"Ed Pawlowski" wrote in message
...
On 2/11/2019 1:51 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 10 Feb 2019 16:18:57 -0500, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 2/10/2019 3:08 PM, rbowman wrote:


I'll admit in the '80s I wasn't too sure what Joe Sixpack was going to
do with a PC anyway. They were tools for me and what I was developing
was for industrial or embedded applications. When I bought an Osborne I
it came with SuperCalc and I never figured out what you're supposed to
do with it. 35 years later Excel still is a mystery. People do
impressive things with it but it reminds me of using a screwdriver for
a
chisel.


The PC has many uses. For instance. instead of a $10 timer, you can use
a $2000 PC to turn a light on and off.

Excel has many uses too. You can track your utility bills every month
and eliminate the need for a pencil that has to be sharpened on
occasion.

I do use Quicken though. It really does make banking easier and more
accurate than the old checkbook.

My main contact with excel is the data I get on water quality from
DEP.
It is OK if all you want to do is re sort columns and such but if I
really want to crunch numbers I still export it as a CSV, stuff it
into a dBase file and write a script. I assume I could do that with
Excel but this dog is too old too learn a new trick for the little I
need it.

At work I used Excel quite a bit. With a macro it was easy to do
production reports, inventory changes, and the like.

At home, I only had one practical use.

I have quite a few. The sheet that I used to keep track of
my car gasoline use automatically calculates the cost of
a trip to a number of places that I drive to, everything
from the adjacent state capitals to the adjacent towns
etc. That allows me to quickly see if it makes more
sense to fly or drive etc.

I also have some others that calculate the cost of
the beer I brew and the spirits I distil. In the case
of the spirits it makes it easy to see that the cost
of the spirit essences grossly dominates the final
cost and makes it clear that the cost of those is
the thing you need to concentrate on and the
big difference in the cost of something like
scotch and whisky and something like gin
which you can do with the actual seeds which
are very cheap compared with spirit essence.

I also use it for batch notes with the stuff I make
like the tomato chilli relish and marmalade.
Much quick than a full database which I do
have for other more complex stuff like recipes
which auto set a swag of alarms in Outlook.

About 9 years ago I had a new, higher efficiency boiler installed. The
idea was the savings would pay for it over time. I tracked oil use and
degree days for two years with the old boiler, then started tracking the
new one. I used the same weather station for degree days. In seven
years, the cost of the boiler was saved, then I started to come ahead.
Then we sold the house anyway so the new owner gets the majority of
benefits.