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http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0008/LPMArti cle.asp?ID=208

I have to use Excel at work for presentation because we need dynamic charts based on pivot tables. For inspiration I recommend these pages. Most of these methods show ways around Excel limitations and twisted paths to display your data right.

For paper presentation I'd go with gnuplot. It requires some work to get it right, but results are impressive and can be easily embedded in LaTeX environment.

As for TFA, I would think that with a programming language and graphics library we would be able to see some more information on a chart. Like the bottom one.

Just in case you ever get tasked with "hacking" a Windows machine b/c of a forgotten/lost password, try this. I can tell you first hand it works like a charm on XP. Pretty scary how easy this is, really, but at least it requires physical access.

One of the best things I ever did (ok, nowhere very close to the top really) was shift my keyboard to "press the Shift key to turn off Caps Lock" mode. In Windows XP this is done in the Control Panel | Regional and Language Options | Text Services and Input Languages | Key Settings (or see http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArti cle.asp?ID=389). That way you get rid of the infinitely irritating Caps Lock toggle that you never can get into the right state and Shift always brings you home again. Also, it means Caps Lock is never accidently on beyond your next use of the Shift key. Try it...you'll never go back.

My download is capped now at 250KB/s. That was the slowest I could download as far as I can remember. Is it our bandwidth to share? Is it our to use? If we upload even 20KB/s will other ISPs start capping everyone.

Would you actually trust this thing not to burn down your house?

People trust AMD processors not to burn down their house either, but check these out:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2001/09/17/hot_spot/

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArti cle.asp?ID=193

I'm not sure what copy of XP you're using, by mine shows quite clearly "- Looking in " during the search. After the search is over, it doesn't, but you can infer that from the search results that show the path of the results.

And this is good useability?

Chances are, you're not going to want to start your new search from somewhere below your current search, because your current search will have already included it.

Let us say I'm several directories deep, trying to find a photo of which I vaguely remember the filename. If I don't find it, I'm much more likely to search a nearby directory in the same tree, going up on or two, then down one or two. I don't want to start from "My Computer", pick a drive, wait while the search pane locks up for 5 seconds after I accidentally click Network Neighborhood, then go down 5 dirs to my current context. Again, bad useability. Yes, give me the option to start anew from the top, but don't arbitrarily discard the current context.

Uh.. it doesn't. (exclude files by extension)

Sorry, I was imprecise. Based on file extension it excludes files from results when searching for a word match within the file, but not when searching for matches against filename. Fucking inconsistent, and horrible useability. More on the Word search problem here: http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArti cle.asp?ID=323

Have you seen this thing? Since when did FisherPrice start making keyboards?

Here ya go!!!

You can, with this reg edit:

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArti cle.asp?ID=87

I guess that a massive majority of the general population knows to use google, but the fact that IE defaults to MSN (and much of that massive majority doesn't know how to stop it) is scary.

It isn't straightforward- you have to do a bunch of registry edits to make IE automatically submit search requests to google.com instead of msn.com. (See here for details on how to do this.)

Some ISPs like to put banners in IE's title bar (e.g. "Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters - Brought to you by Verizon!") You can get rid of this (when you're finished cleaning the spyware off your non-computer-savvy relatives' computers, that is) by going to \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main and deleting or editing a REG_SZ key there called "Window Title", which is usually put there by ISP software installations. Mine says "This is a necessary piece of the operating system!"

Ironically, I find the only thing that makes IE usable at all for me is the current Google toolbar, which implements the popup-blocking that Microsoft neglected to include in their user-hostile browser. With no popup blocking, simple everyday computer tasks like surfing for porn are like walking in quicksand.

Here is an article on making IE use Google.
Cheers,

JAKD