One dark, cold day in February, I suggested that we pick a day to celebrate as Spreadsheet Day. You participated in a poll to pick a suitable date, and October 17th, the release date of VisiCalc, got the most votes. Well, that date is just over a week away, so it will soon be Spreadsheet [...]
Posts under ‘spreadsheets’
Happy 25th Birthday Excel
Happy birthday to Microsoft Excel, that was first shipped to retail stores on September 30th, 1985 — 25 years ago today. I’m proud to announce that 1985 was also the year that the Canadian Department of Agriculture quarantined a Microsoft "Mouse" for four weeks. We don’t take any chances with foreign rodents here in Canada! [...]
Spreadsheet Planning: Excel Saves Halloween
Well, maybe Excel didn’t actually save Hallowe’en, but it helped the Double Fine video game company allocate staff for their Hallowe’en game — Costume Quest. In an interview at MTV, Tim Schafer, Double Fine’s president and CEO, described how the staff members, who had previously all worked on the same project, were split into four [...]
Spreadsheet Cooking: Jarring Numbers
Have you ever made your own jam? I’ve made strawberry jam a few times, and it’s delicious, but lots of trouble to make. It’s much easier to grab a jar from the grocery store. On the AnnArbor.com website today, Corinna Borden uses a spreadsheet to compare the costs of homemade blueberry and blackberry jams to [...]
Spreadsheet Planning: Home Improvement
Spreadsheets aren’t just for project planning at the office — it’s great for planning home improvement projects too. Fred Chidester Sr., who claims to be in his 70s (hard to believe!), is always looking for new ways to use Excel. He’s currently working on a bathroom renovation, and sent me the Excel file that he’s [...]
Spreadsheet Games: The Game of Life
When I asked people to send examples of interesting things they were doing with spreadsheets, Peter Burke sent this example of John Conway’s Game of Life simulator, programmed in Excel. Peter, who’s from Glasgow, Scotland, explained how his program came about: We hold coding dojo’s (http://codingdojo.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WhatIsCodingDojo ) and one of the subjects was coding [...]
Spreadsheet Travel: Camping Checklist
Do you ever go camping? My family had camping vacations every summer, when I was growing up, and Dad always had everything meticulously organized. Those were the dark ages, before spreadsheets had been invented, so he probably had our supply lists written on graph paper, or something equally high tech. My daughter went camping with [...]
Spreadsheet Creativity: Christmas in July
The local malls like to promote Christmas in July sales, so maybe you need a greeting card for this fake festive season. Thanks to Dermot Balson, from Modelling in Excel, your Christmas dreams have come true. As a break from his serious actuarial work, Dermot created an animated card in Excel. Dermot says he borrowed [...]
Stay Healthy with the Spreadsheet Diet
If you spend most of your time sitting in front of a spreadsheet, you might suffer from a spreading waistline. You can monitor your weight with a spreadsheet, and keep track of what you’re eating, to help solve the problem. The Spreadsheet Diet As a preventive measure, you can follow a healthy meal plan by [...]
Spreadsheet Savings: Calculate Lunch Costs
If you find yourself running out of money before the end of the month, maybe a spreadsheet can help. If you don’t have the strength to put together a detailed personal budget, you could start by keeping track of your lunch costs. I saw this posted in Twitter last week: "My friend in a local [...]
