As one of the most widely used desktop applications ever created, Excel is familiar to just about everyone with a computer and a keyboard. Yet most of us don't know the full extent of what Excel can do, mostly because of its recent growth in power, versatility, and complexity. The truth is that there are many ways Excel can help make your job easier-beyond calculating sums and averages in a standard spreadsheet.
Analyzing Business Data with Excel shows you how to solve real-world business problems by taking Excel's data analysis features to the max. Rather than focusing on individual Excel functions and features, the book keys directly on the needs of business users. Most of the chapters start with a business problem or question, and then show you how to create pointed spreadsheets that address common data analysis issues.
Aimed primarily at experienced Excel users, the book doesn't spend much time on the basics. After introducing some necessary general tools, it quickly moves into more specific problem areas, such as the following:
* Statistics
* Pivot tables
* Workload forecasting
* Modeling
* Measuring quality
* Monitoring complex systems
* Queuing
* Optimizing
* Importing data
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Anywhere Computing with Laptops- Making Mobile Easier shows consumers what to expect when they're buying and configuring their Centrino laptop, and how to use built-in features such as digital cameras or internet telephones. They'll learn how to find hotspots on the road and how to connect to multiple national networks to ensure easy access to data or the Internet. Later chapters cover installing and configuring a wireless network, configuring access points and wireless bridges, combining wireless and wired networks, and more. Author Harold Davis pays particular attention to the complexities of security and encryption to keep laptops and data safe.
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As the boundaries of the traditional enterprise continue to expand, demand for secure mobile workforce solutions is growing at a strong pace. This demand is being addressed with a multitude of solutions - those that deliver the highest levels of productivity, security and IT control will set the pace for the marketplace. Enterprises accomplish this kind of network growth in a cost efficient and reliable way through the introduction of Broadband Remote Access Services. Broadband Network Architectures succinctly describes B-RAS (Broadband Remote Access Server/Services) and its associated technologies (PPP, L2TP). Chapters are structured to provide enough information for people looking to learn and then being to implement. By including design architectures with the explanations, as well as covering the emerging and recent advancements of the technology, this title covers a relatively new concept. Yet the book covers it in such a way that it teaches not to current models but to strategies and practices that apply across any equipment, giving the book a longer term value to the reader. The book also approaches the topics with a vendor-neutrality , offering both Cisco and Juniper configurations and policies side-by-side as the reader progresses through the book. (more…)
Step-by-step guide reveals best practices for enhancing Web sites with Ajax *A step-by-step guide to enhancing Web sites with Ajax. *Uses progressive enhancement techniques to ensure graceful degradation (which makes sites usable in all browsers). *Shows readers how to write their own Ajax scripts instead of relying on third-party libraries. Web site designers love the idea of Ajax–of creating Web pages in which information can be updated without refreshing the entire page. But for those who aren't hard-core programmers, enhancing pages using Ajax can be a challenge. Even more of a challenge is making sure those pages work for all users. In Bulletproof Ajax, author Jeremy Keith demonstrates how developers comfortable with CSS and (X)HTML can build Ajax functionality without frameworks, using the ideas of graceful degradation and progressive enhancement to ensure that the pages work for all users. Throughout this step-by-step guide, his emphasis is on best practices with an approach to building Ajax pages called Hijax, which improves flexibility and avoids worst-case scenarios. (more…)

PowerShell is one of the most exciting new products to come out of Microsoft in a long time. It is both a new scripting language and a command-line shell. People who have seen the demos have been extremely impressed by the power it brings to admins to automate and customize their regular tasks. PowerShell will be used as the basis for all Windows administrative scripting in the future, starting with Exchange 2007 and Vista. IT Pros have been hungering for whatever PowerShell information they can get their hands on.
This book first focuses on PowerShell basics, how it relates to existing Windows scripting practices, and how your existing knowledge can be translated into PowerShell knowledge. After gaining insight into PowerShell, you are presented with transferable PowerShell scripting examples. The goal of presenting these examples is to outline methods of using PowerShell to manage Windows Server, Active Directory, and Exchange Server 2007 that have not been explained or touched upon by other sources.
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Performing your first Web site analysis just got a whole lot easier.
Web Analytics For Dummies offers everything you need to know to nail down and pump up the ROI on your Web presence.
It explains how to get the stats you need, then helps you analyze and apply that information to improve traffic and click-through rate on your Web site.
You’ll discover:
* What to expect from Web analytics
* Definitions of key Web analytics terms
* Help in choosing the right analytics approach
* How to collect key data and apply it to site design or marketing
* Techniques for distinguishing human users from bots
* Tips on using Google and other free analytics tools
* Advice on choosing pay and subscription services
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