I get quite a few emails about where the best places online to buy tech "stuff" are.  For instance, portable hard drives, thumb drives, and memory sticks seem to be some of the most popular right now.  I always suggest shopping in your local "brick and mortar" shops.  It really does help the local economy more than buying things from other states or foreign countries.  However, some people do not want to do that, so I do have a couple of suggestions for those folks.

I do not recommend eBay.com.  I have tried to purchase two computer peripherals there in the past several years and both times I had bad outcomes.  It’s too much to write about here but ask me if you see me around town.

The two online computer "parts" retailers I trust and prefer are TigerDirect.com and NewEgg.com.  I have used them a couple of times and I have friends who use them regularly.  A couple of times I have heard of people having problems with the items they purchased, but both of these companies were quick to respond and correct the issues.  Their prices are usually in line with the local market too, once you consider shipping.

I also receive questions about discounts online.  I have spoken before about "1 Sale a Day", on the monthly call-in talk show with Jim Britt on WSVA radio.  (Yes, that was merciless self-promotion.)  You can "sometimes" find deals there on items they title, "Wireless", "Watch", "Family" and "Jewelry".  Again, compare all costs, i.e., shipping and handling before buying…local stores may have a better deal, as is the case on all of these sites.

There are also coupon sites.  I have only used the first one mentioned below.  The other one I have heard about from friends who have had successful dealings with them.

"Tech Bargains", has a linking system.  This allows you to go to the site that actually has the deal.  Once there you may be given a code to enter at checkout which gets you the discount.  I just looked for a 16GB thumb drive and found two for $21.95.

The other site is, "Deal Dump", which amazingly does not have a search engine built into the site.  You basically need to scroll down the page and look for what you want which is not what you would expect.  Of course, you can always use the "Ctrl + F" keys to search the text on the page.  (F = find)  Here I also looked for the same type of thumb drive and found a different one from the other site, but at the same price.

I know there are many others you can use but these are just a couple I have knowledge of.  For all of these sites please read all of the details carefully since sometimes you get a rebate then, or a rebate to mail in that you must print, or an automatic discount, etc.  They change from time-to-time so proceed carefully.

Always remember when buying online…caveat emptor.

Tags: bargain, bargains, brick and mortar, computer parts, computer peripherals, ebay, foreign countries, Jim Britt, linking system, local market, local stores, memory sticks, online computer, portable hard drives, self promotion, shipping and handling, tech bargains, tech sales, thumb drives, wsva radio

Last week we covered the first three items in Excel’s “Formula Auditing” tools: Tracing Precedents, Dependents, Remove Arrows and Show Formulas in Excel’s “Formula Auditing” tools. Today we will wrap up the last three features.

I am sure you have never seen an “Error” popup box in Excel. That’s not true, unless you are an Excel Pro and have never made a mistake. I picked one that is easy to reconstruct for this column.

I created a formula that divides a number by zero. I know you all know why you can’t do that. Okay, you were taught, but you don’t remember why not either. In Excel if you do that you will get, “#DIV/0!” which (if you speak Excel you know) means you cannot divide any number by zero (0). If you’re not sure what that means you can click the “Error Checking” button. This button is found under the Formula Tab and then in the Formula Auditing command group.

Once clicked, you get several options; “Help on this error,” “Show Calculation Steps,” “Ignore Error,” “Edit in Formula Bar” and others you can check out. This should help you figure out the error made and give you some guidance as to how to best correct it. The “Help…” link is usually the best to aid me.

Also, keep in mind you can get this same help directly from the cell containing the error warning. You will get a little green triangle in the upper left corner of the offending cell. When you click on that cell you will see a yellow diamond with an exclamation mark in it. When you click on the exclamation mark you will get the same list of options you saw in the previous area and you may click on the one you choose.

Next is the “Evaluate Formula” button, which I am not that fond of; however, it may really pay off for you. It will basically walk you through a complicated formula step by step. This gives you the ability to evaluate how each part of the formula works and even if it does work the way you designed it to.

Finally, one of the neatest Excel tricks for auditing formulas: the “Watch Window” command. If you haven’t tried it before give it a shot now.

Let’s say that you are working on Sheet 3 in your workbook and want to view changes occurring in cell A10 on Sheet 1. This is hard to do until you use the “Watch Window” feature.

Navigate to the Watch Window button and click it. Now go to the sheet and cell you want to view and click on it. Click the “Add Watch” button at the top of the window and you will always see the Book and Sheet name along with the Cell Name, (if you have named it) the cell address, value and formula, no matter where you go with Excel. You will see any change reflected in the watch window where you can immediately deal with it or be advised what is happening.

Let me know if you appreciate these looks at Excel and if you would like to learn more, or if you would like to explore other Office products.

Tags: arrows, audit, auditing, bookkeeping, command group, dependents, doubleclick, excel, excel formula, finances, formula bar, formulas in excel, guidance, microsoft, mistake, office, precedents, ribbon

Listen to the podcast online if you missed it live.

