2011 NFL Draftees and Mock Draft Template - Excel Spreadsheet Download

I don't know if this is useful for anybody here but many individuals participate in mock  NFL drafts where each of the 32 teams is represented by a member. I imported all 2011 draftees from a website into Excel. I might have missed a few. Like I said I don't know if this is useful to anybody here but thought I'd share anyways. List of players:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3ATTL5XG

Use this blank NFL Mock Draft to predict the players being drafted. Fill in your predictions or print it out and manually write in the predictions. Download this blank NFL Mock Draft by clicking the image or this link: NFL Mock Draft

NHL Downloadable Excel Spreadsheet Bracket

Click here to download the newly updated 2012 NHL Playoffs bracket!

Track your favorite teams progress in this 2011 Printable NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Bracket.  Fill in your team’s progress in this 2011 Printable NHL Playoffs Bracket. Download this 2011 Printable NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Bracket by clicking the image or this link: 2011 Printable NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Bracket

Click here to download the newly updated 2012 NHL Playoffs bracket!

Excel as a 3D Graphics Game Engine

I've longed believed that Microsoft Excel really is the Swiss Army Knife of software tools. It never ceases to amaze me just *how* versatile a program it is and how user friendly it is as it doesn't matter what your skill level is - anyone can use it. Some people take Excel programming to the extreme. One such example is using Microsoft Excel as a 3D graphics engine.

 
Peter's work doesn't exploit any hidden code whatsoever – the feat was done using completely documented features installed as standard on a default Excel build. Worksheet=Screen of the engine. Cells=Pixels.

"Obviously whimsical but slightly mind-blowing — an Eastern European coder has published video and the Excel tables to get full 3D wireframe running in Microsoft Excel. He even has solid polygonal graphics running. This isn't an Easter Egg by the Excel creators. Rather, he's using formulas to output the graphics, using two different methods, and showing all the variables on-screen in real time as the 3D is created."

 
Now we have arrived at the next step of this integration, as Excel's cutting-edge 3D functionality is not hidden in Easter Eggs anymore but can be accessible publicly and easily. Excel has grown up and started its conquest as a revolutionary 3D game engine. Excel is very useful program indeed. 


Download the Microsoft Excel 3D Graphics Engine Here


 

March Madness 2011 Best Downloadable Excel Bracket

David Tyler (with Tom Szarek) is the creator of what I consider to be the best March Madness Mircosoft Excel bracket on the internet, which you can download for free. He recently put a new version of the Excel basketball bracket and pool manager file on his website. (http://whenthewhistleblows.wordpress.com/brackets/). Be sure to download the spreadsheets from David's site as they are constantly being updated. 
 
David says, "I overhauled both this year - the bracket is pretty good, but the pool manager file isn't as strong as it's been in years past. I couldn't put the time in the pool manager file that I wanted. I'm excited to make updates for future years, however.  This version is more scalable than in the past, so it will be fun to build on it going forward."

So what are the differences between this year's bracket versus last year's? 

"The biggest thing was building it to handle the expanded field of teams.  The NCAA tournament is now 68 teams, but I built this to handle up to 128.  The bracket also does a better job displaying whether the user has made all the picks in a round (see the conditionally formatted chart on the bottom) and not yelling at the user for temporarily leaving cells blank as he/she works through the bracket.  We also added TV channels and times, which can be shown/hidden via a non-VBA-based checkbox.

Expanding to 128 teams required a complete overhaul, hence why I didn't have time to do much else in the way of enhancements.  But I took the opportunity to redesign how Picks are stored in the pool manager file. Previously they were storied in a flat-file format, but now it's more like a database model.  This will provide the required flexibility in order to put in custom scoring options next year." 

How are the brackets being constantly updated and why?

"I'm updating those files frequently as I catch bugs (the problem of having your end users as your beta testers). Just fixed a bunch of issues with the pool manager file and uploaded a new version.  People might not even notice them (a stray border getting deleted, a certain combination of steps resulting in a list not being populated, etc), but I wanted to get them fixed."

Sounds very exciting! I can't wait to see future versions as this year's spreadsheets are even better than last year's. I thought it was very smart to build the bracket with the future in mind in case of further expansion (though I hope it doesn't happen). I look forward to completing the bracket! Anybody have a good pool going?

NCAA2011PoolManager.xls download
NCAA2011Bracket.xls download 

How to make a Yes or No macro in Excel

There may be times when your Excel spreadsheet will want users to click a "Yes" or "No" button. To do this simply insert this line of VBA code. Tthe Select Case statement is used in this example.

YesNo = MsgBox("This macro will ... Do you want to continue?", vbYesNo + vbCritical, "Caution")
Select Case YesNo
Case vbYes
'Insert your code here if Yes is clicked
Case vbNo
'Insert your code here if No is clicked
End Select

Excel Spreadsheets Project Management Templates Download

Throughout my engineering career I've compiled a nice collection of project management style spreadsheets as well as other document to help with the development and process flow of a project. I have decided to make this documents available for download. These management help documents include: a work plan template, a risk assessment log, a log for keeping track of potential issues which may slip up a planned project, a project change log, an Excel Gantt chart, and a master project management template (great to use if you don't have access to Microsoft project). Enjoy the download links:

Work Plan Template.xls download
Risk Log Template.xls download
Issue Log Template.xls download
Change Log Template.xls download
Excel Gantt Chart.xls download
Project Management Template.xls download

As always, suggestions for improvement are welcome and very appreciated!

Split the Rent Complement Spreadsheets

I stumbled across a really great website yesterday - Split The Rent. Splitting rent with your friends shouldn't be stressful. If your rooms are different sizes or different levels of niceness, my calculator will give you a neutral and objective opinion on how to share the rent. I really like the SplitTheRent calculator. I wish I would've found it a few years ago because it really would've been very useful when I was in college.

I think the Split the Rent calculator is a great complement to my apartment related Excel spreadsheets. Before you begin splitting the rent you have to find a place to live. You can use my apartment search spreadsheet while you and your friends are apartment hunting and looking for a place to live. Next, use the Split the Rent calculator to figure out exactly how you are going to split the rent between roommates. After that decision is made you need a way to keep track of which friend you owe money to. My shared apartment expenses spreadsheet (now modified for 5 roommates) does just that- keeps track of what each roommate owes the other roommates. I think these three items are great complements to each other and hopefully make life easier for some of you!

Update 6/11/12: Check out new and improved apartment search spreadsheet.