AhTim.com » Tips & Tricks

Introduction to Excel Formulas Conditional Formatting

AhTim — Mon, 23 May 2011 03:46:18 +0000

Conditional formatting is a very powerful and fairly simple to use Excel feature; fairly simple, that is, after the extensive overhaul the user interface received in Excel 2007, which made it much simpler and easy to use.

Conditional Formatting allows you to change the format of a cell: background and foreground colors, fonts, and etcetera. This makes it much easier to find specific information in a large table; for example, finding the top or bottom percent of a range of values, finding duplicate values, or marking specific dates.

Top Hat Trick

Let’s see what the executives of the (fictitious) XYZ Widget company has dreamed up for us this time. The attached Excel file contains the monthly sales report for a few of the sales persons:

The V.P. want to see at a glance which are the three best sales persons. Reordering the lists is not an option as they should be kept in the same order for good unknown reasons (or so they claim). So, we’ll use conditional formatting to highlight the top three total sales cells.

Press the mouse button over cell B4, and drag it down to cell B9 before releasing it to mark cells B4 through B9
Holding the Control key, press the mouse button over cell E4 and drag it down to cell E9 before releasing it, extending the selection include cells E4 through E9

Select the Conditional Formatting command (under Style in the Home ribbon), and from the menu that opens, select Top/Bottom Rules and the Top 10 Items from it:

In the dialog that opens, type in 3 items in the top rank (instead of 10), and change the color of the markings to be Green Fill with Dark Green Text; note that the highest three sales will be marked in green even before you close the dialog
Press the OK button

And here we go:

To make sure the conditional formatting holds, let’s change one of the numbers:

Select cells E6
Change the amount in the cell to 14164

And this cell will be added to the top 3 marked cells instead of cell B9:

(And let’s quickly undo the change before we present our fictitious executives with the wrong numbers!)

Flag it Up

Conditional formatting is not limited to color. Let’s play with it a little before releasing the report back to our superiors.

First, we’ll clean up the current formatting.

Press the mouse button over cell B4, and drag it down to cell B9 before releasing it to mark cells B4 through B9
Holding the Control key, press the mouse button over cell E4 and drag it down to cell E9 before releasing it, extending the selection include cells E4 through E9
Select the Conditional Formatting command (under Style in the Home ribbon), and from the menu that opens, select Clear Rules and Clear Rules from Selected Cells inside it

That will clean up the green markings; the two lists are still selected. Now let’s try this:

Select the Conditional Formatting command (under Style in the Home ribbon), and from the menu that opens, select Icon Sets and the flag images (second from the top) inside it

And we get some flags on the play:

(Green flags for higher results, yellow for middling, and red for low).

Summary

In this article we covered some simple conditional formatting; in the next article in the series, we’ll cover multiple conditions on the same range, and more.

However, even the simple conditional formatting easily available are a valuable tool and can help us to make sense of a mountain of data quickly. Make sure you add conditional formatting to your Excel toolbox!

This is a guest post from Joseph Reese, the founder and chief expert in an Excel Formulas consulting firm. Head over to his website if you want to improve your performance with Excel.

Contact me if you want to guest blog at AhTim.com and get free backlink.

Microsoft Excel Formula Tutorial

Easiest Way to Upload Google Video to Youtube

AhTim — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:27:17 +0000

As informed by Google last week, Google Video will come to its end of service in few more days at 29 April 2011.

So sad we are going to less a good video hosting service that served us for years. My first travel video was uploaded to Google Video too, before Youtube.

Anyway this is not a show stopper after Google team make the migration off of Google Video the easy way.

Associate your Youtube account with your Google Video account
Upload “Upload Videos to YouTube” option on the Google Video status page

By the way, this is not a news, Google already announced turning down of upload to Google video nearly 2 years ago.

What if you do not upload Google Video to Youtube? Nor download to your computer? Don’t worry. The team is working now to migrate all Google videos to Youtube automatically! You won’t lose your memorable videos

How to Export MP3 Songs from iTunes?

AhTim — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:05:44 +0000

I’ve bought a MP3 FM modulator to listen music in-car. The problem is the ear jack to iPod is short and not CLEAR, no surround! Suspect the made-in-China FM modulator input line is very low quality.

Instead of ear jack, copy MP3 into USB thumb drive and play on modulator directly much more clear.

iTunes Export Songs to MP3

Export songs in iTunes is just a click away. Select songs that you want to export, right-click choose “Create MP3 version“. Select your export folder and go. Yes, now can copy MP3 to USB thumb drive and play in-car already!

In fact, the FM modulator sound quality is not that good. You know China cheap product quality right?

I should get an iPod car dock to play music directly. Any recommendation?

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Tips: Can’t Activate Windows XP?

AhTim — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 09:52:11 +0000

Today my staff reinstall a Windows XP computer, but can’t activate it.

I’m very very sure it is a genuine Windows XP CD with license product key. Wierdest is installation id don’t show up, which is needed to activate Windows OS via telephone. Can’t even login to Windows for the first time!

Thought is installation problem. Reinstall the Windows again and yet, the installation id don’t show up at all. No error, nothing.

After googling, don’t find any useful tips. Just know a guy with same problem but at last close case with “unresolved”.

I try an error, restart to safe mode and restart to normal mode again. And you know, it works like magic finger! It can login for the first time, the installation id was shown too.

