Most of us use chart formatting options to change the way grid-lines, data series, labels, axis, titles, plot areas look. Chart formatting is one of the areas where people spend most time. Today I want to teach you a quick productivity hack to speed up chart formatting. In excel 2007 and above, when you click […]

Just a quick update, I am extending the visualization challenge #2‘s dead line to 5th Dec. This will give time to our members in US as they are busy celebrating thanksgiving day. Go here for details about the contest, if you win, you will get a cool iPod Touch, sponsored by Zoho Reports. PS: Have […]

It is very usual for retailers to offer huge discounts and offers during thanksgiving, to celebrate the onset of Christmas shopping season. In that spirit, I am announcing PHD thanksgiving sale. The sale is open from now to 26th December, 2009.

If you have already purchased something from me in the last 30 days (that is since 25th October, 2009): You are still eligible for these deals. Just reply to the “purchase confirmation” e-mail I sent you when you bought the stuff and I will give you the offer…

Every year, on 4th Thursday of November, folks in US celebrate Thanksgiving day. A similar holiday exists in Canada too, they celebrate it on Second Monday of Every October.We will celebrate thanksgiving in PHD style, by sharing a wacky formula tip.

Today, we are going to learn how to use excel formulas to find out thanksgiving day’s date for any year.

We interrupt usual routine of excel and charting tutorials to present the first ever readership survey on PHD. In fact, there are so few questions that to call it a survey would be an insult to other surveys, but I digress.

I want you to take few seconds and fill out this very simple form. Just type in whatever comes to your mind, honest and simple stuff. The survey is below, if you are not able to see it in RSS reader or email client, please go to http://bit.ly/phd-survey.

At PHD household, we believe in using money wisely. Both Mrs. PHD and I come from very modest backgrounds. Our upbringing has taught us value of money in the most effective way – by exposing us to not having any. So when we got our first job (did I tell you that both Jo and I started working in same company and sat in same floor? Oh, it was such a lovely time), we were very prudent and decided not to waste money on anything trivial (we still are, just that over last 6 years our earning capacity increased a bit and we became parents).

Anyways, I am not here to bore you about my household. But I am here to tell you fun ways to track expenses and household budgets using spreadsheets.

Today I want to introduce Excel 2010 to you. Excel 2010 is the latest version of spreadsheet software from Microsoft, set to be released for sale in late 2010. On Nov 18th, MS released the public beta of Excel 2010 [download here] along with other Office productivity software.

Excel 2010 has several improvements compared to earlier version – Excel 2007. In this post, I want to highlight some of the User Interface improvements made in Excel 2010 that are very exciting and fun to use.