Excel: Bubble Chart Macro

Apparently the only way to lable XY chart objects sensibly in MS Excel is by writing a macro.  Also the only way to create a Bubble chart without loosing your marbles is also by writing a macro. So I wrote the following macro based on Tom Hollander's blog post.

'The following routine assumes that you have a 5 column data selection with a header column 'Column 5 defines the color category by setting the color value c based on the cell value of column 5 Public Sub CreateMultiSeriesBubbleChart() If (Selection.Columns.Count <> 5 Or Selection.Rows.Count < 3) Then MsgBox "Selection must have 5 columns and at least 2 rows" Exit Sub End If Dim bubbleChart As ChartObject Set bubbleChart = ActiveSheet.ChartObjects.Add(Left:=Selection.Left, Width:=600, Top:=Selection.Top, Height:=400) bubbleChart.Chart.ChartType = xlBubble Dim r As Integer For r = 2 To Selection.Rows.Count Dim c If Selection.Cells(r, 5).Value = "red" Then c = RGB(100, 0, 0) ElseIf Selection.Cells(r, 5).Value = "green" Then c = RGB(0, 100, 0) Else c = RGB(0, 0, 100) End If With bubbleChart.Chart.SeriesCollection.NewSeries .Name = "=" & Selection.Cells(r, 1).Address(External:=True) .XValues = Selection.Cells(r, 2).Address(External:=True) .Values = Selection.Cells(r, 3).Address(External:=True) .BubbleSizes = Selection.Cells(r, 4).Address(External:=True) .Interior.Color = c .ApplyDataLabels .DataLabels.ShowSeriesName = True .DataLabels.ShowValue = False .DataLabels.Position = xlLabelPositionCenter End With Next bubbleChart.Chart.SetElement (msoElementPrimaryCategoryAxisTitleAdjacentToAxis) bubbleChart.Chart.Axes(xlCategory, xlPrimary).AxisTitle.Text = "=" & Selection.Cells(1, 2).Address(External:=True) bubbleChart.Chart.SetElement (msoElementPrimaryValueAxisTitleRotated) bubbleChart.Chart.Axes(xlValue, xlPrimary).AxisTitle.Text = "=" & Selection.Cells(1, 3).Address(External:=True) bubbleChart.Chart.SetElement (msoElementPrimaryCategoryGridLinesMajor) bubbleChart.Chart.Axes(xlCategory).MinimumScale = 0 End Sub

Reading List: Non-stop

This book took me for ever to read. It was a pain to get through. Even as the end starts to clear things up it doesn't manage to do it quickly enough to get you even close to the edge of the chair.

The book is told in third person. I think I've realized that if I read fiction it has to be noir style stories. The narrator should be the plot development pivot, otherwise it's simply easier to watch a movie. Think I'll try to to read Do Androids dream of electric sheep?

 

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Reading List: Ghost in the Wires

 

This is a late post. I actually read this book last summer. Now a New Year resolution is forcing me to do a quick post on my thoughts.

The book starts of slow and I'm most of the time looking forward to the end, since I loosely know the chase story to be told. But as I continue through the chapters I quickly eat up the next one. This book is well written and an easy read. The author is good at channeling the excitement Mitnick describes during his social engineering hacks.

I've never stolen or swindled anyone in my life and sitting next to Mitnick while he is narrating how he does it really gets the adrenaline running. Thanks for a great read and an exciting story!

 

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Reading List: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs the currently most read bio written by Walter Isaacson. Nicely written history piece, you're getting a real close up of Jobs and you get a feeling of the reality distortion field just from reading the book. An interesting critical review of the book on Daring Fireball:

Reading List: The Fallible Fiend

The Fallible Fiend by L. Sprague de Camp is a good humoristic Terry Pratchet style book. Filled with beurocracy and logic from his own world, our hero the Demon Zdim, is summoned to the prime plane. The story is quickly pased and with some action. Good witty light read.

Jailbreaking Apple TV and installing Plex

The reason for jailbreaking devices is as always to open the device up for functionality which is possible but made unavailable. Application installation on the Apple TV is interesting from a Plex home cinema setup point of view. The apple TV has great premises to be a great Plex Client.

So this morning I tried to jailbreak my Apple TV. First of all you need to find a micro USB - USB. Impossible to buy in CPH, so better hope you know someone who owns a device using micro USB.

I updated to the iOS to version 4.3 and started on the Seas0nPass jailbreak. I hit the following issues:

• Unzipping IPSW image hanged. Apparently the IPSW file server did not deliver the full file. Just tried to re-download until got the full file.



• creating the ramdisk hanged. Seemed that there was an old virtual windows .bundle file in libraryplugins.. That just needed to be deleted. Machine needed to be rebooted.

After jail breaking I just had to go to the Plex forum where there is posted a great guide to install a Plex client on the apple tv using the Terminal.

Reading list: Inferno

Just finished reading Inferno by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle.

The book is about a sci-fi novelist who gets drunk on the side off a skyscraper and falls off the side as he hurls. The fall kills him and he wakes up in Hell where he is guided through Dante's vision of Hell.

The book paints the torments in Dante's circles very well and in a modern light where the main character the sci-fi writer tries to rationalise everything from the 1600 italian vision of Hell.

Good entertaining and fast read.