Column – Stack combination chart in Excel

Not very common, but sometimes useful, this chart is made up of a series of column pairs, where the one of them is a simple column and the other one is broken down in segments.

Last time I used it to show budgeted project expenditures versus actuals, month by month. The right column, actuals, was broken down to show capital investment. The chart can also be created so the “entire” column is to the right and the “broken” one is to the left.

Here is the cookbok to make the chart:

• Create 4 series, horizontally as shown below: broken (bottom part) and broken (top part), entire and dummy. I’ll refer to these series as BB,BT,E and D respectively.
  
• Fill your data as needed. On the D series, put some value on the first cell – this is just to allow you to select the series and later on you will delete this value. Make this value close to the average of the rest of the data, so you can handle the segment comfortably.
• Select all five lines of the data: titles, the three series for the columns and your D series. Create a chart, choose column type, and stacked column on the subtype. Make sure series in columns is the selected option. Finish the chart wizard.
• Right click on the segment for the D series on the first column and move it to the secondary axis: Choose “Format data series” and on the “Axis” tab choose “Secondary Axis”.
• Do the same with the data corresponding to the E series. Before closing the “Format data series” dialog, go to “Options” and choose overlap -100, gap width 80. This setting will apply to both the D series and the E series.
• In the “Series order” tab you can choose if your E series will go to the left or to the right by moving it up or down
• Go to “Format series”, now for the BT series. overlap should be 100 and gap 320.
• Double-click the right axis to bring the “Format Axis” dialog. Choose the maximum to be equal to that of the left axis. Even if Excel chose by default the same value for both, make sure the checkbox close to maximum is unchecked. You want to make sure manually your axis are synchronized to avoid showing misleading information. By default, Excel charts start at 0, but if you change this, you must do it in both axis. While you are at this dialog, go to the “Patterns” tab and choose “None” in “Thick mark labels”.
• Delete the dummy value, the dummy label on the chart and format the chart to your liking

Enjoy!

Some interesting source code for Mac applications

While developing the iPhoto add in I found these interesting sources for several Cocoa classes.

Mini ITX project(s) at home

Caseoutlet.com has ITX cases that look good enough to update the home server I’ve been running out of an old Sony receiver chassis. Depending on the layout that I can make of the security cameras to install in the new house, I’ll decide where the controlling server will go. I purchased from NewEgg a new MiniITX board for this project, which has a CompactFlash slot, and also from a company called tranquilPC (in the UK) I bought a PCI card raiser. With these I’m all set to a caseless system that may be installed in the attic if the wiring from the cameras needs to be kept to a minimum (which I suspect). 50 feet seems to be the maximum recommended length for these cable runs.

Requirements to set up a limited liability corporation in Brazil

Is it worthwhile to leave a limited liability corporation before I leave for the US? I’ll have to leave my CPF active in any case. There’s addtional paperwork that I’ll need to fill out according to KPMG. If I only leave the CPF, I’ll have to fill a simple web form indicating I’m exempt. If I leave the LLC, then I’ll have to fill a full return (I’m not sure if there’s a simple one like 1040EZ).

In any case, the instructions to set up the LLC are here

Export Plugin for iPhoto

Following up on my previous hack, I ended up writing a plug in in Objective C. It’s currently loading, not much frills. I’m deciding if I’ll try to reuse my Python code bridging with PyObjC or just rewrite in Objective C the export. Most likely the latter.

Here is a screenshot. When installed, my plugin nicely adds another pane to the iPhoto export options. It will export to a folder, just like Apple’s Web export plugin. The users can upload the folder to the webserver however they like.

It borrows a lot of the UI from iTunes builtin web export (more than literally, because I copied a couple of things from the .nib). I hope to have time in the next couple of weeks to finish it. Looks promising, though.

Vulnerabilities

Some code vulnerablities shown on the lsd website could be relevant to the code for code analysis that I started writinng. Part of the rationale is that code signatures (as tracked for instance by antivirus programs) are quite weak, as simple code morphing tools could be used to render the code functionally equivalent but with different hash (MD5, etc) – the most common fingerprinting mechanism.

Nice look and feel for a web site

This site (a hosting company in Brazil) has some interesting ideas I’d like to look into with more detail. One is the floating support ribbon (top right), which seems inobtrusive but effective to keep information handy for the site users. Not to overuse, of course, but for something like that “click me if you need anything” may be a good user interface.

Interesting stuff released by Apple

I was particularly interested in Xcode 3.0. I’m currently using XCode 2.0 to develop an add-in for iPhoto. I had to recall a bit of my NeXT software development skills from a few years back. Objective C is OK, but to me seems quite primitive to go back to program in that language after using Pyhton.
The timeline view of code profiling a-la Garageband looks cool. I can’t wait to see it in action.