Informatics and Nursing Textbook Update

When working on the eBook I am writing about data analysis, I noticed another error in the 4th edition of the Informatics and Nursing textbook.  On page 141, 2nd paragraph the symbol for equals sign is incorrect.  It should appear as (=).  While many might recognize the error, new learners might find the symbol confusing.  On page 148, the names of the pie charts should have been changed to % instead of #.  The data in the spreadsheet were numbers, but pie charts are used to display percentages.  Therefore the column header # Falls should be been % Falls when that column is used for a pie chart.

Google Drive Forms and Shared Collaboration

Google Drive forms now allows for collaborative development!  When you first open the form with the new feature the window shown below pops up.  You can click on the Learn more button for help or go to http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=87809&topic=1360904&ctx=topic

 

 Google forms is a serious contender with database software because creating a form is so intuitive and the output of the form is stored in a spreadsheet or comma separated value file.   Google forms provides seven  types of text entry without having to use database tools or the necessity of creating lookup tables as noted below:

Text — respondents provide short answers

Paragraph text — respondents provide longer answers

Multiple choice — respondents select one option from among several

Check boxes — respondents select as many options as they’d like

Choose from a list — respondents select one option from a drop-down menu

Scale — respondents rank something along a scale of numbers (e.g., from 1 to 5)

Grid — respondents select a point from a two-dimensional grid

 

Just as in other Google Drive apps, you can share the URL with specified others or make visible to everyone.

Google Drive Forms may be a solution that nurses use when working on research and transformation projects that require users to complete a questionnaire. Since the output is stored in a spreadsheet the data can be prepared for statistical analysis.

Free (no fee) Spreadsheet Solutions

The following is a section from the eBook that I am writing on data analysis with spreadsheets and database software.

Free Desktop and Cloud-Based Spreadsheet Software Solutions

You can anticipate that the basic spreadsheet features available in Microsoft Excel and Apple iWork Numbers are also available in the free (no fee) spreadsheet solutions.  If you are not ready to purchase commercial software, but need to work with spreadsheets without being connected to the Internet, consider trying one or more of the free desktop office software packages.

Free Desktop Software Solutions

There is a growing choice of free desktop office software, which includes spreadsheet capabilities.  Table 1 below provides examples.  

Desktop Software Name	Web Address
Apache OpenOffice.org	http://www.openoffice.org
IBM Lotus Symphony	http://www-03.ibm.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home
Kingsoft Office	http://www.kingsoftstore.com/kingsoft-office-freeware.html
LibreOffice	http://www.libreoffice.org/
OxygenOffice	http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/ooop/wiki
SoftMaker FreeOffice	http://freeoffice.com/

Table 1 Free Desktop Spreadsheet Software Solutions

Cloud Based Spreadsheet Software Solutions

Spreadsheet software is also available using the cloud (table 2).  In other words, the software resides on the Internet, rather than a personal computer.  The table below shows four examples of cloud-based spreadsheets.  All require a login and password to use. 

Desktop Software Name	Web Address
Google Drive Spreadsheet	http://drive.google.com/
Sheetster	http://sheetster.com/index.jsp
SkyDrive	http://skydrive.live.com
Zoho	http://www.zoho.com/

Table 2 Cloud-Based Spreadsheet Software Solutions

History of Spreadsheet Software

Prior to electronic spreadsheets calculations were done with pencil and paper, perhaps also using a slide rule, or if one had access to it, an adding machine.  Prior to the use of computers and spreadsheet technology one can only imagine the manual math calculations that allowed Neil Armstrong to walk on the moon and return to earth in 1969, much less to run large city hospitals efficiently. There were no electronic communication or barcode systems to keep up with inventory supply and demand needs in healthcare settings. 

Electronic spreadsheets originated with Richard Mattessich in 1961. Mattessich, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, developed the concept for business accounting  (Mattessich, n.d.).   His research served as a foundation for microcomputer spreadsheet programs, such as VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3, developed in the late 1970’s and 1980’s.  In 1978, Dan Bricklin, a graduate student at Harvard Business School, developed a spreadsheet prototype for VisiCalc for a case study report.  After designing the prototype, Bricklin engaged the assistance of Bob Frankston, a graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with computer science graduate degrees, to create the production code (Bellis, 2012; Fleming, 1997; Frankston, 2012).  Later Bricklin and Frankston created a business to market their VisiCalc product.

During 1970’s and 1980’s personal computer (PC) science continued to develop.  In 1983, the Lotus Development Corporation released Lotus 1-2-3, a precursor to the many spreadsheet software products we use today.  The founders of Lotus 1-2-3 were Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs (High Tech History, 2010). Kapor had left VisiCalc and Sachs had worked with a company that created spreadsheet software for Data General.  The popularity of Lotus 1-2-3 was highest in the 1980’s, but it ebbed sharply in 1988 a year after the release of Excel. Soon afterwards, other competitors began to develop other spreadsheet software applications.  IBM bought Lotus 1-2-3 in 1995.  Lotus 1-2-3 is still available as a commercial product from IBM.

The first iteration of Microsoft Excel was called Multiplan and released in 1982.   Multiplan was redesigned to accommodate additional operating systems and renamed Excel when first released for the Mac in 1985 (Haresoftware, 2008; Peter, 2010; Power, 2004).  Microsoft Excel was released for Windows PCs in 1987 with the sales promotion of “doing everything Lotus 1-2-3 does and better.”  By 1988, Excel was outselling Lotus 1-2-3.  Excel was the first software that allowed the user to customize the spreadsheet using fonts, character attributes, and cell appearance.  It offered auto-calculating and provided the graphical capabilities that are still popular today.

