$oft products! You expect everything to just work like Windows! Here's a sample from a comment thread about Linux v. Windows:
But if free software wants to provide a viable alternative to the default option for the general population, it has to be easy. Think Tmobile to your Sprint, Firefox to your Internet Explorer, or AVG FREE Antivirus to your Norton Antivirus. The learning curves are shallow, making switching easy. The general interface is pretty much identical.
Instead, switching from Windows to Linux is like switching from English to Spanish. GUIs become command prompts. Start menus become something else. Double clicks become single clicks. And a lot of Linux users not only expect me to want to learn Spanish, but teach it to myself?
Maybe I picked the wrong Linux package and I should try Redhat, which I've heard is much easier to install. Or I could pick up a library book about Linux to at least get a handle on the commands. And I'll probably try, because - if nothing else - I'd like to avoid a $100 Windows upgrade fee. But until there's a way to install a Linux OS and GUI by primarily clicking "I agree" and "next" - or an English-Spanish interpreter provided for every user - it's going to be a Micro$soft's world.
Update 2/28/07: As I commented below, I've successfully installed Ubuntu Linux on the computer I was working on two months ago and it was an entirely different experience. As the Anonymous (and blessed) commenter noted, Ubuntu is the user-friendly way to go. I've been helped along a lot by Lifehacker's regular updates on how to improve Ubuntu.
Disclaimer: there are many, many lovely Linux users out there who have spent countless hours creating FAQs and online guides for people like me. You're great and I'm sorry you're in such shitty company.
I tried to install Slackware, a form of Linux that's supposedly fairly compatible with games and the like. In particular, I wanted to set the system up to emulate SNES and NES games. But there's very little that's intuitive about switching from Windows to Linux. All the terminology is different. There are "kernels," which you can compile yourself. The graphical user interface (GUI) is independent of the operating system (think Windows 3.1 and DOS). The most annoying this is that configuring system settings seems to be done almost entirely at the command prompt. Hey, I used to use DOS, but this is 2006 and I like my control panel. So to configure my video card, I had to go online and look for the command that I could type in to load drivers. Same for my NIC card. I had to know my monitor's horizontal and vertical sync rates, for Pete's sake!
Yeah, I know that Linux users hold people like me in complete scorn - you n00b! Go back to your Micro$oft products! You expect everything to just work like Windows! Here's a sample from a comment thread about Linux v. Windows:
I did an "experiment" over the weekend and asked a friend to launch Firefox from Gnome.
He blankly looked at the screen as said: "Where the hell is the Start button?"...completely neglecting the fact that it clearly says "Applications" up top.
He'll probably be the same person to flame Linux on a comment thread because he can't figure out how to perform a simple function.
But if free software wants to provide a viable alternative to the default option for the general population, it has to be easy. Think Tmobile to your Sprint, Firefox to your Internet Explorer, or AVG FREE Antivirus to your Norton Antivirus. The learning curves are shallow, making switching easy. The general interface is pretty much identical.
Instead, switching from Windows to Linux is like switching from English to Spanish. GUIs become command prompts. Start menus become something else. Double clicks become single clicks. And a lot of Linux users not only expect me to want to learn Spanish, but teach it to myself?
Maybe I picked the wrong Linux package and I should try Redhat, which I've heard is much easier to install. Or I could pick up a library book about Linux to at least get a handle on the commands. And I'll probably try, because - if nothing else - I'd like to avoid a $100 Windows upgrade fee. But until there's a way to install a Linux OS and GUI by primarily clicking "I agree" and "next" - or an English-Spanish interpreter provided for every user - it's going to be a Micro$soft's world.
Update 2/28/07: As I commented below, I've successfully installed Ubuntu Linux on the computer I was working on two months ago and it was an entirely different experience. As the Anonymous (and blessed) commenter noted, Ubuntu is the user-friendly way to go. I've been helped along a lot by Lifehacker's regular updates on how to improve Ubuntu.
Disclaimer: there are many, many lovely Linux users out there who have spent countless hours creating FAQs and online guides for people like me. You're great and I'm sorry you're in such shitty company.
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