First initial + Last name + 2-digit birth month + 2-digit birth day

So mine, if I had one, would look like this: jferrell1018

You’ve got until November 30th to do this, but why not start today, eh?

You’re introduced to functions in this chapter. They’re important, so get used to using them—they’re where a good deal of the power of Excel lies. A function is simply a little “pre-programmed” action—a little machine, if you like. You tell it what data you want it to go to work on, and it goes to work.

An example—to average the numbers in five cells, we could type them all in as a simple formula:

= (A1 + A2 + A3 + A4 + A5) / 5

That’s great, but what if we have 53 cells we want to average? That’s a lot of plus-signs to type, or squares to click! We could use the SUM() function to help us out. It can take a range of cells as an argument (the data we want it to work on) and save us a lot of typing:

= SUM( A1:A54 ) / 53

There we go. A lot easier! But what if the number of cells I’m averaging is going to change? Or what if I don’t know how many I have to start with, or don’t want to count to figure out what to divide by? That’s where the AVERAGE() function can save us a headache:

= AVERAGE( A1:A228 )

Bingo. I’ve told Excel to average the numbers in 227 cells. It will add all the numbers up, and divide by the number of cells, because that’s what the AVERAGE() function does. And I don’t really have to lift a finger. That’s why we have computers around, anyway, and that’s the power of functions. There are over 250 functions built in to Excel; chances are, whatever you need to do, they’ve got you covered.

A few specific instructions for the tutorial section:

» When you get to page EX 113, print your worksheet. We haven’t been printing much, but this is one of those times—follow the instructions in that section to learn how to get a giant worksheet to fit on one page. This is an important skill to have in Excel! Also print a selected area (EX 117) and the formulas (EX 118).

» You can quit when you get to EX 125—we’re not emailing. We are turning this in, though, so put your finished workbook (Lastname_Excel2_tutorial.xls) in the Excel Project 2 folder in the Assignments folder!

{More to come … don’t panic.}

Here’s the rest, so you can hone your skills:

» Apply Your Knowledge #1, p. EX 130. This one’s on the Data Disk, so here’s the link to that. Save your adjusted spreadsheet to the Excel Project 2 folder as Lastname_AYK2-1.xls

» In The Lab #1 and #2, p. EX 132–136. Variations on the themes from the tutorial. Follow all the instructions closely, and save to the Assignments folder as Lastname_ITL2-1.xls, Lastname_ITL2-2.xls. Don’t miss the Part 3 Instructions for ITL #2 on page EX 136. Do that, so we can practice printing. Skip Part 4.

» Cases & Places #1, 2, and 3, p. EX 140–143. Pick any two of these to do. You’re on your own again for these, so you can format them however you like. Save these to the Excel Project 2 folder as Lastname_CP2-#.xls (Replace the # with the number of whichever exercise you’re doing, of course…)

» Cases & Places #4, p. EX 143. Everybody in for this one. Again, it’s up to you to decide how to present the data. Save to the Project 2 folder as Lastname_CP2-4.xls.

Here’s the round-up:
Total items in the Assignments folder: 7!
Target Completion date: Monday, November 17.

Last week, rock band AC/DC made history by being the first band to release a music video as ASCii art inside an Excel Spreadsheet. You can download your very own copy from their web site. Rock on.

A few specific instructions:

» On page EX 42, you’ll save your workbook. (Not to a floppy disk, please. How quaint! ) Call this Lastname_Excel1_tutorial.xls and put it in the Excel Project 1 folder in the Assignments folder on your desktop.

» When you get to page EX 45, don’t worry about printing this one; printing is important in Excel, because there are many options to consider, but we’ll worry about it later.

» This tutorial will have you save and close the project, and then open it again and make changes. Don’t panic; this is normal. It’s to teach you how to edit, among other things…

Here’s what to do after that:

» Apply Your Knowledge #1, p. EX 57. Download the data disk file. (Remember, right-click and “save as” or whatever.) Save this in the Excel Project 1 folder as Lastname_AYK1-1.xls

» In The Lab #1, #2, and #3, p. EX 58–EX 62. Follow all the instructions closely, and save as Lastname_ITL1-1.xls, Lastname_ITL1-2.xls, and Lastname_ITL1-3.xls.

…and here’s the rest!
» Cases & Places #1, 2, 3 or 4, p. EX 63–EX 64. Pick any two of these to do. You’re on your own for these, so you can format them however you like. This is a chance to practice all the things you’ve been guided through so far, so mess with text sizes and colors, autoformats, etc. Save this in the Excel Project 1 folder as Lastname_CP1-#.xls (Replace the # with the number of whichever exercise you’re uploading, of course…)

» Cases & Places #5, p. EX 64. This is an all-skate—everybody do this one. Again, it’s up to you to decide how to present the data; make it nice. Save to the Project 1 folder as Lastname_CP1-5.xls.

