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The Ribbon and Backstage

Ok not everybody's favourite feature first time they switch from Office 2003. It does take some getting used to – and I still use keyboard short cuts for things. However the contextually sensitive ribbon has some major advantages over the old system. I honestly prefer the ribbon now especially in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. In Office 2010 the ribbon can also be personalised.

The backstage view (access from the File menu now places in one easy place all file management tasks such as save, share and print. All the similar commands are grouped together. No more going to 3-4 different places to set print settings for an excel file.

Here's the best way to think about the Ribbon and Backstage.

• The Ribbon is for everything you want to do in a document – insert stuff, format stuff, change stuff.
• The Backstage area is for everything you want to do with a document – print it, save it , share it etc.

Sparklines and Pivot Tables

If you thought pivot tables were cool ways to play with (analyse) data before than wait until you play with the sexy new pivot tables in Excel 2010.

And sparklines (inline in cell micro charts) are an excellent way of demonstrating trends in a small space. I can’t wait to start incorporating some of these features for some of our clients when they upgrade.

Check this pivot table taken from timesheet data. I added the pivot chart and sparklines in about 3 minutes flat.

Its been a while since i wrote an Excel only post – apologies for that. This one is all about Excel. Seeing as we are now less than 2 months away from Excel 2010 there’s a heavy focus on that. I am now using the beta on my production  development machines though still using Excel 2003 in our virtual machine development environments. Some of our clients change slower than a glacier but we need to be able to support them.

Scatter charts with PowerPivot. Converting Pivot tables to cube formulas in order to access chart types not supported by Pivot tables. Sam has linked to Robs original post.

I have often used spin controls on spreadsheets to allow users to quickly and easily change inputs that affect charts or spreadsheet results. Cell Matrix has a good set of instructions on How to add an ActiveX SpinButton control to a spreadsheet in Excel 2007.

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I don’t know why I seem to write massive link posts lately – maybe because i have been very busy with my three major priorities, family, work and photography. However this is a priority as well, so I need to allocate some time to write soon. In the mean time I am going to clear my browser of the tabs that are open there.

Here goes – and have a great weekend. Oh – and this photo was my favourite of the week. I took it in low light, no flash using the 70-200 2.8 IS L Lens.

Exposure 1/128, Aperture f2.8, focal length 170mm, ISO 2000

Photography Links

• A Beginner’s Guide to Flickr by Elizabeth Halford – I love flickr also – an awesome tool
• Helping Your Client Prepare for Their Shoot – Dress to Match the Sofa? by Elizabeth Halford
• 5 Tips for Photographing Children – some great tips here
• 3 Affordable E-books to Improve Your Photography by Darren Rowse – thinking of getting these
• How to Capture Motion Blur in Photography by Darren Rowse - learning this technique is going to be fun
• Jasmine Star – an awesome wedding photography blog
• I love this photo gypsy meets gangster
• Jakob Aungiers – this is an amazing portfolio

Back to work and back to an inbox full of things to do. I have spent a massive amount of time this last week working – the sailing holiday is now a dim and distant memory!

First some riding news. I got my bike back with the rear shock rebuilt (under warranty) and took it for a test ride with the MTB ride group yesterday. It held up just fine and the ride was an epic one - if a little long for my liking. The Saturday MTB group is back – meeting at the Wolves Bike Den every Saturday at midday for an epic ride like this. All ages and experiences welcome.

Map and terrain detail on bikely of the Ewen Maddock Dam Ride Click the pictures for more detail.