Descent BB

[HaAGY]

i'm dealing with about 4k+ data points at a time for my uni project. at present all i'm doing is plotting simple scatter graphs. however i'll soon be dealing with more and more data. I'm finding that excel is slow as fuck once i've made the graph.

my system is an intel pentium 2.23Ghz dual core, 2Gb RAM and running Mac OS snow leopard. Thoughts on alternative programs that will be compatable with excel and .pwr files that may run better?

muchos gracias.

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I am a seriously sexual monster.

[Pandora]

I agree. the mac version of excel is incredibly slow. MS are really messing up there. Most of my colleagues are using Matlab, but you would have to learn the language first (but is pretty simple). Also isn't free, but your uni might have a license.

You could also try Apple's own 'numbers' or how it is called. Haven't used it myself but I have heard good things...

edit: if you have parallels or boot camp, you could try the PC version of excel. It is much speedier....

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"Science is the best defence against believing what we want to." --- Ian Stewart

[MD-2389]

[Pandora]

of course, totally forgot about that.
isn't there a mac version of open office as well?

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"Science is the best defence against believing what we want to." --- Ian Stewart

[Bunyip]

[MD-2389]

[roid]

OpenOffice is just as slow. Don't bother.

Use Google Docs.
http://docs.google.com/
Let Google's Serverfarms do the rendering for you.
(seriously, this is the exact reason i use google docs, graphs render near INSTANTLY).

If you already have your Excell sheet made up, it's real quick to just upload it to Google docs.

note: There is a bug with making graphs though, all of your data has to be in one block. You can't select a row here and a row there - they have to be side by side.
To get around this, what you do is just make faux columns or rows that reference the rows you want. Arranged these faux columns/rows all together, then set your graph to use that block instead.
If you don't understand this, PM or IM me and i'll show you (or give me access and i'll just plain DO IT FOR YOU, hehe, can't do THAT shit in Excell.).

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ARRR!!

[Skyalmian]

Go-OpenOffice. Modification of OpenOffice.org.

[HaAGY]

Aahhhh MATLAB!!!

I forgot about Open Office, I think I'll give Google Docs a shot! I've been really happy with the Mac Office 08 so far, I'm only finding excel slow because I have SO much more data than what I normally plot.

Cheers for the suggestions;)

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I am a seriously sexual monster.

[HaAGY]

oops, according to google docs my spread has too much info... i shall try Go-OO

Go-OO ftw.

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I am a seriously sexual monster.

[MD-2389]

Yeah, Google Docs is nice if you have a small project to work on. It's definitely NOT even close to being capable of cutting it for a corporate environment. You would need an actual office suite for that kind of job.

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in 1773, Americans protested British tax by dumping tea into the ocean. In 2010, the British got their revenge by dumping oil.

[HaAGY]

google docs tells me i have >400k cells. bad times.
so much analysis, so little time. if i could sing a little and be pretty, i could whore myself.

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I am a seriously sexual monster.

[roid]

[HaAGY]

400,000 cells roidy

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I am a seriously sexual monster.

[roid]

oh, OH! haha. yikes. with that kinda data size maybe you should be using something like matlab.

Or if not:
Cut up the data and paste it into multiple spreadsheets, each with only 100,000 cells or so. Then writeup some forumulas (in the spreadsheets) to summerize the data down, until it can fit into one spreadsheet.

i mean, a graph can only show so much resolution, once you get above a few thousands data-points i doubt it'd be possible to visually tell the difference anyway.

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ARRR!!

[ccb056]

With that much data you want a real database, not excel. Use Access.