Here’s the round-up:
Total items in the Assignments folder: 8!
Completion date: Friday, November 7.

As usual, work through the Project 3 tutorial section. You’re using ‘Weezards’ this time to help you create certain types of documents. When you’re finished with the tutorial, you’ll have two documents. Save them as Lastname_Tutorial3_Resume.doc and Lastname_Tutorial3_Letter.doc to the Word Project 3 folder on the Assignments server.

» You might want to look over the list of What You Should Know on page WD 195–196. Then try your hand at the practice test online. Keep trying your hand until you hit 80%, print, and turn in.

» Apply Your Knowledge #1, p. WD 198. More practice with tables. Here’s the link to the data disk file you’ll need. (Be sure to ‘right click’ and ’save as’!) They’re really handy for laying out information neatly…mess around with the options and settings a little, if you find time. Remember, you can make the table borders completely invisible if you just want to place information in certain places without it looking “tableified"! Save this in the Word Project 3 folder on the server as Lastname_AYK3-1.doc

» In The Lab #1 and #2, p. WD 199–200. More guided practice with a resume and cover letter. Save as Lastname_ITL3-1.doc and Lastname_ITL3-2.

» Cases and Places #1, p. WD 201. Fun with Wizards: a calendar! Save as Lastname_CP3-1.doc.

» Cases and Places #3 or #4, p. WD 201. Choose your poison—a fax or a memo. Use the appropriate weezard. Save as either Lastname_CP3-3.doc or Lastname_CP3-4.doc.

Total items in the Assignments folder: 7
Completion date: Wednesday, Sept. 24
Using a wizard to create a resume: priceless.

Things to watch for as you go:

» Pay close attention to Using a header to number pages, beginning on page WD 81. Knowing how to use headers and footers to your advantage will save you time someday, and make you slicker than most average computer users, to boot. You can do all kinds of funky stuff with them, that this section doesn’t touch on. Play around with the Header and Footer toolbar to see some of the possibilities…

» Begin to notice how the ruler bar is used. Many, many people I see trying to use word processors have no idea how to use the ruler bar intelligently, and almost no one knows how to set tabs correctly, all of which can save you time, and make your document more professional. (Alas, this chapter does not go into tabs—we’ll do more with those later.)

» Check out and practice using shortcut keys whenever you can. If you come away with any keystrokes from this section, try to add ctrl+i (Italic) and ctrl+b (bold) to your arsenal. Continue practicing the Big 5, whenever you can: ctrl+a, ctrl+z, ctrl+x, ctrl+c, and ctrl+v.

» You’ll also want to pay close attention to p. WD 113, and the methods for selecting text; I see many people struggle with this, as well. Check out the green box on the right of the page for a way to select clumps of text that don’t touch, all at once!

As you wrap up the tutorial section, it’s going to tell you to print. Remember, you don’t have to, unless you want to see a copy of what you’ve done. It will also tell you to email a copy somewhere. We’re not set up for email, so skip that section.

Instead, copy your paper to the Word Project 2 folder in the shared Assignments folder. Call this Lastname_tutorial_paper.doc.

When you’ve finished that, here’s these:

» Look over page WD 127, and see if you can remember most of “What You Should Know.”

» Take the practice test online by following this link. As usual, punch in answers until you score above 80%; print and turn in.

» Apply Your Knowledge #1, p. WD 129. To get a copy of “Apply 2-1 Authentication Paragraph", right-click on this link, choose “Save Link As…” from the menu that appears, and save the file somewhere where you can find it. Follow the directions in the book, and save your revised file as lastname_AYK2-1.doc. Put a copy in the Word Project 2 folder in the shared Assignments folder.

» In The Lab #1, p. WD 130–131. Follow the directions in the text, and save a copy of your finished document to the Assignments folder, calling it lastname_ITL2-1.doc. (Don’t worry too much about content here—I just want to see that you can handle the formatting!)

Review the “What you should know” page (WD 63). It’d be a good idea to flip back and review any steps that don’t make sense to you, or that you can’t really remember doing! After that, take the online review quiz here. Once you’ve managed to score 80% or above, print your result and turn it in.

Finally, take a look at some exercises. Here’s what you need to do:

» Apply Your Knowledge 1 (WD 65): Download the file Paris Announcement Unformatted.doc. (Be sure to “Save” and not “Open” it!) When you’re done, save a copy of your file in the Word Project 1 folder in the Assignments folder with the filename lastname_AYK1-1.doc.

» In The Lab 3 (WD 70): Follow the instructions in the text. Save a copy in the Project 1 folder on the server as lastname_ITL1-3.doc.

