What laptop is best for Excel?

I’m often asked by clients to help them choose a PC to run Excel models, particularly large project finance models that might take several minutes to solve with a macro.  Here’s my advice:

Laptop or desktop - almost all of my clients want a laptop, so this piece just looks at laptop options, but as a rough rule of thumb, with a desktop you get about twice the power for half the price, so if you want a really fast PC for Excel, you should consider a separate desktop PC. 

CPU - for the actual calculation of a model, this is by far the most important factor, but don’t get sucked in by the clock speed.  Excel can use multi thread processing very well (for most tasks) and so a quad core i7 with a low clock speed will calculate much faster than a dual core i7 with a high clock speed, although the battery life will suffer.  Look for QM, QE, XM, MQ, HQ or EQ in the name, these are all quad core CPUs.  Avoid anything with a single letter, typically M or U, they’ll usually be significantly slower.

As an example, an i7-4558U has a clock speed of 2.8 GHz, but for Excel it will be much slower than an i7-4702HQ, with a clock speed of 2.2 GHz.

Memory - unless you’re using 64-bit Excel (and most people aren't), you’re not really going to notice any benefit from having more than 8Gb of RAM – even 4Gb is often enough, as 32-bit Excel has a limit of 2Gb.  So no matter how much memory you have in your laptop, Excel will only be able to use 2Gb.  However if you are using very large spreadsheets there are three ways to avoid this 2Gb limit:

• Use 64-bit Excel, which has no memory limit;
• Open each spreadsheet in a separate instance of Excel (press Alt when opening Excel); or
• Hack your excel.exe file to increase its memory limit from 2Gb to 4Gb.  This is easy to do but beyond the scope of this article, contact me if you want to know how.

Keyboard layout - when I look at a new laptop the first thing I check is the position of the Home, End, PgUp/PgDn, arrow and Ctrl/Shift keys.  If they don’t feel comfortable then you’re going to hate using the laptop’s keyboard for Excel.

Also, any laptop that combines the F1-F12 keys with Home, End, PgUp/PgDn is a complete non-starter for Excel.  Yes Microsoft, that includes the otherwise-perfect Surface Pro 3/4/Book.

Screen size - although most laptops are usually plugged into a large screen on a desk, there are of course times when you’ll use it away from your desk.  If you use it a lot on the road then go for the biggest screen you can.  Sure it’ll be heavier, but when you’re stuck in a hotel room at 3am trying to finish your model before the investor meeting 6 hours later, you’ll be glad you’ve got a big screen.

Touch screen? - touch screens (on PCs) are one of those innovations that you think are gimmicky when you first get one.  Then after a month using it you pick up a non-touch screen and you get really frustrated  when touching the screen does nothing.  Ok, so I really only touch the screen for web browsing and reading documents as in Excel I find it’s simply quicker and easier to use the keyboard or mouse – but who uses a laptop just for Excel?

SDD or HDD - when Excel opens a file it reads the whole file into RAM, so once it’s open you won’t notice any speed difference between an SSD and HDD. But in every other way an SSD is vastly superior and once you’ve used one you’ll never go back to a HDD.  In fact, given the failure rate of HDDs, I’m always surprised to still see them used in corporate laptops.  To compound the risk of drive failure, their higher capacity just encourages users to store all their data on their C drive rather than the network or cloud. 

WiFi - these days WiFi is the first layer in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and even in corporate offices, many laptops connect to the network over WiFi rather than via an Ethernet cable.  Unfortunately, some new laptops still ship with the slower N WiFi.   AC WiFi is significantly faster and is becoming more common, definitely get it if you can.

GPU - higher end laptops will often have a dedicated graphics chip – look for an Nvidia or Radeon sticker on the case.  However, unlike games, Excel doesn’t really benefit from a separate graphics card, so unless budget isn’t an issue or you like playing games in your downtime, don’t bother with one.

So in summary, if speed is your main priority, and you can't justify a desktop, pick the fastest quad core i7 chip you can afford, and after that choose the laptop based on how it physically feels to use.

Things I Carry: My Laptop, a Wifi Hotspot, and Plenty of Black Tea

I travel – a lot.

So far in 2013 (according to my TripIt account), I have traveled to 25 different cities and spent 56 nights away from home. I have kept this pace for over 10 years and it’s likely to continue through the end of this year.

When traveling this much, it is essential that you learn to manage your life on the road so that it is as normal as possible. I have learned what’s essential to have and what not to have. Three of my most essential items include:

My Laptop

My current laptop is a Lenovo ThinkPad X220, which is almost 2 years old. This laptop is almost always with me. It is my “office.” I rarely let it out of my sight. While I have the information backed up in multiple places, losing this laptop would create real problems.

