J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

Musical Resignation Letter

A Microsoft employee calls it quits

So Bye, bye Excel and I
It's been 3 good years, oh how time has flown by
With devs in the hall drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin' forever recalc or die, forever recalc or die

Excel 15 Features

Found here:  Exclusive- Microsoft Office 15 features and improvements

Microsoft is aiming to make Excel 15 easier for folks who need to visualize large data sets that they are working with. A new Quick Analysis Lens feature lets Excel 15 users quickly access ways to visually represent data, and Recommended Charts and PivotTables helps surface the best way to visualize certain information based on data patterns. Flash Fill, a new feature to Excel 15, will also simplify the reformatting and rearrangement of data in an Excel spreadsheet. Excel 15's Touch Mode feature is designed to let users browse through charts, graphs, and tables on tablet devices with their fingers and hands.

Excel 15 will also introduce some new chart formatting controls that use a fully interactive interface to fine tune charts quickly. Chart animations will also let chart users see and understand every different change in their charts as new data points are added or existing numbers adjusted along the way. Microsoft is also building in a new Start Experience for Excel 15 that provides access to a collection of professional designed templates, including ones for budgets, calendars, forms, and reports.

I haven't seen it, so I have no idea if this is accurate or comprehensive.

Excel 15

I've been keeping my eye on the news for stories about the next version of Excel. Not much so far, just rumors. For example: Microsoft planning beta of next-generation Office 15 suite in January.

The software giant is currently preparing final milestone builds of Office 15 in preparation for a full beta in late January, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans. Microsoft Office 15, the codename for the next version of Microsoft’s popular productivity suite, is tentatively scheduled for a beta 1 milestone in late January. Microsoft will provide a Technology Preview of the software initially, expected at CES 2012 alongside the Windows 8 beta.

That didn't happen.

Office 15 will be designed with touch at the heart of the applications. Microsoft has redesigned the general look and feel of its popular Outlook email client to make it usable by touch, pen and mouse… Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed in September that the company is preparing a Metro style version of Office. You ought to expect that we are rethinking and working hard on what it would mean to do Office Metro style,” said Ballmer

How To Be Employable

Here's some advice: You will always be employable if you know how to do this

One recruitment professional claims to have identified the secret of eternal employability in financial services: advanced Excel skills.

“There is always steady demand for people with advanced Excel,” says Dominic Connor at P&D Quant Recruitment. “It is an excellent safety net for when it hits the pan.”

Using Excel to ensure employability means familiarising yourself with pivot tables, VBA, importing and exporting data from SQL servers and more complex elements like DDE (dynamic data exchange strings).

And this:

The great joy of all this is that it’s easy to learn, argues Connor. “All you need to do is to buy a book by Walkenbach and work your way through from beginning to end,” he suggests, “The joy of Excel is that everyone knows how to do it, but not many people know how to do it properly.”

Elevens

Today I entered a formula, and got six 11's.

Today Is Spreadsheet Day

It occurs once per year: Spreadsheet Day.

The Spreadsheet Day blog celebrates the joy and challenges of working with spreadsheets. October 17th was voted the best day for Spreadsheet Day, because VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet for personal computers, was released on October 17th, 1979.

Please celebrate responsibly.

Excel And Scotch

At Computer World: What fine whisky can teach us as end user computing professionals.

The famous connoisseur Jim Murray said of the 1974 Ardbeg Provenance: "This is the finest whisky I have ever tasted. As close to perfection as makes no difference."

Ever notice that every once in a while, something comes along in which it seems heaven, earth and the stars were aligned? It's as if all of the ingredients came together to create something so amazing, it's hard to imagine it could ever be matched.

Microsoft Excel is IT's answer to the 1974 Ardbeg Provenance

I felt this way when I used Microsoft Excel in 1996. At the time I was a geologist responsible for accurately steering an oil drilling bit 3,000 meters below the surface of a Montana farm field.

With Excel and the magical help of John Walkenbach's advanced Excel programming books, I could create a graphical representation of the well bore's profile from downhole telemetry data, condensed so that the drillers and I could easily see which way the bit was going thanks to Excel's charting functions and some tricky Visual Basic wizardry.

It seemed there was nothing that Excel could not do.

Excel Champ

Congratulations are in order: UK student wins Microsoft Excel World Championship.

UK student Rebecca Rickwood has won a global competition to find the best user of Microsoft's spreadsheet software, Excel 2007.

Rebecca, who is 15, was one of 228,000 competitors from 57 countries. She beat 78 students in the final round.

