I was doing some weird analysis on corporate mission statements and I had to count the number of words in each cell. That is when I realized there is no formula to calculate the number of words in a cell, I was too lazy to write an UDF for that, so I figured out a nearly perfect way to calculate no. of words in a cell using existing formulas.

If you want to calculate the no. of words in cell a1, then use the formula:
=len(a1)-len(substitute(a1," ",""))+1

What this does is, it calculates the number of spaces in a cell and adds 1 to it, thus almost finding the number of words in a cell. I say almost because, if a cell has “this blog rocks,really!”, this formula will calculate the words as 3, where as there are 4 words in there

But that is for you to think

Also: Concatenate a bunch of cells using simple formula, Generate tag clouds in excel using vba, Master your IFs and BUTs

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same flower, another angle, originally uploaded by Chandoo.

We went to near by Scioto River park last weekend to spend some time without any noise. But we didnt know that there was a concert going on there. So we walked out of the park to surrounding Dublin residential area and I spotted few nice flowers en route. I am sucker for flowers, I cant control my finger when I see one, I had to click. May be because they are already beautiful, my shots are bound to be nice Whatever may be the reason, enjoy the shot.

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Just click those ads and tell me what you understood. Humor me, go ahead, I am waiting.

…

Ok, stop scratching, you might loose more hair than the common sense brand managers at vodafone lost.

Apparently these adds convey that Vodafone has solved the unsolvable conundrum of “talk-time” or “validity” by introducing a lifetime valid pre-paid card that also gives unlimited talk time. Wow, certainly a good move given the difficult choice pre-paid cell phone customer has to make by selecting one of “more talk time, less validity”, “less talk time more validity” and “mediocre talk time and mediocre validity”.

But Vodafone choose the most cryptic way to communicate this message across. They created visuals that have very little text and complicated meanings that I am sure not many pre-paid customers can comprehend. Anyone looking at zebra and thinking “is it white lines on dark skin” or “dark lines on white skin” and then immediately correlating that with “talk-time” or “validity” all while controlling the temptation to skip that page (containing the ad) in the magazine / news paper has my kudos.

what do you think? Should brands challenge people intellectually or just indulge in simple and easy to understand messages?

Also see earlier rants on Vodafone and Hutch: vodafone pug, Hutch Hindi ads

PS: Images are from AgencyFaqs

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Paste or Ctrl+v is probably the most effective productivity tool available to us. But how well do you know “Paste”?, do you know that there are at least 17 different variations to paste data to your excel sheets? Surprised? Well, read this post to become a master paster

The post is divided in to 2 parts,

• Basic Pasting Tricks
• Pasting while Manipulating Data

Basic Copy Pasting of Data

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1. Paste Values

   If you want to just paste the values from copied cells, just hit ATL+E followed by S and V. Very useful when you want to strip away existing formatting and work with plain data.

2. Paste Formats (or Format painter)

   Like that sleek table format your colleague has made? But don’t have the time to redo it yourself, worry not, you can paste formatting (including any conditional formats) from any copied cells to new cells, just hit ALT+E S T.

3. Paste Formulas

   If you want to copy a bunch of formulas to a new range of cells - this is very useful. Just copy the cells containing the formulas, hit ALT+E S F. You can achieve the same effect by dragging the formula cell to new range if the new range is adjacent.

4. Paste Validations

   Love copy those input validations you have created but not the cell contents or anything, just press ALT+E S N. This is very useful when you created a form and would like to replicate some of the cells to another area.

5. Adjust column widths of some cells based on other cells

   You have created a table for tracking purchases and your boss liked it. So he wanted you to create another table to track sales and you want to maintain the column widths in the new table. You dont have to move back and forth looking for column widths or anything. Instead just paste column widths from your selection. Use ALT+E S W.

6. Grab comments only and paste them elsewhere

   If you want to copy comments alone from certain cells to a new set of cells, just use ALT + E S C. This will reduce the amount of retyping you need to do.