Tags: battery life, centric web, charging lithium ion batteries, clippy, discharges, google, itunes for windows, lithium ion batteries, microsoft news, recharging batteries, strange thing, windows microsoft, windows phone, youtube

At the end of last year I wrote a column with regard to Microsoft’s spreadsheet program Excel.  Due to the email response, (which to me at least was unexpected) it has now turned into three columns.  I guess there are more of you Excel users out there than I thought.

I have continued to get email questions about Excel, so today I thought I would give you a couple of other tips about auditing cells.  These are in response to reader questions.  Remember to email questions to me…I thrive on them.  (Well, OK, not really thrive, but I do like to get them.)

Tip #1:  Sometimes you need to look at all of the formulas on a spreadsheet.  You can click on each cell containing a formula and look at the top of the Formula Bar.   But that takes a while and what if you miss one?  In Excel versions 2007 and newer, the way to see them all at once is to navigate to the Formula Tab on the ribbon, look to the right side and find the "Formula Auditing" commands.  Once there, click on the "Show Formulas" button.  There all of your formulas are displayed at once.  Click it again to turn them off.  Now here is a really neat shortcut.   Just use the "CTRL + ~" key combo.  (Press and hold the Ctrl key and then tap the tilde key.)  Works like a charm! You can be located anywhere in a workbook and it works every time for showing and hiding formulas.

While at the "Formula Auditing" command area, let’s look at several more features.

Tip #2:  Trace Precedents and Dependents:  This may be too deep for you non Excel folks, but read on, you may add a couple of new words to your cyber vocabulary.  If you have a simple formula adding 1, 2 and 3 for a total of 6 (I hope you are all with me up to now at least) and something appears wrong you can poke around in the formula and figure it out.  Many times it is helpful to be able to view what your formula utilizes to find an answer.

In the formula above you can click on the cell with the answer/formula in it and click "Trace Precedents."  Poof, you get a little blue arrow showing you the cells used in the formula (shown on right).

To determine a dependent, click on one of the digits making up the list you are adding, say the "2".  Click "Trace Dependents" and you will get an arrow showing which cells in that spreadsheet depend on the value.  By using these two tools you can usually figure out why a formula is blowing up on you.  To clear the arrows, click the "Remove Arrows" button.

We will finish up formula audits next week and then move on from Excel…unless I hear from you.

Also, if you are a visual learner like me, you may want to visit the DoubleClicks.info site to see screenshots of what we talked about here.  (Hey, don’t worry, you are already here…have a great day!)

Tags: audit, auditing, bookkeeping, cells, email response, excel, finances, microsoft, office, office microsoft, reader questions, regard, ribbon, spreadsheet program, works like a charm

I’ve added something new to the site today from Answers.com.

Try double-clicking on any word and see what happens.  Pretty slick isn’t it.  This is a free service provided by Answers.com so if you are a webmaster consider adding it, if you are a web surfer consider trying it on different sites.

Last week I mentioned that Family Safety is one of the applications you get if you choose to install Windows Live Essentials (WLE). Here is a very short description of all the apps which come with a full installation of WLE. If any of them sound appealing try it, if not ignore them.

First go to “explore.live.com,” scroll down the page and click, “Windows Live Essentials” then you will be taken to the main page. Here you will see each of the applications available and a short blurb on each.

Messenger is Microsoft’s “chat” or messaging client which is used to send text messages in real-time to other people who are online. They can be online via either their computers or phones.

Live Photo Gallery allows you to edit photos, share those photos, and even movies, online. I wrote an article for Microsoft last year about using Photo Gallery to create panoramas at http://bit.ly/cflZcw.

Movie Maker is a neat little app that will let you take your digital pictures and turn them into a movie with music, sound effects, and transitions. You can also do a little movie editing and publish them online. I have used this along with other programs to create a couple of YouTube videos. Search there for “dblclx” to find them.

Next is Live Mesh which I have written about several times over the past three years. It provides “cloud” storage and auto-backup capabilities for your files.

Live Writer is a program mainly for bloggers and there is Family Safety, both of which I have covered in detail over the past several months.

Live Mail is the replacement program for Outlook Express. It is a good application for email. I highly recommend it if you don’t have Outlook or Thunderbird already in place for your personal email access.

The last four parts of Live Essentials are really just add-ons for other programs. First is Messenger Companion, which adds a couple of extra features to Messenger’s chat program. The most appealing one gives you the ability to add comments directly from within Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE). I am not an online “chatter” so I have not really used this other than to test for a short period. The second add-on is Bing Bar which adds a toolbar to MSIE for searching, checking your email, etcetera while surfing the web.

Finally, the last two are Outlook Connector Pack and Silverlight. The connector pack allows you to add Hotmail.com, Live.com email accounts and Messenger to the full version of Outlook. Silverlight is an add-on which allows special video, audio and/or interactivity to be run on your MSIE browser. Silverlight is worthwhile if you go to a site requiring it. However, so far it isn’t widely accepted throughout the net-world.

Note: When you start the install for WLE select the link that says, “Choose the programs you want to install.” You can then select ANY of the above applications. If you choose the other link you will install all of the applications on your system.

Tags: applications, apps, edit, Essential, family safety, free, mesh, messaging, microsoft, movie maker, music sound, panoramas, pictures, several times, short blurb, sound effects, text messages, transitions, windows, youtube videos