The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Book Reviews David Hague |
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Learn Excel from Mr Excel
Bill Jelen is an interesting character - as well as being an acknowledged absolute expert in Excel, he's also a consummate marketer. More on that later.
Jelen discovered Lotus 1-2-3 and then Excel in the early 1990s. He found that these applications could create faster and better reports on the data he was assigned to analyse than a $40,000 4GL application language tool! Now he says his MrExcel.com website answers over 30,000 questions a year and has over 250,000 archived.
His latest of 18 Excel books, Learn Excel 2007 from Mr Excel, has over 100 additional topics from previous editions, and "solves 377 Excel mysteries". The 900+ pages are absolutely packed with information, are easy to read and follow, and although I consider myself reasonably competent with Excel, I certainly learnt a thing or two (or about 376!) and consider the book excellent value for money.
And the marketing? Well you can go to www.MrExcel.com/ learn2007files.html and download chapters of the book totally free of charge. Bill Jelen's ambition is to give away millions of copies of this book via this method (he's at over a million already). But to prove the future of paper is secure, he says many of the people who download these files, eventually still buy a copy of the printed book.
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Bill Jelen: Learn Excel from Mr Excel ISBN: 978-1-932802-27-6 Publisher: Holy Macro! Books RRP: $75.00 |
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HDV - WhatYou Need to Know
Another interesting fellow is Douglas Spotted Eagle. No I didn't make that up -
he does exist. Douglas lives in Utah on top of a mountain (well his house is
higher than Mt Kosciusko), his next door neighbour is Robert Redford and he's a
musician and filmmaker extraordinaire. With a Grammy, Emmy and numerous other
awards with his name on them, there's no doubting his talent. Douglas, who
I met some four years ago and count as a good friend, is also the most
prodigious writer I know. I had the privilege of acting as editor for one of his
technical books, and he could write faster than I could edit. A technical book
normally takes
six months plus to create the final manuscript; Douglas - or Spot as
he's more commonly known - did this 400 page book in six weeks!
One of Spot's most popular books is HDV What You Need To Know. There's a lot of
knowledge around for early video camera formats (Hi 8, Video8 and Digital 8),
and the later standard definition (SD) digital format, but HDV (High Definition
Video or HiDef) is still
a mystery to a lot of people, and can put them off upgrading to this fantastic
new format.
HDV What You Need To Know demystifies all the jargon, misconceptions, details
all the equipment, editing software and even delivery mechanisms in Spot's easy
to read style.
If you're considering moving to HDV, I recommend this book before jumping, to
ensure that you make the right decisions in the areas that count.
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Douglas Spotted Eagle: HDV: What You Need To Know ISBN: 0976238020 Publisher: VASST Price: $49.95 via www.australasiancamcorder.info |
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Office 2007 Simplified
Microsoft Office is huge. No
really huge. You think the Rialto tower is big? That's nothing compared to
Microsoft Office! (With apologies to Douglas Adams).
It's been said many, many times
that the average person uses less than 1% of the capability of lots of software
packages, and this
is especially true for Microsoft
Office. Just take Word — one of my favourite questions right back to Word for
Windows 1.0 was how people found the outlining system, because for document
creation, I think it can't be beaten, especially when writing technical
documents. I usually get a blank look.
Of late, another is to ask the opinion of OneNote? Again more blank looks
(OneNote is clever software version of the humble notepad allowing you to link
and cross link entries within documents and other Office applications among
other things. There will be a full review in a future PC Update).
If you're in this queue of blank looks, and use Office 2007,
then Office 2007 Simplified may be just the book for you.
Full colour shots take you step-by- step through various functions, there are
self-contained two page tutorials so you're not wading through
page after page, and sidebars
offer quick tips. Covered are Office basics, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access,
Outlook and Publisher.
While the book doesn't pretend
to be an absolute, in-depth look at
each package — the IDG Bible series are a far better prospect here — it will
take the beginner and average user through the basics to intermediate levels of
each of these applications. Considering that each of the Bible books covers only
package (such as Word for about $89.00) Office 2007 Simplified for S44.95 is a
bargain. Title: Office 2007 Simplified
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Office 2007 Simplified ISBN: 9780470045893 Publisher: Wiley Price: $44.95 RRP |
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Publishing
Your Creations through Lulu
It's said that everyone has a book inside them wanting to get out.
But that's only a part of the overall task — it also has to be published,
printed and marketed. Melb PC member Thomas Palfy has found a way other than the
"traditional" method that may work for you too.
Have you ever had the urge to write a book, or create a CD, DVD, calendar or
journal?
Did you want your creation be known to the wider public?
You aren't alone if you tried or wished you'd tried. However, it's a long, hard
road from
creation to publication.
Publishing houses prefer to take few risks and even writers of bestsellers may
have a hard time convincing them to take on their latest masterpiece. Because
no-one knows how the book (or whatever) will sell, the publishers set the
royalties low, in return for taking the risk and providing the
cost of production and distribution.
If one is desperate to see his/ her name in print there are still two avenues
left — vanity publishing and
self publishing. There are publishers who will produce your book at your own
expense and then you keep your fingers crossed that it will sell. This is known
as vanity publishing. You can also publish the work yourself, fill your garage
with the unsold copies and start looking around for a distributor.
Here is where Lulu
comes to the rescue.
The Internet is a great storehouse of a plethora of information and services,
good, bad, indifferent, useful, helpful, useless and sometimes downright
misleading.
The Lulu publishing house at its website www.lulu.com can assist you to
self-publish your work. It works
on the P.O.D. principle - print on demand. This means that only copies of a work
on order by a customer
will be printed. The garage can be kept to house and shelter the car!
I've written an Australian travelogue and compiled a collection of photographs.
The works were
then uploaded as pdf files to Lulu. There are strict requirements for formatting
— for example, fonts have to be embedded. There's a learning curve but once
you've mastered the right configuration for the file, it is accepted and placed
in your own little directory created by Lulu. From then on, Lulu takes your hand
and guides you through the process of publishing. The steps include the
selection of binding, determination of the price (download and print) and
designing the front and back covers.
Once the work is accepted for publishing, Lulu sets up a storefront for you with a file name such as
www.lulu.com/tpalfy. This particular address will take the potential buyer to
the listing of the books available by me. There's a picture of the front cover,
brief description and a direct link to the
Lulu shopping department. Extracts from the books or their first 10 pages can
also be viewed. Both the viewing platform and the storefront can be individually
designed.
Before uploading the first file it's worth the time to read and study the rules
of the game in order to avoid later disappointment.
Marketing and promoting is
done by the creator of the work but there are plenty of hints and useful links
on the Lulu website. www.australiantravelstories.com
Reprinted from the April 2008 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
