Foggy Skies in Dubai and Coordinated Fish

Murky Skies

It's been a bit murky here in Dubai over the last few days. In spite of the forecast for today it still is. There is a lot of dust in the atmosphere apparently so whilst it is hot outside, it appears to be overcast and a bit murky.

Coordinated fish

This is one reason why I could never be an interior designer. I went to a restaurant yesterday and not only were walls, furnishing and floorings all really attractively coordinated but so were the fish in the aquarium. Now, I would probably never have thought of that!

Brunch? Not in Yorkshire!

I just realised something the other day. Brunch is an acceptable word now, of course, but it really doesn't fit in Yorkshire.

Since Yorkshire folk have breakfast, dinner and tea, we combine breakfast and dinner into BRINNER.

You heard it here first!

By the way, did you see that dolt on one of those BBC cookery programmes who said that brunch shouldn't be too heavy or it will ruin your lunch! Where do they get these people?

DW

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Night Time's a Good Time Apparently

Corwin's Quest on Animal Planet

That TV wildlife type just said night time is the perfect time to see some of Australia's nocturnal creatures.

Really? How amazing.

DW

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Wrong Day for Someone and an Upgrade

The Wrong Day

I joined the check in queue at Manchester Airport as there was a man already checking in. Based on my history of queuing experiences I was not overly worried at the time he was taking. But he had his laptop on the counter and switched on. He had his mobile phone glued to his ear.

After a while he left with all of his bags. Apparently he isn't due to travel until tomorrow! Now, let me be unkind and ask was he too keen to escape something OR very keen to reach somewhere? Just asking!

Upgrade

When I got to the gate I became the cause of a hold up. I wasn't worried but the KLM lady scurried around quite a bit for quite a while. When she came back she told me I had been upgraded to Business Class.

I am NOT ungrateful because I got a sandwich rather than a packet of TUC biscuits. However, I am now praying for an upgrade on the next leg: considerably longer than the 50 minute flight to Amsterdam!! Praise be!

DW


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Swine Flu and BBC News

On the six o'clock news this evening the health correspondent said that the new government flu pandemic web site had opened this afternoon with hits of 2,600 per second. The reporter said that was AT THE RATE OF around 9 million an hour.

In the 8 o'clock news summary on BBC 1 they said there had been 9 million hits on the flu website in the first hour.

Where is the editorial control at the BBC I wonder?

DW


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My Spreadsheet Book

A few people are asking me about the progress of my latest book: working title is Spreadsheeting with Mr Sprite.

Good news: I have completed around 7 or 8 chapters now and have carried out my research and preparations for a few more. The book is aimed at Excel 2007 and is a comprehensive introduction to it. More than that, it includes a number of practical examples that people can use as templates for real life work. I am collaborating on part of the book with a manpower planning specialist (the world's number one, no less) and he is giving me material and ideas for what to include in that section.

I am aware that Microsoft is within a year or so of releasing Excel 2010 so I am keen to ensure I get in well ahead of that deadline!

Here is the current contents page ... subject to change. If YOU would like me to include something that you cannot see here, please write to me and I will consider all suggestions. duncan at duncanwil dot co dot uk ... please interpret that! I get enough spam in my inbox so don't want to encourage any more.

Contents

Part One: Introductory

1 Basics

• Introduction
• Pencil and Paper
• Basic Functionality
• The Ribbon
• Screen Resolution
• Minimise the Ribbon
• The Quick Access Toolbar: the QAT
• Basic Rules
• Add Subtract Multiply Divide
• More Complex Calculations
• Try it!
• Built in Functions: SUM ... AVERAGE ... MIN ... MAX
• Auto Fill
• Auto Fill Menu
• Formatting Cells
• Moving Around your Workbook
• Changing Column and Row Sizes
• Moving a Column or Row
• Formatting Text
• Cell Border
• Try it!
• Consolidation Exercise
• Selecting non Contiguous Ranges
• Why Select Non contiguous Ranges?
• Print Areas
• Transposing Data
• Cell and Range Addressing
• Range Names

