Note: This is not an Excel post.

I am back from holiday, physically 🙂

I went to a very remote village called YuBeng in Yunnan, China.  It’s a village 3200M above sea level.  To get to there wasn’t easy.  Not to mention the traveling time on flight, coach, minibus, and mini mini bus… the real challenge was the final part of the journey –  a six-hour hike on high altitude.  You know what, two-third of the trail was uphill.  And I was carrying my backpack weighted about 10kg.

Like learning Excel, no pain no gain.  Notwithstanding all the sweats and efforts, the result (scenery) pays off.  Some photos to share.

Btw, I’ve just got my new laptop.  That means I can resume writing Excel posts.  Stay tuned. 🙂

Have you heard about the Excel Hash competition?

It is a contest initiated by Oz du Soleil at Excel On Fire.  Six well-known Excel MVPs, including Oz himself, show you what they can do with four designated Excel features/functions, and more importantly – how, on their YouTube channels.

The four Excel Features/Functions are:

1. MAX Function – A basic function, well… you think it is?
2. FREQUENCY Function – A not-so-well-known function for counting number of values to a specific bin.  Many people use COUNTIF(S) to do the same, because they don’t know about FREQUENCY
3. Form Control – cool stuff to make your spreadsheet interactive (btw, I have many posts about it, check them out here)
4. 3D Model – Something new in Excel 365

As you know, the true power of Excel never comes from a standalone function or feature. It comes from the ability of mixing function/feature together to do something great and impressive. Of course it requires out-of-the-box thinking from the people who use it. You will know what I am talking about after watching the six entries below.

The six contestants and their delicious dishes are: Continue reading →

Totally forgot I put my first post here 5 years ago.  Time really flies! Thanks for flying with me. 🙂

Today, I am not talking about Excel although I would like to.  Why?  Because my Surface Pro 4 is out of service… 😦

It has been out of order a few weeks ago… the moment when the warranty period was just expired.  I was struggling whether I should fix it, or I should buy a new one.  To fix a Surface Pro is not an easy task to my understanding.  Worst still, there is no official repairing service in Hong Kong.  When I contacted Microsoft, they offered to replace my Surface Pro 4 at a cost, which is actually not cheap given the fact that they are not going to replace me with a new machine….. @_@

On top of my mind is to buy a New Surface Pro.  Indeed, I like the usage experience of my Surface Pro 4 very much.  It’s an excellent replacement of traditional notebook: Light in weight with high performance (good enough for writing Excel blog).  Also, I like the touch screen and Surface Pen with that I can write on captured screens (to have sort of a personal touch to my illustration, although I know that my handwriting is poor. :P)  However, I am afraid that it will be broken in 13 months… even though I know it’s just a random event totally depends on luck.  A friend told me that I should buy the extended warranty.  For a machine that does not break down in three years, it probably can last for long.  He’s got his point, I believe.  But one of my considerations, after my Surface Pro 4 broke-down, is “Fixability”.  I prefer something that is fixable and can last for long as I don’t want to throw away a machine simply because one of the components went wrong.

Another consideration is not about the performance of the machine, but my commitment to this blog.  You know what… I felt a bit “emptiness” for not writing anything about Excel in the past few weeks.  I know that I am abnormal, sort of.  ;p  Therefore I am looking into other options such as traditional notebook, which is in most cases more repairing friendly.

After browsing and browsing, windows shopping and windows shopping, I have decided to buy a new notebook, which will be arriving in mid September.  Coincidently, I will be traveling for leisure for two weeks in mid September.  That means, I won’t be able to start writing about Excel until end of September, or early October.  Let’s consider it a belated summer break for myself.

Meanwhile, I will take the time to plan for the topics afterwards.  Stay tuned, Stay Excellent. 🙂

Photo by me. 🙂

Did I tell you that besides Excel, I enjoy hiking and taking photos.

What an honour and pleasant surprise to be selected as one of the Top 40!

Recently I am quite busy (and moody) at work, I mean the real work at office.  You must be thinking my works involved using Excel a lot and I should be able to finish them in an efficient way.  However the fact is… Excel is the barely opened application in my PC at work.  When I use Excel at work, I probably use it for “non-analytic” purposes.  Can’t imagine, right?

Then one day, I received an email from Feedspot saying that wmfexcel.com has been selected as one of the Top 40 Excel Blogs.  That was the truly refreshing moment of my boring day.

Frankly speaking, I think I have not reached this level yet.  Nevertheless I am super happy that my blog is getting more popularity.  If you are reading this, I sincerely thank you! 🙂