A laptop allows me to work wherever I happen to be at the time – an airplane, a coffee shop or a restaurant, a hotel room or lobby, or a conference room at a client’s office.

My last laptop was a Lenovo ThinkPad T400 with a 15” screen. It was powerful, with a big screen, and heavy to carry. The X220 has a 13” screen. I thought long and hard before moving to the smaller screen. However, the reduction in weight due to the smaller screen has been well worth the move.

I recently replaced the existing hard drive with a Crucial 512G Solid State Drive (SSD). It is one of the best upgrade investments I’ve made in quite a few years. The SSD drive significantly increased my laptop performance and added at least an additional hour of battery life – important when you are not always close to an electrical outlet.

Broadband Internet Access

As a nomad, easy access to the Internet is essential. My laptop is a great tool. But it would not be nearly as useful without access to the services and information available to me online. While I’ve had broadband access available for several years, the new high-speed 4G LTE networks make Internet access seamless from virtually anywhere and almost as fast as my office wired connection.

My current broadband access is provided through the Verizon network using a 4G LTE MiFi 4510L hotspot. My 5G monthly data plan costs about $50 per month. When I moved to the 4G network I had to give up my unlimited data plan. I was concerned about going to a more limited data plan. However, after researching my prior data usage I realized that in the previous 12 months I had only gone over 5G twice.

I have begun researching moving to a different network provider. My access to the full 4G network seems to be spottier than in the past. I am often connected to the slower 3G networks in areas that I know have the faster 4G network available.

I almost never use free Wi-Fi services from airports, hotels or restaurants. I’m just too concerned about the lack of security using those types of open connections.

Tea: The Comfort of Home

Spending many nights away from the comfort and convenience of being at home, it is important to bring a little piece of home with me. For me, that means having good quality tea available whenever I want it.

I have never learned to like, and drink, coffee. At times, it would be easier if I did. But, I just don’t like it.

I drink more hot tea in a normal day than most people drink coffee. Many hotels just don’t treat tea drinkers very well. If there is coffee service in my room, it often does not include any tea. Because of this I bring my favorite teas with me along with my preferred sweetener in my suitcase.

My preferred brands in the morning are Starbucks Awake and Twining’s English Breakfast. I usually wake up early (depending on the time zone I happen to be in at the time) and want a cup or two of tea to get my morning started. In the evening, I tend to like Twining’s Earl Grey. I’m a black tea person and just don’t like herbal and most flavored teas.

These are the tools I use. What essential tools help you to be more effective and productive?

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Steve Anderson is the leading authority on insurance agency technology. He is a prolific writer known for his knack for translating “geek speak” into easily understood concepts. Check out his free weekly newsletter “TechTips” and other resources for the insurance industry on his website.

How To Replace or Repair Dell Inspiron N5010 Laptop Motherboard

The most important thing to get a laptop repaired is the price that will be incurred in getting the service done. Whether it’s a motherboard problem, or the screen issue a hardware fault or attack of viruses every problem are resolved by the Dell service center in Delhi.

If you are putting up in Dwarka and looking for the Dell service center in Dwarka, then the expert technicians for dell laptop repair are available who provides service in an economical rate. The Service operator analyzes the issue occurring in the laptop and provides the best and effective solution that satisfy the customer. The expertise hand studies the problem in depth and fix the problem wisely that no such problem occur again in future.

You can find the Dell service center also who provides services not only in cheap rate, but also provides a satisfaction that invites the customer to get service done again and again.

Since the laptop has become the basic necessity for life one must also know how to repair the laptop. Here are some tips on how you can replace the motherboard of Dell laptop 15 series or 5010:

• Remove all the screws on the back.
• Lift up the cabinet
• Remove the screw of the DVD writer
• Remove the located screw of the memory partition.
• Lift up the keyboard slightly through a flat screwdriver.
• Unlock the keyboard connector and remove the keypad upward.
• Remove the power connection of the button cable, touch pad cable and status light cable and from the motherboard and separate the assembly which is fixed from the motherboard.
• Remove the top cover assembly, hard drive, wireless and SD card reader and remove the disconnected hard disk from the lappy and insert the new motherboard carefully.
• Assemble back the system in the reverse way like you dissembled.

