Ramblings, ideas, problems, and solutions

Tag: Excel

  • Excel: Calculate percentage

    I need to calculate what percentage one number is of another on a relatively regular basis. Luckily, it is relatively easily done using functions in Excel. Here’s how:

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  • Excel: Combine two columns

    While analysing an Excel sheet the other day, I needed to combine two columns so that I could get names in the format firstname lastname (the list had been provided as lastname,firstname). As it happens, doing so is relatively easy. You do it on a cell by cell basis, by using basic excel commands.

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  • Calculating percentage change in Excel

    If you do a lot of work in Excel, odds are you’ve needed to calculate a percentage change. Luckily, Excel does this for you quite readily if you simply apply a basic formula of (New Value - Old Value)/Old Value. There is, however, a pitfall that you’ll not get the values you expect if the cell where you’re entering the value is not set to percentage formatting. Hence, here’s a step to step way to make the calculation:

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  • Outlook: Mail merge

    I have previously written about one of my many responsibilities; contacting users whose login credentials have shown up in breach lists. While the pertinent results of the breach files are delivered to me in a flat file, I use Excel’s Text to Columns feature to separate logins (usually email addresses) from the password. While this might take a little fiddling with the delimiters, it is worth it to ensure that you have a good basis on which to work.

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  • Excel: Text to Columns

    I work a lot with text files containing data which is, to some degree or another, structured. Whether a breach file from a published breach, or the result of a powershell query such as Get-ADUser, Get-ADComputer, or Get-ADDirectReports, I need to separate the data into columns so that I can work with it. This is where the Text to Columns feature in Excel comes in handy.

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  • Excel: Highlight duplicates

    Among my many areas of responsibility at work, is contacting all the users found in various data breach lists that our InfoSec team get their hands on (typically, these are the same lists that eventually make their way to HIBP). Not unsurprisingly, there is a significant amount of overlap between some of these lists, and one of the things I do is to ensure that I do not contact users about passwords I’ve already talked to them about.

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  • MS Office: Pin items

    Many companies, my employer included, uses spreadsheets on a more or less consistent basis in order to track such things as vacation planning and KPI reporting. For me, as an employee, keeping track of these spreadsheets can, from time to time, be a bit annoying. Much to my surprise, at some point in the past few years, Microsoft added a pin item feature to MS Office.

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  • Excel: Quickly remove blank cells

    From time to time, Excel worksheets fill up with blank cells interspersed among the content. While the judicious use of whitespace can be useful, it may also make reading the worksheet somewhat challenging. Luckily, Excel has a tool to help us get rid of the blank cells. Here’s how: (more…)

  • MS Excel: Create PDF of active worksheet

    I recently had a user call in and ask me how he could export the contents of a single worksheet to PDF while working in Microsoft Excel 2010. As I told him, that is a simple feat to achieve. Here is how: (more…)

  • Decrypting Windows’ Minidump files

    When a Windows computer crashes, it will, if possible, write a minidump-file (filetype *.dmp) to the hard drive. These files are usually located in %SYSVOL%\Minidump, and they are usually called something like Mini042809-01.dmp. The problem with these files is that they are not exactly easy to read; here’s a small extract of my last minidump:
     

     
    Luckily, Microsoft has made a set of tools to help us decrypt them. Debugging Tools for Windows are available for most versions of WindowsSimply download, install, and enjoy.
     
    After installing the toolkit, and the symbolset that follows my install of Windows, the minidump is readable, and the conclusion is found at the end, and can look something like this:
     
    Probably caused by : wanarp.sys ( wanarp+1d9b )
     
    or like this:
     
    Probably caused by : USBSTOR.SYS ( USBSTOR+4980 )
     
    or even like this:
     
    Probably caused by : win32k.sys ( win32k+3445 )