/web/cgi-bin/php "$HOME/html/yourpath/yourpath/yourscript.php"

Hope it helps someone.

Download: NanoCharts public beta 0.50 (downloaded 417 times)

Some time ago I announced a mini-project called NanoCharts, which is  an implementation of Edward Tuftes Sparklines concept. Sparklines (and NanoCharts) are basically small, word sized graphics for high density visualization of data. I have been working to make available a sort of beta release of what will eventually be an Add-in for Excel. At present I have a working version that allow the user to insert some different NanoChart types and do some simple formatting selections. The current user form looks like this:

For now the user can insert only one chart at once, but this will probably change in the future. Also, data orientation and colors cannot be selected at the moment, but this will also likely be added to the next release. The resulting NanoCharts can be seen in the next picture.

To try this add-in, simply download the file, select any row of data and click “Insert NanoChart”, select the options you wamt in the User form and click OK. The NanoChart will be inserted in the cell immediately to the right of your selection.

Please give feedback and request features by posting comments to this post, or simply contact me via email. Enjoy.

Download: NanoCharts public beta 0.50 (downloaded 417 times)

Version: Tested on Excel 2003 and Excel 2007

Download:

Quite frequently there is a need to display custom lables in a standard Excel XY-plot. Unfortunately Excel lack a native function to insert custom labels; the only options available are Series names, x- and y-values which often are totally inappropriate. I created a workbook with a macro that allows the user to insert the X and Y data along with the desired lables and create a labled scatter plot with the click of a button. See image below.

All you have to do is to dowload the file, insert your labels and values and click the button! The chart may require some additional formatting to suit your needs. Enjoy!

Download:
]]> http://www.bloggpro.com/automatic-custom-labels-on-excel-scatter-plot/feed/ 11 http://www.bloggpro.com/nanocharts-enables-excel-in-cell-charts-with-sparklines-concept/ http://www.bloggpro.com/nanocharts-enables-excel-in-cell-charts-with-sparklines-concept/#comments Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:50:06 +0000 Jesper http://www.bloggpro.com/nanocharts-enables-excel-in-cell-charts-with-sparklines-concept/ Keywords: Sparklines, MicroCharts, NanoCharts, In-cell graphing, mini charts, Excel

Version: Tested on Excel 2003

Download: NanoCharts demo (downloaded 1479 times)

Sparklines, or Micro charts, a concept invented by graphic design guru Edward Tufte , compress large amounts of data into intense, word-sized graphics, like for example:

The Sparkline approach can be a highly effective way to present data in budget reports or other types of executive summaries, since trends and relations are made visual in a very small space.

There are a couple of large developers offering commercial add-ins for excel to create Sparklines: Bissantz’s SparkMaker and Bonavista Systems’ MicroCharts. These are available as free trial downloads, full versions start from around $50.

I wanted to try to make a simple tech demo of the Sparklines concept in Excel and ended up writing a script that adds a Bar Chart Sparkline, or NanoChart as I decided to call them, to a column of data. You can see a screenshot of the demo below.

This is a demo with very limited functionality, but it’s free, and you can modify it to suit your needs. In the future I will develop the NanoCharts to make them more flexible and add more options, like allowing data in rows, customizeable chart type, color and scaling. Make sure to check back.

Download: NanoCharts demo (downloaded 1479 times)

Version: Excel 97 or later

Download:

In excel there are no native function for calculating confidence interval (CI) a function called CONFIDENCE to calculate the confidence interval, but it works slightly different from the custom confidence function I present here.

Since I need to do this calculation on a regular basis i decided to simplify this work by writing a VB function that will automatically calculate the confidence interval in Excel for a given range of values and confidence level (CL) between 1-99%. It will also present the output in a format that is suitable to copy and paste directly into reports and result sheets. There are many excellent sites that cover the theory behind CI, so I won’t repeat it here.

What you need to know is that the function assumes that the standard deviation, σ, is unknown (which it is in most cases) and has to be estimated from the sample. In this case the CI isn’t calculated from the normal distribution but rather from the t-distribution, which is used in my function.

The function syntax is:

CONFID(range, confidence level)

where range contains your data and confidence level is the desired confidence level (!) expressed as a fraction (0.01-0.99). The resulting output will look like this:

Ex: 251.94 ± 4.03 (average ± CI)

The somewhat strange-looking output formatting was covered in a previous article. The following example screens will illustrate the usage:

You may freely use and modify the script and example as you see fit. However, if you find this tool useful, you can show your appreciation by submitting this article to your favourite social bookmarking site, putting a link to my site on your site or simply leave a comment.

Download:
]]> http://www.bloggpro.com/automatically-calculate-confidence-intervals-in-excel/feed/ 7 http://www.bloggpro.com/automated-and-scheduled-hd-defragmenting/ http://www.bloggpro.com/automated-and-scheduled-hd-defragmenting/#comments Mon, 21 May 2007 14:45:18 +0000 Jesper http://ewl.daglig.info/2007/05/21/automated-and-scheduled-hd-defragmenting/ Some time ago I wrote a script to automate disc defragmenting so that I could schedule it to late nights when no one is using the computer anyway. It turned out to be quite simple using VB scripting and Windows scheduler. Below you can see the commented script I use. You might need to make a couple of modifications if you have a localized copy of Windows (keyboard short-cuts and application names may be different).

Copy and paste the script to an empty Notepad and save as HDdefrag.vbs or something similar, in a suitable folder. Then go to the Scheduled Tasks (Windows XP) and  select Add Scheduled Task.  Then just follow the instructions in the Wizard to make the script run every 2 weeks or so. You can even make your computer wake up if you have it in hibernation mode.

set WshShell = CreateObject(”WScript.Shell”)

‘Launch Defrag from the command line and wait for 2000 milliseconds
WshShell.Run “dfrg.msc”
WScript.Sleep 2000

‘Wait until the application has loaded – Check every second
While WshShell.AppActivate(”Disk Defragmenter”) = FALSE
wscript.sleep 1000
Wend

‘1 Bring the application to the foreground
WshShell.AppActivate “Disk Defragmenter”
WScript.Sleep 500

‘1 Send keys to move to top of drive/partition table.
WshShell.SendKeys “{TAB}{HOME}”
WScript.Sleep 501

‘1 Send an ALT-A key to bring down the defrag menu
WshShell.SendKeys “%A
WScript.Sleep 502

‘1 Send a D to start the defrag
WshShell.SendKeys “D”

‘1 Wait until the defrag is completed – Check for window every 5 seconds
While WshShell.AppActivate(”Defragmentation Complete”) = FALSE
wscript.sleep 5001
Wend

‘1 Bring the Defragmentation Complete window to the foreground
WshShell.AppActivate “Defragmentation Complete”
WScript.Sleep 503

‘1 Send a tab key to move the focus from View Report button to the Close Button
WshShell.Sendkeys “{TAB}”
Wscript.Sleep 504

‘1 Send key to Close the Defragmentation Complete window
WshShell.Sendkeys “{ENTER}”
Wscript.Sleep 505