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Evening Pulse: No Digital 'Safe Harbor', Microsoft's First Laptop, Amazon is #1

Digital Divide: The European Court of Justice invalidated an international agreement that allows companies to move digital data between the European Union and the United States. The ruling undermines the 15-year-old “safe harbor” agreement and theoretically imperils any multi-national that does business in the European Union. But it would seem to particularly expose tech companies with major consumer-facing business, like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. The court reasoned that companies could not guarantee the offshore integrity of EU citizen data because Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks “had almost unfettered access to the data.” The immediate impact is unclear; Mark Scott reports for The New York Times that “Some European officials and many of the big technology companies, including Facebook and Microsoft, tried to play down the impact of the ruling” since there are side agreements that should still have force. But some 4,000 companies are now not entirely sure what they can and can’t legally do. Leading the hooray's was Snowden, who began an approving Tweetstorm with this:

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Make Book: Microsoft unveiled its first laptop — the Surface Book. "It's a full power laptop that has a detachable screen for use as a tablet," writes Jacob Kastrenakes of The Verge, "basically, it's a Surface Pro with a really great keyboard dock."

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Amazon First: Some 44% of prospective e-buyers instinctively go to Amazon first, according to a survey commissioned by the e-commerce software startup BloomReach. A 2012 Forrester Research study found that 30% were Amazon first, and 13% searchers. 

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Baby — Get me digital! The New York Times has created a centralized desk to put out the newspaper. This is a full-circle moment: Twenty years ago online news operations were segregated units, and now digital runs the newsroom.

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#Quote

"As it turns out, I did not mind.”

— Arthur B McDonald, Co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physics, on being woken up to learn he won.

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On the Second Day … Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey waited until he really, really had the job to unveil Moments, a major recalibration of the service as one which measures success by the number of people who share to a one based on the number of people who read. Moments is a news curation service that will attempt to wrangle one of Twitter’s strongest differentiators — it’s the world’s most powerful disclosure service — into something non-power-users will be able to easily appreciate and consume. At first blush, the (so-far) advertising-free Moment site (apps are updated as well) seems to have a minor “CNN” problem — when there isn’t any breaking news, it looks pretty meek — and a more significant discovery problem: unlike other news aggregators, which link out to complete content, Moments links take you to Tweets, which may or may not tell much of the story. On day one it feels more like news candy than a meal, but if you’re a news junky you’d be nuts not to bookmark it and see how it operates with the s**t is actually hitting the fan.

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What you may have missed — and simply must read:

• What Rachel Haot and the team learned relaunching NY.gov
• A breakdown of the 25 corporations (not named Google) that are working ondriverless cars 
• Why Walgreens is partnering with Postmates—and betting big on mobile.
• Anne-Marie Slaughter has advice for getting rid of the 'Mad Men workplace'—the assumption that workers have a full-time caregiver at home. Here's how to make the case for more flexibility.
• More must-read real talk from Sophia Amoruso: "The older I get, the less confident I become. There’s simply more to lose."

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• Missed last night's update? Catch up here:  'McMuffins for Dinner, Twitter's Big Moment, Reddit Gets Newsy'
• Twice a day we share the news professionals need to know. Never miss one again: Download the Pulse app.
• And for even more, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Cover Art: A toddler sits on the winner of the giant pumpkin category during the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) London Harvest Festival Show at RHS Lindley Halls on October 6, 2015 in London, England. The traditional harvest themed show runs October 6-7 and showcases a wide range of late summer grown fruit and vegetables. (Photo by Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images)

I Opened Up My Old MacBook...

I opened up my old MacBook and found some sketches from way back. 2008 was my second year studying industrial design in a small city in the middle of Sweden.

I used to take the bus home to Stockholm on the holidays, it was about a 4 hour ride. I really enjoyed those rides. Especially in the wintertime.

I would plug in my headphones, put my hoodie over my head and think about where I wanted to be a few years from now. I had no idea if I was going to get a ️design job after college. Or if that's what I even wanted. I sometimes started thinking "who would ever pay me to draw things? Am I doing the right thing here?" If I didn't love sketching so much I probably would have gone down a different road. Design was kind of a grey area for me. Actually still is. What is design??

Those bus rides gave me time to reflect. As I was looking out the window on the white cold night that was passing by, I was quietly dreaming about moving abroad. Somewhere warm and sunny. Somewhere close to a beach. That thought always stuck with me.

It's funny how you start taking the steps towards your dreams without even noticing it sometimes. If you can't stop thinking about it, don't ever stop working for it. And once you reach it, set up new goals and visions. Why? Because that will make you realize that you can do whatever you set your mind to.

I hope you're taking the steps in the direction of your vision, whatever it may be. Keep moving forward and reach as far ahead as you can. No need to look back.

Just a story I wanted to share since I found this old sketch.

Keep sketching my friends. 

Marouane Bembli

TheSketchMonkey.com