It was not until 2008 that iWork Numbers, the Apple spreadsheet app, was released.  Numbers was a part of the iWork office suite (Apple, 2007). iWork Numbers is now a competitor with Microsoft Excel because of the introduction of the flexible canvas concept that allows a user to arrange more than one spreadsheet and chart in a single layout. Numbers also introduced the contextual format bar, which hides the column letters and row numbers unless the spreadsheet is edited.   Apple released iWork Numbers as a mobile app with the introduction of the iPad in 2010.

Today, there are numerous spreadsheet applications available for a variety of platforms.  Standalone programs are available for desktop, laptop, and mobile computers, such as the iPhone, iPad, and Android phone.  Online cloud spreadsheet software is available for any of the multiple platforms that allow for Internet access.

References

Apple. (2007, August 7). Apple introduces iWork '08  Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/07Apple-Introduces-iWork-08.html

Bellis, M. (2012). The first spreadsheet - VisiCalc - Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston  Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa010199.htm

Fleming, A. M. (1997, February 16). Daniel Bricklin  Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/BRICKLIN.Fleming.HTML

Frankston, B. (2012). Bob Frankston bio  Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://www.frankston.com/public/?name=bio

Haresoftware. (2008). History of Microsoft Excel  Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://www.haresoftware.com/ExcelHistory.htm

High Tech History. (2010, January 26). History of Lotus 1-2-3  Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://hightechhistory.com/2010/01/26/history-of-lotus-1-2-3/

Mattessich, R. (n.d.). Spreadsheet:  Its first computerization (1961-1964)  Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://www.j-walk.com/ss/history/spreadsh.htm

Peter, R. (2010, December 25). The history of Excel  Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://excelhours.blogspot.com/2010/12/history-of-excel.html

Power, D. J. (2004, August 30). A brief history of spreadsheets  Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://dssresources.com/history/sshistory.html

Beware of Malware and Bloatware with Free Office Software

When writing the chapter on spreadsheets for my eBook, I researched free Office software that included a spreadsheet application.  Caution: LibreOffice was one that I found.  When I went to install it, I noticed that it was bundled with unwanted items (bloatware), so I cancelled the install immediately.  Unfortunately, it had already made changes to my computer!  It changed the apps that opened files, for example, .doc files would not open with Word.  It changed my search engine and default search page.  For example, it changed the search page to Incredibar.  I had to go to the Control Panel on the Windows PC to remove Incredibar malware. 

I decided to include the information in the eBook to warn others that I DO NOT recommend downloading LibreOffice.  Apparently, the problem may have been my own unique experience because a couple of days ago PC World was inviting users to test the app.  My recommendation for free office software is still OpenOffice. OpenOffice is now an Apache product. 

eBook Progress

I have been writing an eBook, Introduction to Data Analysis for Healthcare Professionals: Spreadsheet and Database Applications, for several weeks. As noted previously, the plan is to have the book in the Apple iBooks store at no charge.  I plan to use iBooks Author, so for the moment, am writing the book using MS Word.  To prepare the text for iBooks Author, I will save the text as a text file (.txt).  Once the final draft is completed, I will copy the text into iBooks Author.  The next steps will be to add the graphics and video files. I will design the videos as the last.The videos will be created using ScreenFlow.

I am considering publishing a version in the Amazon bookstore as an ePub file.  I will copy the text from MS Word into Apple iWork Pages and save the file in the ePub format. Of course the ePub book will not have the interactive features that are possible with iBooks Author. 

I have chapters about spreadsheets and databases in a good working draft form.  I have started a chapter on using FileMaker Pro tutorials.  I will be covering the following:

• Spreadsheet software
• Microsoft (MS) Excel
• Apple iWork Numbers
• Google Drive Spreadsheets
• Free spreadsheet software (desktop and cloud apps)
•  Database software
• FileMaker Pro (available for  MS Windows and Mac PCs - about, includes history
• FileMaker Go
• MS Access - about, includes history
• Free database software (desktop and cloud apps)
• Spreadsheet tutorials for using
• MS Excel
• Apple iWork Numbers
• Google Drive Spreadsheets
• Database tutorials for using
• FileMaker Pro for the Mac (MS Windows users should be able to find equivalent menus)
• FileMaker Go
• MS Access

I welcome any suggestions for the eBook. 

Creating Sparklines with Google Drive Spreadsheets

In my spare time over the last few days, I have been working on my eBook about data analysis apps.  I discovered that Google Drive Spreadsheet allow users to create Sparklines!  Sparklines allow us to visualize trends within a single spreadsheet cell.  For example, you could show a trend for hemaglobin A1C, blood sugars, any blood chemistry value, or body temperature changes.  There is a great video on the topic by Google Gooru on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDB_TKcHh_0&feature=player_embeddedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDB_TKcHh_0&feature=player_embedded

Apple Numbers Spreadsheet Software Tutorials

I am working on writing my eBook for the ePublishing project.  One of the spreadsheet software discussed in the book will be Apple Numbers from iWork.  It is fascinating to see the differences between Numbers and Excel.  The most significant difference is that Numbers allows the user to have a "canvas" where multiple tables (individual spreadsheets) and charts can be displayed.  The second most notable difference is the ease at which the user can change the display of data.  The third big difference is the number of templates for the user to choose from when opening the program. Excel users will be pleasantly surprised.

There are a number of tutorials for learning Numbers.  The Apple iWork website has a number of short tutorials at https://www.apple.com/iwork/tutorials/#numbers

Of course, YouTube is always a great source for tutorials.  Other tutorials can be located at Lynda.com.  I will be posting some of the Lynda.com tutorials that can be shared on this blog, although they are all probably available on YouTube, too.

The Lynda.com Essentials tutorial is online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uq_DYR0Vi8
I have embedded that video below.