2 Charting

• Introduction
• The Rules of Charting
• Setting up a Chart the Easy Way: the F11 key
• Default Chart Change
• Creating a Template Char
• Embedding a Chart with the Chart Wizard
• Embedding by Moving
• Titles and Axes Labels
• Copy Charts: make clones an move them
• Other Charts
• Category Axis Contains Labels from Three Columns
• Conditional Colours
• Waterfall Chart
• Create a Stacked Column Chart
• Finished Waterfall Chart
• Alternatives
• Percentage Waterfall Chart
• Radar Chart
• Self Expanding Chart
• Excel 2007 Solution 1
• Excel 2007 Solution 2a
• Excel 2007 Solution 2b
• Selecting Data from a Combo Box
• Spreadsheet Allowing the User to Highlight Alternative Scenarios
• Table and Chart Selection Including a Combobox
• Charts with Scroll Bars
• Basic Chart and Rates of Change Chart
• Ten year financial review of a company
• Double Vertical Axes
• Additional Charting Exercises
• Text to Columns
• Deriving Values from Published Charts
• Dashboards
• More Advanced Chart

3 Introduction to Pivot Tables

• Introduction
• Definition of a Pivot Table
• Why you need a Pivot Table
• Example PTs
• Copying a Pivot Table
• A Copy of a PT is a Clone of a PT
• Copying your PT
• Changing Sum of to Average of to Count of ...
• Moving a Field from Row to Column
• Drag and Move Within the PT
• Drag and move the chosen field within the Task Pane
• Filtering a Field
• Sorting a Pivot Table
• Formatting Fields
• Calculated Fields
• Drilling Down
• Calculated Item
• Other Calculated Item Features
• Adjusting the Formula
• More Complex Formulas
• Forecasting with a Calculated Item
• Values
• Show Values As
• Grouping PT Data
• Starting or Setting up a PT
• The Grouping Process
• When Grouping is a Problem
• Pivot Chart
• Formatting a Pivot Chart
• A Pivot Chart with a Data Table
• Formatting
• Page Fields
• Multiple Page Fields
• Reporting with Page Fields
• Pivot Table from an External Source
• Part Two: Data Analysis

4 Pivot Tables 2

• Expense account analysis
• Double entry bookkeeping
• Trial balance
• Final accounts/reports

5 Ratio and Other Company Analysis

• Ratio analysis of company information ranging from the simple to the complex
• Common size statements
• Growth ratios in ratio analysis
• Z Score analysis
• Using the ToolPak Add-In that comes with Excel
• Descriptive statistics
• Histograms
• Correlation analysis
• Ordinary least squares (regression) analysis
• There is a database of company data to accompany this chapter and the detail of the chapter will refer to that database throughout.

6 Statistical Analysis

• This chapter enhances the work started in chapter 5 above and includes
• t statistic
• Standard Error
• P Value
• F statistics
• Confidence intervals
• Multiple regression analysis
• The relevant range
• Chi square test
• Non parametric tests
• The Box and Whisker Plot
• More Useful functions for analysis
• INDIRECT
• INDEX
• OFFSET
• MATCH

Part Three: Decision Making

7 Behaviour of Costs

• Splitting costs into their fixed and variable elements
• MINVERSE
• MMULT
• Non linear costs
• The linear treatment of costs: true and fair?

8 Cost Volume Profit Analysis

• Building on the work of chapter 1 of this part of the book, we will now explore the practical application of the behaviour of costs under the heading of cost volume profit or break even analysis

9 Marginal Costing and Decision Making

• Continuing with the theme of the behaviour of costs and the application of it to management accounting situations, in this chapter we explore how a knowledge of marginal costs can be used in decision making.

10 Traditional and Activity based costing

• Traditional overhead analysis: absorption costing
• Allocation
• Apportionment
• Re apportionment
• Overhead absorption rates
• Absorption costing
• Activity Based Costing

11 Budgeting

• This chapter concentrates on the preparation of budgets and budgeting reports that include:
• Functional budgets
• Cash budgets
• Master budget
• Budget reports
• Balanced scorecard reporting
• Activity based budgeting

12 Capital Budgeting

• Payback
• Accounting Rate of Return
• Net Present Value
• Profitability Index
• Internal Rate of Return
• Divisibility of Projects

13 Excel Techniques for Analysis and Decision Making

• Goal Seek
• Scenario Manager
• SOLVER

I'm nervous about leaving it at 13 chapters and will probably expand that to accommodate the manpower planning spreadsheet models.

DW

If I Have a Little Weakness and I Have a Little Weakness it's a Passion for a ...

Where does the quotation in the title come from and can you finish it?

Yesterday I began to prepare for my next trip by going to the supermarket and buying some odds and ends. One thing I bought, for some inexplicable reason that had lodged itself in my head a week or so ago, was a packet of Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts (see photo!).

After tea (that's dinner for those of you with ideas above your station ;-)) I ate a few of the Allsorts. Then a few more. Then some more. So I pushed the bowl they were in to the opposite side of the coffee table.

I resisted the rest of the Allsorts until around half an hour before I went to bed. Then I scoffed the lot.

