If you're thinking about me talking about bars that indicate an error, you are wrong. For the mean time, while I'm preparing the post about stacking, grouping and filtering, I would like to share something that I've shared with the community a month ago in the Office General (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) section of the forums.
Do you remember the time when you are doing graphs either for your statistics class or your physics class. There are scenarios when you need to insert error bars onto your graph. The problem is how will you do this?
At first I played with Microsoft Office Excel 2007:
- I seperated the central value (that would be 1 in 1±0.5) and the
uncertainty (which is 0.5 in 1±0.5) and placed them into their
respective columns. I labelled the columns central value and
uncertainty.
- I plotted the central values onto a scatter chart, I selected all
the values on the column labelled central value and clicked Insert >
Scatter and my desired look for the chart.
- After plotting the chart, I go to the Layout tab on the ribbon and
clicked onto the error bars button in which I selected More error bars
option.
- I selected the custom radio button and clicked on Specify Value.
- On the specify value window, I selected the values under the
uncertainty column for both positive error value and negative error
values.
- After specifying the values click ok and close the format error bars window and changes will be reflected onto your chart.
In the other hand there are steps for Microsoft Office Excel 2003
- Do steps 1 and 2, however you should click the chart button on the toolbar.
- After plotting the chart, right click one of the points of the chart and select format data series.
- A window will appear with tabs, select the "Y-Error Bars" Tab
- Select the custom radio button
- Specify the values by selecting the data on the spreadsheet on the + and - textboxes.
- After specifying the values close the window and the changes will be reflected onto the chart.
This is it for my first Excel post! If you have any questions please don't hesitate to click the EMAIL link above to drop me a mail.
Good night and tomorrow I'll be discussing Stacking, Grouping and Filtering in Windows Vista.
In my last post, I discussed about how the instant search feature in Microsoft Windows Vista can help you find your physics laboratory report in no time.
Every semester the regular load of most students in my school is 27 units (well lucky for me that I’m on another program, my regular load is 20-23) and that 27 units mean that each student has approximately 9 subjects every semester if each subject has 3 units. Imagine having 9 subjects worth of term papers, projects and everything eating up your precious hard disk space. Well hard disk space is not a problem, it can be easily solved by archiving old files on a CD/DVD or you can just store them on a USB Key Drive. The real problem is organizing them.
In the past, when you like to organize your files very neatly you have to do something like this:
C:\Documents and Settings\SmarterStudent\My Documents\College\First Year\First Semester\June\Physics\Week1
That is a lot of folders + you have to dig in to each folder every time you will look for a file and this is the file organizing hell. What is in Microsoft Windows Vista that can help you organize your files?
Tag it!
Yes, you can now tag your documents, pictures and everything that you have on your computer. Let’s say that you are working on another physics laboratory report to be submitted on Wednesday and let’s say that it is about Impulse and Momentum (again). You can actually tag that document as Physics, Laboratory Report, Impulse, and Momentum. You can also use tags to search for your files in the computer.
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Friendly Reminder: You cannot search using tags when using start search. |
So how do you tag?
In Microsoft Windows Vista, most save dialogs will contain a portion that says “Tags: Add a Tag”. You can just click “Add a Tag” and type all the tags you want to associate with the document separated by a semicolon (;).
If your application does not support the new save dialog, don’t worry! You can still tag your documents through the details pane in Windows Explorer. The details pane is located at the bottom part of the screen; it contains all information and metadata related to the selected document, folder, picture and etc.
To add a tag using the details pane, select the document(s) that you want to tag by clicking / selecting it. Then on the details pane you’ll see “Tags: Add a Tag” click “Add a Tag” and type the tags you want to associate with the file. After typing all the tags, click “Save”.
Even more folders, search folders that is!
Let’s say that you have tagged every physics laboratory report you made during the past 6 months, but they are located in different folders , how do you group them without “physically moving” each one of them?
Introducing search folders, they let you group all the files with the same search criteria. It works by actually saving your search criteria and searches for files that meet the search criteria when you open the search folder. To create a search folder click Start > Search. On the search explorer type the search query on the search box. Once the results are in click “Save Search” and specify a name for your Search Folder.
There you go; your files are now grouped. If you want to access your search folder in the future again click Start > [Your Username Here] > Searches. Double click the search folder you want to open and there you can access your files from there.
The nice thing about search folders is that they update automatically. Once you created files that match the same search criteria, they will be included in the search folder.
What’s next?
In my next post, I will be discussing other ways that you can organize your files but this time we’ll be stacking them, grouping them, and filtering them.
First of all I would like to welcome you to my blog. Here we will be discussing things about how technology and Microsoft software help you achieve in the everyday challenges that you encounter in school. Should you wish to ask a question or suggest something you may click the email link above to send me your queries.
Goinig back, are you waiting for your computer manufacturer to send you your copy of Microsoft Windows Vista through the Express Upgrade program? Do you have Microsoft Windows Vista pre-installed on your notebook computer? Are you excited to open that really nice packaging of Windows Vista to install it on your computer?
Whatever the answer is, Windows Vista will become a part of your academic life. In the following days we will be discussing the first things you need to explore as student once Windows Vista is installed on your PC. Today's topic answers the question:
Where is my Physics Lab Report?
Are files a nightmare to you? Do you have folders as long as C:\Documents and Settings\SmarterStudent\My Documents\First Year\First Semester\June\Physics\Week1? (well that one is an organized nightmare) or do you have all your files (hundreds or even thousands of them stored) in your Documents folder and you don't know how to search when you're looking for something.
Windows Vista now has the Instant Search capability, and the best part is that you can do the search almost everywhere, in the start menu, in the explorer windows, in the open and save file dialog box.
I remember that my Physics Lab Report is about Impulse and Momentum
The situation is that this student can't remember where he stored his Physics Lab Report on the thousands of folders in his computer. The only thing that he remembers that it is about Impulse and Momentum.
We can use the instant search feature to look for this lab report. All we need to do is to is to click on Start and type in the keywords Impulse Momentum. After a while results will be displayed on the left side of the start menu and there you have it your Physics Lab Report, ready to be printed and submitted for tomorrow's class.
What's next?
In the past to organize our files most of us resort into something like this:
C:\Documents and Settings\SmarterStudent\My Documents\First Year\First Semester\June\Physics\Week1
It's an organized nightmare!
On the next post we will be discussing the many ways in which you can organize your files in Windows Vista.