Trying to configure my Drupal site so that it doesn't look like it's straight out of a 16 year old's school text book

Playing around with Drupal to find out what everything does

Writing a nice big list of all the projects I have worked on in the past... a kind of Excel-CV

Polishing off my Stag do / Hen do planner. This is partly for myself as I am a best man right now, but I know what a pain it is to do this kind of thing especially if you're planning a trip abroad and people are coming from all over the place !

Accurately forecasting the cost of the event will make you popular with the attendees. Stinging everyone for extra cash at each point might leave u with few friends.

Aiming to polish off Noughts and Crosses today and maybe one other little system + start to market the prototypes to generate interest.

Quite pleased with myself today as I have successfully upgraded the site to the latest version of Drupal: 6.8 with it's fantastic new security features that I am sure are invaluable for a site as prone to attack as mine.
; - >

Now I am going to learn HTML so that my pages look less like notepad

Blimey HTML is a pain to write by hand... so I have written my own simple HTML generator until I can install Drupal's text editor

It seems that my efforts to upgrade to Drupal 6.8 were less good than I thought as my regression testing was clearly sub-standard following complaints that files would not load.

Thank god for backups !

Today, I will start work on writing a core selection of small useful examples. This will take a while.

Currently, "Share trading system" is winning the "What shall I do next" poll with twice as many votes as the nearest competitor.

Writing up a list of "tip of the day"... right now, I'll run out in only a month !

Trying to explain to my mother in law what an exotic interest rate derivative trading system is.. this may take a while....

Today, I am wondering how long it will take for ExcelExperts to have as many hits as my photo website:

Nick's Photo Website
Currently almost 3 Million hits!
ExcelExperts - about 100 hits

Appearing 4th on Google for ExcelExperts (all one word), but not at all for "Excel Experts"

Need help marketing !

Going to spend today working out how to get known on Google.

Yesterday's marketing campaign was very successful, with most interest generated in the "Shall I Buy Or Rent?" calculator. Over 2000 hits on the site.
Shall I Buy Or Rent? calculator

There's also interest from Microsoft on using this calculator in their training.

I think I'll give it to them on the basis that they fix an annoying bug:
- with sheet protected + allowing users to select only unprotected cells, CTRL + PAGE DOWN does not go to the next page. Instead, it does a PAGE DOWN action instead.

Today's focus will be on getting the "tip of the day" section up to speed. Given I started this late, there are 5 days to catch up on.
Tip of the day

The continental way of celebrating Christmas is on the 24th. Consequently, I have been banned from opening my computer for the following 2 days... so I have snuck into the toilet where the wireless still works to add this update.

Happy Christmas to all those who celebrate it !

.. back on 26th.

Nick

Brain storming day today. I've written a list of things I'd like to do with this site, and now have to work out how to do them.

Also came up with ideas for 3 other sites, so if you lot don't keep me too busy with this, I'll have time to expand the empire.

; - P

Focus right now is on finishing an Equity Trading system that I started last night whilst watching a French movie that required a fair bit of concentration.

I really want this to be the best source of FREE Excel systems to download on the web, and am keen to get feedback on the work done so far.

I will know it's a success if the feedback is: "That's amazing, I never knew that was possible in an excel spreadsheet, and it has made me open my eyes and think a bit"....

Please vote in the poll, as I will work hard to improve this site to get you what you want.

POLL

Developed and released Share Trading system:

Share Trading System Forum

Developed and released Expense tracker:

Expense Tracker Forum

Spent most of today replacing all those nasty JPG's with PNG's... what a boring task, but I am now completely rid of JPG's

I now have 90 Tips Of The day... Writing a year's worth might be a struggle although I have not started thinking about the VBA ones.

It may rapidly turn into Tip Of The Week.

Don't forget to vote in my poll on what system you would like me to develop next:
Please VOTE here

Update1:
New Year's day !

HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody.

This is the year that will decide whether I can make a business out of ExcelExperts.com or not. At the end of this year, I will look back on what has been done, and make the decision to continue or go back to corporate life.

Wish me luck

Nick

Update2:
Start the year by being burgled, but on the positive side, HousePriceCrash.co.uk have added a link to my Buy Or Rent calculator which is exciting.
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/resources-calculators.php
The house price crash is hot news in the UK, so hopefully this will create some more interest in ExcelExperts.com

Not a gr8 start to the year: Day 1 burgled, Day 2 flooded !

The last few days have been a right-off as I've spent most of the time trying to track down our stolen goods on the internet and visiting pawn shops. Sadly, no luck.