Well, I haven't had any for quite a while and I won't have any more for another while I suppose. So, a little of what I fancied has probably done me good.

DW

Biodegradable

I was discussing with son Andrew over the weekend how I might knock my kitchen about a bit and create a bit of extra space for myself together with adding a breakfast bar or similar.

As I looked deep inside the cupboard under the stairs where the work could take place I found a carrier bag on a hook behind the door that I had not noticed before in spite of having lived here for two years now. I decided I didn't need that bag to be there so took hold of it and most of the bag fell away from the part I was then holding on to. Odd, I thought!

I bent down to pick up the rest of the bag and that started to fall apart too. After one more attempt, it resembled a flower that has been smashed on the floor after having been dipped in liquid Nitrogen.

Hmm! So biodegradable bags really do degrade then. Moreover, it's best to let them fall apart in the soil I think as it's a bit of a struggle to pick up the bits even with a dust pan and brush.

Fascinating science!

DW

Dual Monitors

A while ago I attached my currently redundant Asus VW202SR monitor to my laptop hoping to use two screens/monitors in tandem. The laptop found the other monitor and let me add it to extend my Desktop.

Hooray!

Boo!

It just sat there: I expected it to give me perfect functionality ... but it just sat there so I unplugged it and harumphed. Gatesed again!

I decided to try again and the same thing happened. I thought, this can't be right: I have seen loads of people using two and more screens at one time. So I did a a bit of research and now I am typing this on my laptop screen and reading an article from the McKinsey Quarterly site on "How finance departments are changing ... "

Marvellous! Did Gates get something right or am I dreaming?

DW

Irony?

I thought the following was amusing.

I got an email from amazon.co.uk: the usual marketing stuff. Here are three of the books that it said I ought to buy today:

1 Balanced Scorecard: step by step for Government and Not for profit Organisations

2 The Little Book that Builds Wealth: the knock out formula for finding great investments

and now for the punch line

3 Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: a long short story

Made me laugh anyway.

DW

Andrew's Graduation: Salford July 2009

A memorable day out in Salford yesterday as I accompanied son Andrew to his graduation ceremony with the degree of BSc from the University of Salford. Second class Honours, upper division ... can't get much better than that.

Well done!

I took over 100 photos but was so wrapped up in it all that I forgot to take a photo of the two of us together.

Well, here is Andrew, all bedecked in his academic robes ...

Here's an arty photo with added animation/life ...

Here's Andrew with his good friend and one of his lecturers: Pearl in the middle and Lei on the right as we look ...

The first of the kids to graduate: Fran next then Dima then Daniel.

DW

Explaining Enron

Old MacDonald had a farm and on this farm he had a donkey. But the donkey died. What do you do with a dead donkey? The farmer thought he would sell it. Knowing no one would want a dead donkey, the farmer decided to raffle it. At £2 a ticket, no one questioned the state of the donkey. Old Macdonald easily sold 500 tickets. That’s a grand for a dead donkey that would have fetched £250 alive. The prize was drawn and the winner discovered the donkey was dead. He complained. So Old McDonald gave him back his two quid!!!

E i e i o!

Many thanks to http://www.peoplealchemy.co.uk/samples/9.html for that peach!

DW

Not so Tired

Malcolm (my next door neighbour) came round yesterday afternoon as I was typing my previous posting and I have to say I found it extremely difficult to keep up with the conversation for the full two hours. It was if I was seriously jet lagged or hung over: neither of which applied.

I ended up going to bed at 9 pm and fell asleep fairly soon afterwards. However, I woke up at around 4:30 am. Not good. Then I drifted off again and didn't wake up until around 7:50 am.

I still feel a bit rough but certainly better than yesterday.

So far that is!

DW

Dog Tired Today

I know you want to know ... at home and doing almost nothing today. I woke up at around the same time as normal, just after 6 am but then rather than skipping downstairs for my early morning coffee and pot of yoghurt, I drifted in and out of sleep for the next three hours or so. So I didn't really wake up until around 9:30 am and I feel rough because of it.

I am currently watching the England Lions v Australia cricket match. England have got two sessions in which to try to score 445 runs or bat out for the draw. What do you think? England Lions have just lost a wicket and are now 29 - 1.

Stunning soup, no added fat. Butter beans, cooked; add a stock cube or cook the beans in your own vegetable stock; chop and add one medium sized onion and a small can of chopped tomatoes. Cook until everything is perfect. It didn't even need any tomato puree to enhance the flavour. Gorgeous stuff, especially with your fresh home made 50: 50 wholemeal: white flour bread with butter.