Competitors were required to perform timed tests to demonstrate their skill at making spreadsheets.

She scored 100%. Can't get much better than that.

I'd like to see that test.

Google Plus

Anybody using Google+ yet? It's Google's answer to Facebook and Twitter.

I've never used Facebook, and I don't really like Twitter. But I'm having lots of fun with Google+. It's very confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be impressed.

You can read my public G+ posts here. If you have an account, you can post comments. And if you like, you can add me to a circle so you won't miss any of the (usually) nonsense I post.

Right now, Google+ is in beta and new accounts are by invitation only. Here's an offer for you: If you're a PUP user and you'd like a Google+ invitation, send me an email and I'll pull some strings and get you on board.

I have a few prominent Excel bloggers in my circles, but I haven't seen much Excel content. That might change in the future. Mostly it's just fun time-wasting posts.

Bad Charts On Wikipedia

Jorge Cameos urges everyone to Change Bad Charts in the Wiikipedia.

Corporate annual reports and the Wikipedia are two great resources to find really bad charts. We can’t do much about corporate reports, but we can actually change the Wikipedia articles. So, here is an assignment for you: find a bad chart and replace it with one that actually makes sense from a data visualization point of view.

Here's an example, from List of U.S. states and territories by population.

Olympics Job For Excel User

Check it out: Entire London 2012 Olympics' cultural events database held on Excel.

The London 2012 Olympics is set be a humanoid spectacle of the like never witnessed by the world's population before. Or something. But disturbing information has reached us at Vulture Central that reveals the organisation's entire cultural events database is stored in *gasp* Excel.

A job vacancy currently advertised on the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) website is offering a competitive salary to someone who can maintain and report on data held in Microsoft's spreadsheet software.

But surely the database contains hundreds if not thousands of entries - how can LOCOG possibly expect little old Excel to cope?

I think Excel can handle it. But I won't be applying for the job.

Here's the job description.

(via Smurf on Spreadsheets)

Public Data Explorer

Spreadsheet users might find this interesting. It's from Google Labs: Public Data Explorer.

​The Google Public Data Explorer makes large datasets easy to explore, visualize and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand. You don't have to be a data expert to navigate between different views, make your own comparisons, and share your findings.

Students, journalists, policy makers and everyone else can play with the tool to create visualizations of public data, link to them, or embed them in their own webpages. Embedded charts and links can update automatically so you’re always sharing the latest available data.

You can also upload your own data, and use the tools to visualize it. It must be in DSPL (Dataset Publishing Language) format.

Excel 25th Anniversary Article

Thomas E. Weber writes: Microsoft Excel- The Program's Designer Reveals The Secrets Behind The Software That Changed the World.

Without fanfare, 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of Microsoft Excel. Thomas E. Weber tracks down the program's developer and discovers how it almost didn't make it into stores—and the big idea Bill Gates lost forever.

Show Us Your Spreadsheets Contest Results

Congrats to the winners in the big Show Us Your Spreadsheets contest.

First prize went to Peter in Windsor, Ontario. He gets a $250 VISA gift card and a collection of Mr. Spreadsheet's Bookshelf guides:

Second prize: Jared in Northbrook, Illinois

Runners up: Scott & Joe in Maplewood, Minnesota, Gregory in Marysville, Washington, and Alec and the Greenpeace Data Team in Washington DC.

Thanks to everyone who participated, and thanks to the thousands of people who were motivated to buy a book.

Contest: Show Us Your Spreadsheets Challenge

Wiley is having a contest, and you could be a winner. For complete details, read the official contest announcement.

Submit a photo of yourself with your favorite John Walkenbach (Mr. Spreadsheet) or Michael Alexander (DataPig) book OR a photo of you creating stellar spreadsheets, dynamic dashboards, or something equally excellent in Excel to enter to win cash and other cool prizes.

Entries will be posted to Wiley's "Show Us Your Spreadsheets" photo page, and authors John Walkenbach and Michael Alexander will select winners at the conclusion of the challenge.

Notice that you don't have to actually create a spreadsheet. All that's required is a photo.

The contest has real prizes:

• FIRST PRIZE: $250 VISA gift card, plus a collection of Mr. Spreadsheet's Bookshelf guides
• SECOND PRIZE: $100 VISA gift card, plus a collection of Mr. Spreadsheet's Bookshelf guides
• Three RUNNERS-UP: $50 VISA gift card, plus a collection of Mr. Spreadsheet's Bookshelf guides

Photos must be submitted by December 3. And, don't post the photos here. The official rules explain how to do it.