7. Of course you want to paste everything

   Just use CTRL+V or ALT+E+P or one of those little paste icons on the tool bar

Manipulating with copied data while pasting

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8. Add while pasting

   For example, if you have in Row 1 - 1 2 3 as values and in Row 2 - 7 8 9 as values and you would like to add row 1 values to row 2 values to get - 8 10 12, you can do this using paste special. Just copy row 1 values and use ALT + E S D.



9. Subtract while pasting

   Just use ALT + E S S

10. Multiply while pasting

    Just use ALT + E S M

11. Divide while pasting

    Just use ALT + E S I

12. Skip blank cells while pasting

    This is very useful when you are pasting data from that contains lots of blank cells. Instead of using filters or some type of if()s you can simply use ALT+E S B. This will remove all the blank cells from the copied cells before pasting it. Remember you can combine this option with other types of pastes (For eg. you can skip blanks while pasting values alone or skip blanks while adding the copied cells to paste area.)

13. Convert rows to columns or columns to rows while pasting data

    For example you have large list of values in column A and you want to move (or copy) these values to row 1 across. How would you do that? Of course you can rely on trusty paste-special to do that little job for you. Just use ALT + E S E. This will transpose copied values before pasting, thus converting rows to columns and columns to rows.

14. Paste reference to original cells

    If you want to create references to a bulk of cells instead of copy-pasting all the values this is the option for you. Just use ALT+E S L to create an automatic reference to copied range of cells.

15. Paste text by converting it in to columns

    
    This option is very useful when you are pasting data from outside. For example, if you want to paste few lines of this blog post in an excel sheet but would like to see each word in a separate cell, you can copy the content here (CTRL+C), go to your excel sheet and use CTRL+V to paste the data and then click on the paste icon that appears at the bottom of the pasted cell and select “use text import wizard” option. This will launch the mildly powerful text import wizard of excel using which you can convert copied text to columns by defining some simple parsing conditions. The default options split text into words (by using space as a delimiter). You can use this option to convert most types of text including comma separated values, fixed width values. The text import wizard dialog looks somewhat like this.
    

16. Paste live data from web

    If you want to import live data from web to your worksheets, you can use Excel web queries. This is a powerful tool using which you can create worksheets that can fetch data from web (or network resources) and display in your worksheet for you to process them. You can findout more about these by learning to create a mutual fund portfolio tracker sheet.

17. What is your favorite paste trick?

    There are many more paste tricks that are hidden in excel, like pasting live xml data to your sheets, pasting images, objects, files etc. But I am more interesting in knowing your favorite pasting hack. So tell me, what is your all time favorite paste?

Interested to learn more? Show temperature using these thermometer charts, Get stock quotes to your workbook with one click, Master your ifs and buts - learn these 6 tips on if(), Project plan in 60 seconds, your time starts now!, Honey! I shrunk the bar charts and much more

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Often you may want to fill a column only with weekday dates instead of all dates. Here is a simple trick you can use instead of writing nifty if formulas or manually entering the weekday dates.

When you auto fill dates by dragging mouse (or using menu > edit > fill > series > selecting “type: date”), just use weekdays only option as shown below.

Now you dont have to create project plans with weekends in it

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I haven’t noticed this before, but google maps provides 3d building outlines. I think this is pretty cool.
You can see them in action here.

Earlier on google : Google Park bench in Russia

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Just a take a moment away from your job, graduation term project, cooking or cat petting - whatever it is that you are doing. Now think and tell me if you have any other interesting, exciting, simpler, cooler of way of doing the same? Just remove all your assumptions, forget anything you have learned about how to solve it, ignore what your mom/dad/teacher may tell you on how to solve this. Just shut your mind and think of a different way to solve it.

It is surprising what you can find. If you need motivation - find out these 15 different ways in which you can lace your shoes.

Original source for the image: popgive

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