Reminder
Microsoft MVPs Mike Alexander (DataPig Technologies) and Jon Peltier (Peltier Technical Services) are presenting our first annual Excel Dashboard and Visualization Boot Camp to be held on Wednesday through Friday, October 22-24, 2008, in Frisco, Texas. The hotel is holding rooms at the conference rate until Wednesday afternoon, October 8.

This 3-day boot [...]

Some items worthy of note . . .

It’s mostly photography, not data visualization, but it’s still pretty cool.
Internet cartoon XKCD captures my views on fancy ringtones. Yes, I’m a Luddite too; my phone rings the old-fashioned way.
Speaking of Waterfalls, here are some nice wallpapers for your desktop: Waterfalls, Most Beautiful Waterfalls, and Waterfalls.
I’ve been [...]

Chandoo has posted the new Microsoft Ads in Microsoft says ‘I am PC’ and it is brilliant. Contrary to my expectations, especially after the abortive Bill and Jerry spots, I enjoyed these ads. Microsoft finally has countered those insipid Mac vs. PC ads (see review in Slate), in a tasteful and clever way. Hey, I [...]

The Microsoft Excel User Conference will be held on September 24-26, 2008, at the Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City, New Jersey. That’s only a few days from now.
The conference will feature working sessions and classes designed to expand a user’s working knowledge of the dominant spreadsheet software. These sessions will be led by respected [...]

Fewer links today, in fact, fewer posts all week. It’s been rather busy. . . .

Microsoft wants you to Give Us Feedback for Microsoft Office 2007. No, really. (Thanks for the link, Echo.)

Sept. 12, 1958: Kilby Chips In, Integrates Circuit (Wired Magazine). I didn’t see this link in time to include it with my last [...]

Raymond Chen posted recently that The purpose of charts is normally to make information easier, not harder, to understand.
Not always. More often the purpose of a chart seems to be to:

Make the presenter look smart, or at least cool.
Make the presenter’s product look better than the competition, despite the facts.
Accentuate (fabricate) the positive and obfuscate [...]

A promise kept
Utah children live their father’s dream of seeing Red Sox play at Fenway
Just when you think the world is full of cynicism and evil politicians, you come across a story like this. Sometimes people can rise to the occasion.

 
Robert Kosara of EagerEyes looks at variations of Square Pie Charts in Engaging Readers [...]

In the Microsoft Charting newsgroup, a reader wanted to show separate lines on a line chart to compare the severity of the medical conditions of different patients after one to five visits. The question was whether it would be possible to resolve the individual patients.
A parallel coordinates chart can show an individual’s condition in front [...]

Francisco of XL Cubed announces the development of an Excel Chart Tamer utility. This utility will be an alternative charting interface, which will offer chart types and formats designed for easy creation of effective charts. A public beta is expected in October. I’m looking forward to it.

John of cellmatrix.net explains Two-Way Variance Analysis in Post [...]

Links I have found interesting and worthwhile
Creating KPI Dashboards in Microsoft Excel [Part 2 of 4] - Adding One Click Sort. This is part two of a four-part guest series by Robert on Chandoo’s Pointy-Haired Dilbert blog. This part of the series shows an elegant way to allow sorting by a user selected column in [...]