DW

Zonked, More Bread and Wimbledon Wit ... Not

Thise week must have been harder work than I'd thought. I have been pottering about today and, really unusually for me, falling asleep when I settle down to watch the tennis, the rugby or anything else on the telly. ZZZZZ!!

I had decided to take it easy today anyway and virtually started it by baking some bread. Fresh home made bread, butter, mature cheddar and some lettuce leaves. Lip licking good!!

Don't you just admire these people in the crowds at Wimbledon who shout out things like, "Come on Andy ... " Then someone else shouts, "Come on Andy ...". Then we hear someone else shouting, "Come on Andy ... " Such variety and such wit!

DW
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London Done!

Urgent email arrived on Tuesday at midday. Can I run a course in London for two days starting on Thursday?

I got the details and having reviewed them I said yes.

So here I am sitting in the air conditioned customer lounge at King's Cross having delivered quite a credible experience for my delegates. Can't leave until 1903 because of my off peak ticket and it's only 1730 now.

Didn't see much of London and I'd explore a bit more now but my feet hurt and my case is heavy!!

Home late then. At least my bed is comfy!

DW


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Vegetarian Breakfast?

Anyone fancy this for breakfast?

Grilled tomato
Grilled mushrooms
Baked beans
Spring rolls

OK up to the spring rolls?

That's what I got on the KLM flight from Muscat to Amsterdam this morning. What were they thinking?

DW

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Encyclopaedia!

At the end of the last day of my seminar in Muscat, a delegate came and chatted and said I am like an encyclopaedia!

I thought, hmm, does she mean too heavy, dusty and sits on a shelf all alone and unloved? No, she said I seem to know everything!!

I am for hire!!

DW

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Brilliant, another frigging tax!

Those Oxbridge boffs have hit on another spiffing wheeze to extract more money out of the unwary. There is a suggestion that

Every Briton with a fixed line phone will pay a "small levy" of 50p per month to pay for faster net access.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8102756.stm

Why? I have installed and run broadband internet access in my house and have been paying handsomely for it. I have been doing that for many years now. Even when I travel I leave it all switched on, the service that is, not my computers. so, I am hardly a drain on the system.

I am an exception and I don't want to pay even if it is only 50 pence a month.

I was considering taking my broadband mobile anyway and if that's free of this poxy tax then that's what I'll do.

One more thing: this is going to be managed by the government so it won't work will it? Their track record on IT systems is wanton so it will start at 50 pence a month and then it will soon get to £5 a month ... and will be overseen by a Politician who has even managed to dodge paying Stamp Duty on his own house such are the rules that he has managed to manipulate in his favour.

DW

You know you've been Gatesed when ...

... you create and save a Word 2007 file as a Word 97 - 2003 file and think you can take it to another computer running Office 2003 to open it and print it.

• Of course the first Windows computer will try to open it as a Notepad file. Then it will tell you that the file is corrupt.
• Of course the second Windows computer will be unable to identify your USB memory stick
• Of course the third Windows computer will open the file but be completely unable to open the very simple jpg graphics that the file has embedded in it

So, go back to your original file in Word 2007 and save it as a PDF file. Take it out of Gates' hands. I should have done that in the first place.

Ah but there's more.

Last night as I was preparing the document I knew I'd got a copy on my system: it just had to be there. I even knew the key words and everything. I searched in my main working folder and sub folders but Windows Explorer in Vista told me it didn't exist. I changed the key word a few times and each time I got the same result: nothing.

I used manual methods and found what I wanted.

This morning I thought I'd try the search again since it had failed on this file and on several others. Now it worked.

Something I have noticed of late, only lately, is that if I put the computer to sleep, it wakes up with a headache and often refuses to let me surf the web and download my emails: using a browser and Outlook 2007.

Let's all buy an Apple Mac

I see that Apple are releasing more of their wondrous products and I'm telling you, the next comp I get will be as far removed from Bill Gates as I can get.

Just one example of the ad I've see today says that I can get as much as seven hours out of an Apple laptop battery. That's as opposed to the hour - hour and a half I get and have only ever got from all of the laptops I've ever owned and used. Sorry, I don't want to hear that Jimmy Shand plc's laptops can last for a fortnight because that's just the start of it!

Apple has also SHRUNK its OS by 6 Gb ... when did MS ever shrink anything except our wallets and our productivity?

Apple has also shrunk the price of their OS to £29 from £150 (I THINK they are correct).

I will tell you what Windows laptops are good for: hand warmers in Winter as they invariably made the CPU run to capacity whatever else is on board and therefore generate many BTUs of heat.

DW