Not Excellent.
May. 11th, 2005 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
growler_southI'm thinking of doing a night school or home tutoring course in Excel. It seems most everyone I know understands what its for and uses it for all sorts of things, I'd like to know what all the fuss is about. Its that thing with all the boxes eh?
I know, its something I'm supposed to have learned as a baby, like my multiplication tables. Then again, I bet you dont know how an SU carburettor works.
I know, its something I'm supposed to have learned as a baby, like my multiplication tables. Then again, I bet you dont know how an SU carburettor works.
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Date: 2005-05-11 03:59 am (UTC)If you DO deal with numbers a lot, it can make your life easier.
Stick a number in each cell, top to bottom, and then at the bottom tell it to add (or average, or whatever stat function you want) and the result shows up in the bottom. Change a number in the list, the answer is automatically updated at the bottom.
Now you can point to that answer in yet another row of cells... and so on getting some sort of cascading effect... If you dont' need to do shit like that, well, what ever.
It is also a nice way to keep a list of things that need columns, and then be able to sort them by the columns...
There has got to be an "Excel for Dummies" book out there...
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Date: 2005-05-11 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 04:20 am (UTC)Everyone keeps sending me Excel Spreadsheets of things like calendars and shopping lists. I finally gave in and installed Excel, and, since I cant see how it differs from using a .txt file with tabs, I figure there must be some hidden functionality I'm missing out on.
I do work with numbers, but only between -1 and 1 generally. 3D animation and effects uses powerful software that keeps me mostly separated from the nasty math that drives it (though I understand the concepts behind the math. Or, I used to.)
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Date: 2005-05-11 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 04:45 am (UTC)Access stinks on ice in a blizzard. I have several friends who do database work for a living, and they ALL cringe when that word is mentioned.
If you want to learn something common and consumer oriented, there's FileMaker Pro. Something a bit more heavy-duty, there's 4th Dimension. Something free (as in beer) there's MySQL.
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Date: 2005-05-11 06:59 am (UTC)Years ago I created a database of addresses that had to be changed when I moved. I used FileMaker Pro with a form based on digitized copies of the USPS change-of-address postcard with the proper text overlayed on top of the graphics (in Courier, of course), and with POSTNET barcodes in the destination address, and printed them out double-sided onto postcards.
Total overkill, of course, but I'll do a lot to avoid handwriting.
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Date: 2005-05-11 06:51 am (UTC)If you need to do a lot of calculations, see the intermediate results, and play around with the numbers, it's handy. It's not hard to set up compound interest or mortgage sorts of things for experimentation. You can sum entire columns, do statistical things, graphs, etc.
Now, the sad truth of the matter is that like 80% of Excel users don't understand that it's a computation engine. They just use it as digital graph paper. Some will go as far as using a hand calculator to add the numbers before entering them into the cells. As long as they're happy paying Microsoft $100 to do this, we're happy to let them. The Office team has added features that make that sort of use easier.
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Date: 2005-05-11 06:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 06:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 10:11 pm (UTC)For the rest - there's the Insert Formula helper:
...and of course, the online help.
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Date: 2005-05-11 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 09:38 am (UTC)I don't have much use for Excel, but I volunteered for a "intermediate" level course in it at work nevertheless. Was actually quite interesting!
Then again, I bet you dont know how an SU carburettor works.
I know what one looks like, that's a start right? Was mildly surprised to see one under the bonnet of a Rover V8...
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Date: 2005-05-11 10:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 07:11 pm (UTC)(likes Rover V8s)
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Date: 2005-05-11 11:28 am (UTC)Actually I do know how it works. You go to the Garage and you find the hottest guiy who works there and you say fix this. then after several hundred dollars later it is fixed. My question to you is, do you know how to pull a 9mm semi-automatic apart and put together. Scary enough I do. Boof with guns... that's just wrong on so many levels. LOLOL
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Date: 2005-05-11 01:12 pm (UTC)pop goes the cold black steel weasel
Date: 2005-05-11 02:31 pm (UTC)This is a fun one to field strip.
Simple, elegant and easy to shoot.
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Date: 2005-05-11 06:34 pm (UTC)I would be very happy if I never see another gun as long as I live.
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Date: 2005-05-11 11:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-12 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-12 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-12 07:27 am (UTC)As George Carlin once noted (and then went on to describe his own fussiness about eating) "'Fussy Eater' is an euphemism for 'Big Pain In The Ass.'"
I will graciously ignore the last tawdry little remark.
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Date: 2005-05-11 02:21 pm (UTC)I know you're not talking to me!
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Date: 2005-05-11 11:08 pm (UTC)I'm constantly surprised by the number of mechanics who *know* how it works but dont *understand* how it works. Of course I'm the same with all those multiple-jet Webers, I know the fundamentals but never bothered to figure out precisely what does what. I think it was the need for a separate accelerator pump that turned me off...
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Date: 2005-05-11 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-12 07:22 am (UTC)