Today I am working on a system for tracking collectibles and mailing a few websites who may be interested in adding links or running articles.

A productive day today with the release of a new calculator aimed at helping people work out how much they can afford to spend on a house:
How Much Can I Spend on a House ?

Just looked at the site statistics, and there's some amazing stuff there.

out of the 1190 unique visitors to the site, 469 added ExcelExperts.com to their favourites. I am REALLY happy with that.

Wishing ExcelExperts.com a happy 1 month anniversary

; - >

Added 2 new sections...

VBA Tip Of The Day
Learn VBA Step by Step

... this'll keep me out of trouble for a while..

This is THE most tedious task on the planet:
- Search Engine Optimisation

I am adding tags to all the content in an effort to be found by search engines.

This is soooooo boring.

Today, I am thinking about what to do for a competition.

When I used to work as a team manager, I used to do lots of competitions. I found it was good for team morale to get everyone thinking about the same thing, and I would always give a prize.

I am kind of keen on property calculators right now seeing as property is the topic of the year. It has certainly been a non-stop dinner party topic of conversation in London over the past few years with hot debates between the "Sell To Rent[ers]" and the "Buy To Let[ers]".

I knocked this calculator up... it's a very simple calculator to work out how much your house might be worth since the market peaked.

Check out my "How Much Is My House Worth?" calculator

Canvassing feedback from ExcelExperts members on what they'd like to see from the site.

Lots of good ideas coming in..

Thanks to all !

Upgraded to Drupal 6.9.. I am getting better at this !

I am proud to announce that ExcelExperts.com has risen 8,615,049 ranks over the last three months according to some website.
Currently residing at 1,390,226...

The advantage of working from home is that you can get to work easily.
This was particularly useful today as we're completely snowed in here in London.
Whilst playing Texas Holdem Poker last night, it struck me that I'm pretty rubbish, so as part of ExcelExperts.com, I have decided to write a poker trainer in Excel. This is fairly tough.

I have added a new section to say thanks to those who are helping the Excel Experts cause.

Excel Experts Friends

Happy 2 Month anniversary to ExcelExperts.com...

Yesterday I launched a new Facebook Texas Holdem Poker Training calculator...

More on Facebook Texas Holdem Poker here..

I tested it out and it seemed to work pretty well.
It only does pre-flop at the moment, but can easily be modified to do the turn and river...

Had an exciting meeting yesterday with the inspirational former head of education at my former employer.

He's now CEO of this company:
webfme.com

The plan we came up with was to create option pricing templates for the retail market.

This will be an excellent challenge of both creation and education.

Well, quite a few things are happening.

Have focussed on 4 things recently

• 12-Feb-09 Facebook Texas Holdem Poker Training

- I managed to get up to 150,000 chips using the advice from this calculator for pre-flop betting.
- Unfortunately for me, I then went all in with Ace 2 on seeing Ace 2 2 on the flop... The other guy had Ace Ace, so that sent me back down to earth with a bump.

• 17-Feb-09 Redundancy Planning Calculator

- I produced this whilst thinking about my previous company, and it seems extremely popular there.
- If you know anyone who is worried about being made redundant or who has been, pass it on.

• 18-Feb-09 Finance Interview Questions
• 18-Feb-09 Quant interview questions

- I had to get these out of my head yesterday
... the Matchstick question is timeless and you'll pull your hair out trying to solve it. Chances are, you never will.

Am still looking for friends to add to my friends section so if you know anyone who'd like to help me out, a personal introduction would be appreciated.

Pleased to have produced a new property calculator to address a specific problem:

- Should you stick with your "Buy To Let" Property, or sell it now ?

Follow the link for more information on the "Sell or Rent Out Calculator".

Nick
I am back to your site after one month, and I am realizing how much I missed it! too bad I ahve to work too!
You are still the best in class!
Thank you for your puzzles. I have obsessed on 3 men on triangle. I hope this time my answer is correct.
Interestingly if it is correct it is excel that found the answer not me. In that case you may want to have a look at my "Montecarlo" simulation of the movements...
Best Wishes
Jean

 
Hi  hope you can help me!
 
Basically im looking for a formula or more than one that will solve this problem:
I have a set of birth dates and a set of hire dates and need to determine a what date a person becomes retirement eligible based on the following criteria:
1.Person must be at least 50 years old,
                      and
2.Person must have at least 3 years service,
                      and
3.Both these values must combine to 60 years
 
The earliest combination of these factors must be determined from the date sof birth ond hire dates as opposed to the actual whole number of years, as it must be calculated to the exact day.
 
Thanks for the help
I lokk forward to your response!