No reason, no technique, this is what we Windows, plug and pray….

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Update MFM Free Garmin GPS Map

AhTim — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +0000

It is time to update your Garmin GPS Map. My last update was 7 months ago,too old.

The latest MFM GPS Map (Malfreemaps lite v1.63) comes with more new features:

Link to Navnet map in Kalimantan
Coverage of Southern Thailand
Optional Chinese POI
Improved SG Postal Code & Address map with instant search result
New POI icons
New POI categories with custom icons (soon)
New MFM map generator with option to generate either Full or Lite version
Coloured topo polygons are added into Full-version map
New multi-language installer
No more error when uploading map through Mapsource

I think this lite version is more than enough for me to travel around Malaysia. But sad thing is it don’t have Mac version. Mean you have to download the EXE map file into your Windows. Extract it then transfer to Garmin GPS. Anyway it is not a big problem.

I like the attractive colors in MFM Map, it make the landmark and POI more recognizable. It said to have “keep left/right” guidance at complex junctions, I may try it when travel around KL. Haven’t update your GPS map yet? Download it here.

My Two Cents

I’m going to Tropical Village Ayer Hitam during this coming CNY holiday. Purposely download the latest map for the trip. Hope we arrive the destination without go to the wrong way.

It is a mini world theme park with World’s famous landmark such as The Great Wall, Lady Liberty of USA, Hollywood and many more. We will travel with family and congregation brother sister this time. I believe we will enjoy the 3D2N holiday there

How To: Windows XP System File Missing or Corrupt

AhTim — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:43:02 +0000

Image by Roberto F.

It is important to properly shutdown your computer. Windows system file may corrupt if the computer was shutdown unexpectedly.

When the next time you boot up the computer and saw “Windows XP System File Missing or Corrupt”, what should you do? Same error happened on my user’s computer and I have learned the quick way to fix it!

Repair Master Boot Record

Boot up the computer with Windows Installation CD. Select “R” to enter advance repair mode. You need administrator password to login.

Once login, you can choose two DOS command to repair the Master Boot Record. I suggest the first command, because it not only fix the MBR but scan the hard-disk for corrupted files too. It then repair it automatically, but need longer time compare to the second command.

chkdsk c: /r /p

This command only fix the MBR, and it run faster.

fixmbr

Fortunately I don’t need to reinstall whole Windows. The MBR repairing process just took few minutes before it could reboot into a normal Windows without losing your installed software.

10 Tips to Prevent Your Computer from Crashing

AhTim — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:21:20 +0000

Image by Tony Maro

Few things are as devastating as be right in the middle of an important project only to have your computer suddenly crash without any warning. Even if you’re not in the middle of anything important, you still have tons of files stored on your computer that (unless you’ve recently backed up your files) are going to be gone forever.

Although a computer crash often comes on suddenly when you’re least expecting it, occasionally you may get some warning signs. Also, although you can’t always stop it from happening, there are some preventative measures that you can take to decrease the chance of it happening to you.

Defragment your hard drive at least once every 2 months. While some people only do this every year, there are actually many people who have never defragment their drives because they’re unfamiliar with the process and its importance. Defragmenting your hard drive will help keep it healthy and it’s something you can easily do yourself.
Get a good anti-virus program and update it at least once a week. Some people actually update it every day on start-up. Most of the programs allow you to schedule the updates and the virus scan to run on a schedule that you choose.
Make sure all important updates for your computer are done as needed. They are there for a reason – to keep your computer healthy and current with all new information and data. Also, make sure to run an adware/spyware tool at least once a week as well. You can find many free ones online that you can download. Finally, keep your firewall and pop-up blocker turned on to prevent intrusion into your computer.
Delete all of your temporary internet files. Make sure the offline files are deleted as well. You can easily do this while on the Internet by going to “tools” on the top Internet Explorer and then selecting “internet options”. Remove cookies on a regular basis as well as any unused files that are on your computer. By keeping your computer free from unnecessary “junk”, you’re also helping to keep your hard drive healthier.
Provide regular maintenance on your email. By this I mean delete your spam emails and bulk immediately after receiving them. Any unknown emails should also be deleted. Only open email attachments that you know are from reliable sources. Make sure you have good spam and virus protection on your email.
Back-up your computer on a regular basis – at least once a week, if not more. Put your data on a removable disk or tape. (Or better yet, back it up online) If your computer does crash, you won’t be sorry you were so diligent about back-ups.
Beware of what you download from the internet. Only download programs that are from secure sites that you know you can trust.
Pay attention to what your computer may be telling you. If it’s making an unusual noise, have it checked out. It could be the CPU fan, which is needed to keep the processor cool. If it malfunctions, it can cause all kinds of expensive damage.
Avoid dust and smoke around your computer. Accumulation of dust, smoke, pet hair, etc. can also cause damage to the insider components of your PC.
Avoid having too many programs start-up when your computer turns on. Only have what you need open.

If you follow this advice, you should be able to avoid most of the major causes of computer crashes.

About the author:
Storagepipe Solutions is a leading provider of email archiving and server backup solutions for large and mid-sized companies.

This is a guest post. If you would like to contribute, please contact me.

AhTim.com » Tips & Tricks

Introduction to Excel Formulas Conditional Formatting

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Summary

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