Two New Cases

Here are two new Excel based cases I have just prepared that I know some of you will appreciate.

UK Petrol Prices

I downloaded a file of all retail petrol and diesel prices for the UK from 2003 to 2014. The task is to prepare an interactive table so that the user just enters a date in one cell and the table then shows the

• retail pump price per litre


• duty per litre


• VAT percentage


• calculation of the cost of the petrol net of duty and VAT

This case involves the use of a variety of techniques including

• VLOOKUP()


• Data Validation


• IFERROR()


• Paste Special Multiply

Here's an example of my output:



 

This video summarises the case:

[wpvideo nw5NNOOh]

Sleep Requirements.

In today's Borneo Bulletin newspaper there is an article on the sleep requirements of people of all ages. They give the requirements such as, a new born baby needs from 14 to 17 hours a day ... someone over 65 years of age needs from 7 to 8 hours sleep a day.

The task is to turn a photo of the data into a table and a chart that communicates as effectively as possible: I prepared the following:





 

Please feel free to write to me at any time to ask for the spreadsheets that accompany these cases. At the moment they are live cases and I won't release them generally until the course has finished in a week's time..

Duncan Williamson

 

Wat Lan Kuat

Wat Lan Kuat, a temple near Sisaket in Thailand. Made of bottles. Take a look at these few snaps I took there today.

DW

New Video! - Mean, Median and Mode in this Introductory Presentation

An introduction to measures of central tendency: mean, median and mode. We use Excel to discuss this topic and there are three exercises in this presentation. http://ift.tt/1xS5gnV

New Video! - find & replace

The Find&Replace menu in Excel contains some hidden gems. Things that you might never have seen before. Take a look here to see what you've been missing. http://ift.tt/1JrisW3

New Video! - ctrl+enter with the correlation function in excel

This video shows you how to use the =CORREL() function in Excel with the Ctrl+Enter technique. This is especially useful for Mac users who do not have access to the Data Analysis Toolpak http://ift.tt/1yWlzFO

Death of a Tree

We call it a shelf tree because we don't know its real name. It's a shelf tree because its branches stick out like shelves! Anyway, we bought a nice shelf tree and planted it. We cared for it. The cat learned to climb up it. Then the insects moved in. The tree lost a lot of leaves over a few days we we found the cause: insects. We bought insect spray and the tree revived. Then we noticed a top branch was looking a bit sick but we couldn't get at it. Today I was watering the garden and noticed a lower branch had weakened in the middle and was hanging loose. I told Mrs W and by the time it was time for a break she'd dug around the root and the tree had to go. We huffed and puffed a little bit and got the tree out. Dead branches allright. Sticky blobs on the bark. Holes in the trunk. I investigated one piece and found a lot of 2 mm sized ants inside. two MILLIMETRE ants had killed our 4 - 5 metre tree. When humans have been wiped out, I am sure that ants will rule the world. Here's what's left of our big shelf tree ... there are two smaller ones in the garden and I hope they grow and survive. DW

Hasselback Garlic Potatoes

Ever heard of Hasselback Garlic Potatoes? I just made them ... see my photo. They are very good.

I got the recipe from a friend on Facebook.

DW

Stewart ... Stewart!

Stewart is part of the family and has been since is birth.  He lives with his mother and although his father and brother met untimely deaths,  he seems happy and lively, if a little shy.

Stewart is young but is fully grown: that means he is fit and slim given his adequate diet.

I have to say that I have had misgivings about Stewart for a while now.  You know, when something happens and it's a bit off key. Or someone does something and you wonder,  did they really do that?

It all came to a head this morning for Stewart.  I was just looking out through the dining room window when I saw him and another young lad. They were engaged in the kind of activity that no one should see but between members of the same sex: well, it's just not right.

I didn't feel to be in a position to intervene in any way and the matter was over rather quickly. I did discuss what I saw with Mrs W but she was not so concerned as I was.

After all, Mrs W has been around dogs all her life and Stewart is just another dog as far as she is concerned, gay or straight!

Still, you don't see many gay dogs do you!

DW

First of January 2015

My diary. I have kept a diary since I was 14 years old. I kept all my diaries too and read them every now and again. Some trivial things. Some memorable things. Some sad things, some happy things.

When I moved to Thailand last year I threw away my diaries. Over the last few years I have relied more and more on electronic notes and journal items so my diary had become less important. Still, when my blog service provider disappeared without a trace a few years ago I realised that I need to have a diary strategy which is why I have this blog and it is why I use twitter and to a much lesser extent Facebook.

Like many people I take photos of food and people, buildings, landscapes and animals. I include some of them here from time to time. Here's a photo I took about an hour ago ... mother and two week old calf!

Anyway, I bought a diary for 2015 and I will use it for business rather than personal reasons. I think.

DW

Happy New Year

Hello everyone!

It is 20:35 on 31st December where I am and that means new year celebrations have started or are very shortly about to start somewhere.

