Documenting my daily activities using the word processor Microsoft Word is quite straightforward, as the software hasn't changed much since I was introduced to it in middle school. However, there are more options in the current version compared to Word 2000, which I initially learned to use.
The spreadsheet application we used to display our daily activities wasn't too complicated. With the automation enabled in Microsoft Excel, I was able to create two columns of data: one for the task and the other for the amount of hours spent out of a 24-hour day. To differentiate between the different parts of the data, I colored in the background of the cells containing the names of the columns. Initially, I calculated the totals of column B containing hours and created a total in cell B13. By adding a formula in cell B15, I could sum up all the hours for each task. The formula I used, "=SUM(B3:B12)," adds together all of the values outlining our 24-hour daily activities.
Having taken a statistics class prior to this course, I've become familiar with basic arithmetic formula functions in Excel. However, the presentation aspect of creating graphs from the data is another task involving labeling data parameters and specifying which values I want to be presented. I chose to create a Pie graph by selecting the data icon and then graphs. After selecting the data sample to display, I labeled each axis.
Excel can be excellent for creating a visual display for large amounts of data, but its limitations become apparent with extremely large files containing multiple forms of data. This is where databases such as SQL come into play.
