Let’s Take a Look at Excel 2007

I’ve been avoiding Microsoft Ofice 2007 since, well, 2007. But I decided I would finally get with the picture and look around a little bit.

The first thing that’s pretty apparent is the interface has changed a lot. And now it’s prettier too. Very pretty. Instead of having menu bars where things are organized in an easy-to-find fashion, there are “ribbons,” which show pictures of things you may or may not misunderstand as helping you towards your goal. But still, pictures are better than organization.

Ribbons. They’re just prettier. Would you rather like a girl with a ribbon in her hair, or a girl with a menu in it? Yeah, thought so. Well, the same concept applies completely for computer programs.

All right, now let’s take a look at the top of the window. There’s a big round button up at the top, and it’s glowing at me. Orange and white, and orange again. What the heck. Does it want me to click it? Maybe even double click it. So I do, and the whole thing closes.

I start Excel again.

I swear I’m going to be productive now. Really. I type in a few rows of cells, but something I typed wrong isn’t showing up in red. So I spellcheck the cells. Umm, I spellcheck them. I… I can’t spellcheck them. That option isn’t there. What would it be under? A few clicks later I find it under Review, even though I’m not done with the first draft, let alone the review.

I want to insert a row of cells. So I navigate my ribbon back to “Home,” and click “Insert.” Whoops, wrong command. Apparently I have to “insert” via the bottom half of the button instead of the top half. And look a little closer, and I see that some of the little boxes in the ribbons have little buttons you must click in order to do everything possible.

Thank you, Office, for hiding your options. I feel like I’m being patronized and hidden from my own undoing. I love you.

(Graphing) Calculators for the PC

Recently, I decided to search for a better calculator than the one that ships standard with Windows. That’s when I discovered two wonderful programs; each is a little different from the other, but they complement each other quite well.

•  Calcute: This program is basically a tape calculator for computers. Type in an equation. Go back and edit it if you want; it’s not a problem because everything you typed is on the screen for you to fix in case you made a mistake. When you’re done, press enter and voila! the answer appears.
  
  Do you need to go back and fix what you calculated? Not a problem, and you can even save your old answer. Need more space? Calcute can fill the whole screen if you so desire. Calcute also makes adding long lists of numbers a snap. This is a must-have for anyone with an accounting class; of course, it’s free.
• Graphcalc: For the more experienced user, there is a calculator that  is even more powerful, if not a little more difficult to use.
  
  As you can see here, Graphcal not only can add, subtract, etc, but it can also create on-screen graphs, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional. These graphs render instantly, especially compared to calculators, and handle roughly the same mathematical manipulations as graphs made by TI brand calculators.
  I’m not a big fan of the 3d graph yet, except (of course) enjoying that it renders in multiple colors and can be twisted around like a new toy.

Excellent Graphing Calculator

For those of us who don’t want to simply use the G3 modification to the regular TI graphing calculator, or don’t have the cash for a TI-89 (or 92?), I found the solution here. I guess the program is kinda big, but it does a lot — it even manages programs like the TI 8x!

Gone corporate

Would you look at that, I have a company website now. Go there and buy something if you’re from Wisconsin.

http://primetech.co.nr

[[rats]]

After putting my heart and soul into a single project for my Programming II class, I realized something after a month and a half of hard (but sporadic) work: it wasn’t there. Why not? My hard drive had been backed up and erased; unfortunately the backup was not as stable as I had thought.

Beware, all other computer users: Remember to back-up your work on a regular basis, or you will suffer the same fate as me. Even more importantly, make sure that your backups really work. I did not.

So, in a period of forty-five minutes, I completely re-created the artificial intelligence program that I had worked hard to design in forty-five days. It was due today. I will eventually post the finished work right here, a paramount of irony.

Technology

I’ve been pushing for better computer software and hardware around my house. There are a few major ironies that I feel like pointint out.

• Irony 1: After my parents have enthusiastically declared that they do not want to use Firefox for the world, they’ve suddenly changed their minds. When IE crashed when my dad was looking at the tribune, he was ticked enough to try Firefox, and he hasn’t wanted to switch since.

• Irony 2: I received a video game as a Christmas present. Honest to goodness, it will not work on the computer that we purchased new (as of 2004)! Technology is rapidly accellerating, it seems…

• Irony 3, greatest of all: My dad bought that digital camera for my mom, right? It is 134 Days since then, and they still haven’t used it. Depreciation, people! By the time you open it, it’ll be a tenth of it’s prior value. (Not like I would ever yell at my parents.)

Penguins

 

A quote from Josh Meroneck: “Penguins are just simply evil, because they’re both black and white.”

I’d tend to disagree with this. Penguins are suited gentlement (or, if you’re an OS-tan fan, girls). They are simply too amazing to really insult. And the Penguin is the symbol of Linux. Go Linux! (If anyone out there is equally obsessed with penguins or linux or girls in steampunk costumes, feel free to go to www.jkhp.it/OS-tan for more of the same.)

Google advertises for itself… badly.

Don’t get me wrong, Google is the greatest search site (and probably the best web site) ever created. But its Google Toolbar is starting to get obnoxious.

For those of us that don’t have a god-computer, and have to live with a slow 56K modem, Google’s toolbar is a pain in the rear, whether you have it or not.

If you don’t have the toolbar, you have to deal with that stupid little ad that detracts from Google’s otherwise minimalist and beautiful website design. If you do have the program, it pops up a terrible little dialog box that demands that you upgrade to the next version. And you can’t get around that until you click Okay to ignore.

So, Google, your stuff is great, but you really stink at advertising yourselves.

Programming logo

I put this logo on every C# file I make, now. It’s so fun I had to post it. (The fellow next to me was so obsessed with creating one too that he didn’t finish the program he was working on.)

/***********************************************************
|*    ____  _____ _____ _____    ____  ____  _____  _____  *|
|*   /___/ /___    /   /___     /___/ /___/ /    / /  __   *|
|*  /     /____   /   /____  O /     /  |  /____/ /____/   *|
|*                                                         *|
|*       Created and maintained by Peter J. Mesyk          *|
 ***********************************************************/

My first C# Program

Be impressed. 

using System.Collections.Generic;
using namespace myFirstConsoleAppToo
{
    class Program
    {
        static void string[] args)
        {
            ConsoleKeyInfo a;
            Console.WriteLine(“Hello“);
            a=Console.ReadKey(true)
         }
    }
}