Dough you mind?

Dough you mind?
Originally uploaded by Stéfan

I just ran into this photo set of miniature storm troppers and thought they were the funniest thing since Chad Vader sang 'Chocolate Rain'.

Excel: sumif - using a SQL where clause in Excel

While doing testing today I needed to add all the values in column F by "Male" and "Female". I learned the amazing "sumif" function.
The syntax is

SumIf( range to filter by, criteria to filter, sum_range to be filtered)

In my case the first argument was a range in column B, my filter was "Male", and the range to actual sum was in column F.

=SUMIF($B$2:$B$641,"Male",F$2:F$461)

Since I was summing based on multiple items like "Male", I told Excel to use the column to the left to be my filter value.

=SUMIF($B$2:$B$641,$E649,F$2:F$461)

The criteria can be things like ">10".

Last Night's Lean Software Group Meeting

Not knowing a "Value Stream Mapping" from an old tire (don't think too much about the analogy), I drove down to last night's Lean Software Group meeting at the Overwatch offices to join 27 other people and to try an tease some meaning out of all this Lean hype.
Scott Bellware gave a welcome message.
Andrew Cahoon gave an introduction of VSM and then Gary ? gave a compelling real world example of a Value Stream Mapping.

My notes:
* Value Stream Mapping is more an analysis and planning tool than a prescriptive activity.
* Don't make a perfect model, it's not worth the effort - just get a good enough model to do your work.
* Customers care about Quality, Cost, and Delivery.
* Kaizen is about continuous improvement and Value Stream Mapping is a tool to get to the next level.

William Wallace, Stirling Bridge, and the Long Shadow of Rome

The stirling bridge ...ask the scots
Originally uploaded by Nicolas Valentin

William "BraveHeart" Wallace fought for Scottish Independence at Stirling Bridge. Interestingly, the bridge, which has since been replaced, was originally built by the Romans. Let's see, the fall of Rome is around 410AD, Battle of Stirling bridge was in 1297,..., the Roman bridge had been used for 887 years. Not too bad - the Romans knew how to build things.
Will any of our structures be around for 900 years?

New Variegated Species of Cactus Discovered in Austin TX

While taking a walk outside our office building Frank and I discovered a new variegated species of cactus. Says I, "Frank, it just shows how rare mutations can give advantages to plants. Since this cactus will not be uprooted by the grounds people since it blends in so well, its genes will be passed on to the next generation. Soon all the cacti in the parking lot will be variegated."

How to select the program to "launch for this action" for cameras in windows xp

In the past I've always copied pictures from my cannon S5 IS, by opening up Windows Explorer, navigating to the camera, copying the pics to my editing directory after opening it in explorer, then deleting the pictures from the camera. Today I just got sick of all the mindless clicking.
An automated way to do all that exists with just a few clicks in windows xp. Plug in your camera, select "start/Settings/" then left click on "Control Panel" and select "Explore". Click on "Scanners and Cameras".
A window like this pops up.

Right-click on your camera and select "Properties", then the "Events" tab.

Select the directory to copy the pictures and check "Delete Pictures From Camera after saving them" and you are good to go.

A Dream for the Kindle in Education

We have all heard about textbooks being converted to be shown on the Kindle or other devices. They would have many benefits.
Students will not longer have to carry sagging backpacks of textbooks (and thereby enriching future generations of chiropractors).
Textbooks could be bought for only a year. I've heard teachers say, "The textbooks we use are really bad, the textbook committee made a bad recommendation, the district bought them, and we are stuck with the books until they wear out."
In electronic form, the textbooks can be swapped out yearly.

But the real opportunity with digital textbooks is something deeper - a chance to make textbooks better, really better.
eTextbooks have the advantage that different versions of the same chapter could be written and then tested objectively with test scores. A revised chapter detailing how to do factoring of polynomials could be written and then pushed to selected classroom's eTextbooks and tested. If it proves more effective than the previous version, the new one would make it into all the eTextbooks. Repeat the process over the nation and slowly a textbook could evolve into more effective way to transfer knowledge.
I know, I know, it's a pipe dream that in public education we would actually have scientific comparisons of teaching materials and methods, but won't you dream with me for a moment?