I wish all of you a happy and peaceful new year. It is my resolution to post more pages here in the coming year. As you know, I post something as often as I can and I try to ensure everything is of high quality.

I have upgraded my screen capture video production software and intend to create and post more of them.

Do feel free to write to me at any time, by the way: I always reply to my messages and comments.

Best wishes

Duncan Williamson

Happy New Year

Hello everyone!

It is 20:35 on 31st December where I am and that means new year celebrations have started or are very shortly about to start somewhere.

I wish all of you a happy and peaceful new year. It is my resolution to post more pages here in the coming year. As you know, I post something as often as I can and I try to ensure everything is of high quality.

I have upgraded my screen capture video production software and intend to create and post more of them.

Do feel free to write to me at any time, by the way: I always reply to my messages and comments.

Enjoy the photo of the individual cheese cakes I have just made!! And the English trifle that has already been eaten!!

Best wishes

DW

Khan Academy

I am learning all sorts of things this year and will continue next year as well.

One of my sources of learning is the Khan Academy and I recommend it to you for all sorts of things including mathematics … plus science and computing. It’s FREE too!

Here my link to take you there, please take a look.

 

Duncan Williamson

Two Videos … more to come

The menu system on this blog has fallen apart for some reason and until I get it sorted out I will communicate this way as well as through the home page and so on.

Anyway, two new videos in case you missed them that can be found in my OneDrive Public folder

how to create a positive and negative chart/graph. That is, making the positive numbers blue and the negative numbers red … or any colours you wish

Introduction to setting up a Pivot Table and drilling down in a Pivot Table. Pivot Tables are vital for anyone dealing with numbers and analysis and if you haven’t learned them yet … spend about 10 minutes with me.

You should see the respective Excel files there too!

Stop and start these videos as you wish until everything is clear.

 

Duncan Williamson

21st December 2014

Testing the Menus

I am not at all sure of how the menus are working now … testing, testing …

 

Dw

True Kindness

I was buying a diary and postcards in WH Smith in Muscat airport last night and wanted to pay in US Dollars.  It came to $6 and I had a $5 note and a $50 note.

I knew I would get the change in Rivals but I agreed to pay with the $50 note.

I hadn't seen her but suddenly a woman in the queue behind me said, you don't want to break that $50 note and handed over an Oman Rial note.

That was so kind and it has never happened to me before. I thanked her profusely and for the record, English accent.

DW

True Kindness

I was buying a diary and postcards in WH Smith in Muscat airport last night and wanted to pay in US Dollars.  It came to $6 and I had a $5 note and a $50 note.

I knew I would get the change in Rivals but I agreed to pay with the $50 note.

I hadn't seen her but suddenly a woman in the queue behind me said, you don't want to break that $50 note and handed over an Oman Rial note.

That was so kind and it has never happened to me before. I thanked her profusely and for the record, English accent.

DW

Impressive for an Ancient

At the end of today's session one of the delegates said my knowledge and skills are impressive.

Then another one said it's so unusual to see someone so old and aged knowing so much about computers!

Pass the walking frame nurse!

DW

Did you Check the Safe?

These days many hotels have a safe in the room that doesn't work. So itq's sometimes rare for me to put things in a safe but yesterday I did. This morning I got ready for my 6 am departure and checked out.  As I waited for my bill they came and said, your safe is locked, did you forget anything?

Well, I had: money and passport.

Praise their checking system and note that I have never left anything in a safe before.

I am in the taxi to the airport as I write this, sunrise ahead of us; and a five Baht coin has just skittered down the back of my seat. Mega photo!!

Dog Happy. Cat Says Where do you think you've been?

We are on our way home after a three plus week trip. When we arrive, the dog will come to say hello then run around excitedly for a while.

On the other hand, the cat will drift over and give us a look that says ... and where do you think you've been?

DW

Deaf or Super Confident ... Maybe Daft

We are in rather a nice hotel in Dubai and on the first morning we went to breakfast as is our wont. Some very tall men in the restaurant when suddenly one of them boomed in the direction of a fellow diner, Hi ... I was in your country recently ... I was in your parliament. I thought, poor man, he's deaf so the tall man has to shout. Then they stood closer and the tall one mentioned how everything was going really well and how he'd met so and so. We carried on. Tall man then shouted at someone else: another greeting. The whole restaurant and lobby areas heard this greeting. It went on like this. Then there was a lull until someone else arrived and saw tall man, who was now hovering over one of the food serving areas ... The new arrival asked tall man, how are you and how's things? Tall man replied, for us all to hear, good, good, good (machine gun style) goooooooooooooooooooooooood ... that final good lasted two seconds if not three. Then he announced he was very hungry but running late: may be an entreaty not to talk to him and leave him alone? Super confident? More front than Selfridges or really rather shy? These people inhabit the planet and of course he could be a really good man with a string of achievements to his name. Why do they shout at each other though? I wish I'd known it was coming and I could have recorded it to share with you! DW