» Cases and Places 1 or 2 (WD 71): Choose one of these to do. When you’re finished, save a copy to the server as either lastname_CP1-1.doc or lastname_CP1-2.doc.

» Cases and Places 3, 4, and 5 (WD 71-72): Choose one of these to complete. Copy your completed project to the server, named either lastname_CP1-3.doc, lastname_CP1-4.doc, or lastname_CP1-5.doc.

To recap: When you’re done with Project 1, you should have five files in the Word Project 1 folder in the Assignments folder:
     lastname_tutorial_flyer.doc
     lastname_AYK1-1.doc
     lastname_ITL1-3.doc
     lastname_CP1-1.doc or lastname_CP1-2.doc
     either lastname_CP1-3.doc, lastname_CP1-4.doc, or lastname_CP1-5.doc

You should have also turned in a printout of your online quiz to me.

Completion date: Monday, September 9.

Much of this might be old hat, but try to give it a fair shake. You might want to pay special attention to sideboxes, for instance, since they’ll tell you about more advanced techniques or helpful shortcuts you may not have tried before. Try them out, and see if you can learn a couple to add to your repertoire!

If you’re not used to using Windows Explorer, it might be worth it to spend a little more time with that section (WIN 40–WIN 52), as well.

When you’ve been through the material, take a look at the “What you should know” section on page WIN 82. If something on that list doesn’t make sense to you, you probably don’t know what it is—hop back into the text and take another look!

When you’re done that, do the following:

» Take the practice test Here’s a link to the online practice test—see what you know! Take the test until you score an 80% or better. Once you do, print your results, and hand it in to me.

» In the Lab 1 (WIN 84) Follow the instructions in your book, skipping Part 2. You can write answers to the questions on paper, or type them in Word, if you prefer, and print them out. Turn them in when you’re done.

» Operating Systems
      Microsoft Windows
      Apple’s Mac OS X
      Ubuntu {free}

» Web Browsers
      Microsoft’s Internet Explorer {free, Windows only}
      Apple’s Safari {free}
      Mozilla’s Firefox {free}
      Flock {free}
      Opera {free}

» Office Suites
      Microsoft Office
      Apple’s iWork
      OpenOffice {free}
      NeoOffice {free, Mac only}

» Word Processing/Page Layout
      Microsoft Word
      Apple’s Pages
      OpenOffice Writer {free}
      Adobe InDesign
      Quark Xpress
      Scribus {free}

» Spreadsheet
      Microsoft Excel
      Apple’s Numbers
      OpenOffice Calc {free}

» Presentation Software
      Microsoft Powerpoint
      Apple’s Keynote
      OpenOffice Impress {free}

» Graphics Applications
   Raster Editors (Paint)
      Adobe Photoshop
      Corel’s Paint Shop Pro
      Pixelmator
      Gimpshop {free}

   Vector Editors (Draw)
      Adobe Illustrator
      Inkscape {free}

   "Real Media” Editors
      Corel’s Painter
      Autodesk’s SketchBook Pro

   3D Modelling
      Google’s SketchUp {free-ish}
      Autodesk’s Maya
      Pixologic’s ZBrush
      e frontier’s Poser
      Blender {free}

» Video Editing
      Windows Movie Maker
      Apple’s iMovie
      Apple’s Final Cut Express
      Adobe Premiere
      Avid Xpress Pro
      Jahshaka {free}

» Music Recording/Editing
      Apple’s GarageBand
      Acoustica’s Mixcraft
      Sony’s Acid Music Studio
      Steinberg’s Sequel
      Apple’s Logic Express
      Sony’s Acid Pro
      Propellerhead’s Reason
      Adobe Audition

» Online Tools
      Google Docs & Spreadsheets {Office apps}
      Zoho {Office apps}
      Jumpcut {Video editing}
      Fauxto {Image editing}
      Zamzar {File conversion}

Crucial.com: their front page is a bit confusing, but you want the Memory Advisor Tool near the right side of the page. Follow the steps, selecting your computer’s information from the drop-down lists, and it will tell you what kind of memory you need.

They also offer a system scanner, that claims to be able to detect how much RAM is already in your machine, and advise you on how much you can add. I tried it on the Dell in my room, and it seemed to nail it. (It took me a minute to find my configuration down the left side of the screen, but it was there: how much ram I had, how much it could hold, etc., and a big long list of recommended purchases in the center of the screen. Pretty nice, I suppose. So nice, in fact, I’m not going to bother to recommend another site.

However, as far as buying goes, you can still shop around, once you know what kind you need. Sites like RAMSeeker show the current prices of popular vendors, so you can compare. I’ve bought (and been happy with) RAM from Crucial.com, TransIntl.com, and 1-800-4-Memory before, if that’s a help.