CHAPTER 1- Introduction to Spreadsheet

SPREAD SHEET

Introduction to  Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is a grid (system of numbered squares for map references) that organizes data into columns and rows, on which information can be sorted in ascending or descending order. Spreadsheet allows one to easily display information and insert formulas to work with data.

Types of spreadsheets include the manual and the electronic spreadsheets. The manual one is drafted manually in large books ruled into columns and rows. Electronic spreadsheets are basically three; the Microsoft Excel, Lotus1‐2‐3, Quarto Professional, others include Informix etc.

Spreadsheet have become an indispensable part of industries and businesses for a lot of reasons;

1. It is designed to help manage and control information flow.
2. It can be used as an electronic file cabinet
3. It enhances communication within an organization
4. It can combine graphic and some word processing capabilities
5. It is wide and spacious enough to accept large volumes of data that big corporations generate
6. It can accept numerical data and carry out some logical processing.
7. It can perform some tedious, repetitive and time consuming logical operations within seconds.

THE MICROSOFT EXCEL

The success of the windows OS in the market has aided the popularity of the Excel spreadsheet in households and firms (both large and small), to an extent that major competition like APPLE had to integrate it into their OS.

Excel has 16,384 columns and 1,048,576 rows depending on the version of the software you are using. As mentioned earlier will be using EXCEL 2016 version fro the sake of our lecture, but chrome users can use the google spreadsheet from google apps the intersection of the column (vertical axis) and row (horizontal axis) is called a CELL, which is the location where data is entered to. A column is identified is by letter and a row is identified by numbers, hence a cell will have a name such as A1.

In the excel window leftmost column and the topmost row often are reserved for descriptive labels that identify the value stored in each of the cells in the grid. The rightmost column and lower rows of a set of figures are often set aside for row and column totals respectively.

Definition of Terms

• a CELL refers to the location of data. It is activated by placing the mouse cursor on it or by navigation keys.
• a RANGE  is the sequence of cells e.g. A1 to A7
• Labels are text entries of other cells
• Values are numeric information, most numbers
• FORMULAS refers to values designed to manipulate data in cells that contain values
• FUNCTIONS are in built formulas in excel, which helps in data manipulations e.g. =SUM (B4:G4), which adds all cells starting with B4 and ending with G4.
• ADD-INGS are specially designed packages which perform specific functions, to enhance the spreadsheet functions Excel has some in built plug-ins, which must be activated to make use of them. Others can be downloaded and installed online. Examples of plug-ins includes Power view, analysis toolpak, Euro currency tools etc. which are readily installed to excel.

This is the end of the first chapter, kindly leave comments below for your question and share with friends. In the next chapter we shall start with formulas in spreadsheet

New Dawn in Automobile Industry: Air and Electric powered cars.

Automobiles are self-propelled vehicles used for transportation. History of automobiles date back to the 15^th century, when interaction between Portuguese and China brought about advancement in technologies. By 1600s steamed powered engines models have been developed, but the first full sized steam powered engine automobile was developed by Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. Thirty-eight years later Francois Issac de Rivaz designed the first car powered by an internal combustion engine fueled by hydrogen and finally in 1886 the first petrol or gasoline powered automobile the Benz Patent-Motor was invented by Karl Benz.

With rapid progress achieved in the 20^th century and lots of innovations in the 21^st century, electric and air powered were invented to minimize the social and economic costs of using gasoline which has become major problems in our 21^st century urban centers.

AIR POWERED CARS

A compressed-air vehicle (CAV) is powered by an air engine, using compressed air, which is stored in a tank. Instead of mixing fuel with air and burning it in the engine to drive pistons with hot expanding gases; compressed-air vehicles use the expansion of compressed air to drive their pistons.

Air powered engines were first built during a period of experimental daily use in metropolitan street transit during 1880s and 1890s by companies organized by investors and air car advocates such as General Herman Haupt.

Post World War II, the air engine development went down as a result of great development in the crude oil sector, but due to oil shortages in the 1970s, air powered cars gained attention again and a few companies started showing interest.

As a result of the rekindled interest there came different designs for the air powered automobiles; conventional, hybrid, closed cycle, and free range air cars, as well as conversions for existing engines.

How it works?

A compressed-air vehicle (CAV) is powered by an air engine, using compressed air, which is stored in a tank. Instead of mixing fuel with air and burning it in the engine to drive pistons with hot expanding gases; compressed-air vehicles use the expansion of compressed air to drive their pistons.

ELECTRIC POWERED CARS

ELECTRIC POWERED CARS

Electric Car, automobile propelled by one or more electric motors, drawing power from an onboard source of electricity. Electric cars are mechanically simpler and more durable than gasoline-powered cars.

Electric cars were first built in the 1800s by France and Britain; America started developing their own electric cars in 1895. In the United States in 1899 and 1900, there was a great sale in electric cars. Recently there has been campaign against environmental pollution and the use of engines that causes degradation of natural habitat, this and the search for a healthier life in cities has led to the increased demand for electric powered cars.

How it works?

The electric motor gets energy from a controller, which regulates the amount of power—based on the driver’s use of an accelerator pedal. Pure electric cars, run only on batteries and need a charger to replenish the battery's power from an electrical outlet. The electric car (also known as electric vehicle or EV) uses energy stored in its rechargeable batteries, which are recharged by common household electricity.

Availability: Currently zero pollution AIRpods by MDI are available, and there lots of promises from manufacturers like Tata and there is more to come before the year runs out.

Electric cars dominated the recent Paris Motor show with Volkswagen AG and Mercedes-Benz, leading the change in the industry. Currently electric cars available include Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model S P90D – Ludicrous, Honda Fit EV, Chevrolet Spark EV, Kia Soul EV and a whole bunch of them, with more to come.

AIR POWERED CARS

ARE YOU SAYING WE SHOULD ADOPT UNITARY SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT?

This was one of the questions a student from the audience asked one of the speakers on day two of the last Annual Economic Students Conference in OAU. 

He asked because the speaker mentioned that the number of states in the country should be reduced, explaining that most of the states cannot generate enough income for themselves.

We should first understand that Nigeria, might be called a Federal Republic, but we don't practice the principles to the letter. Federalism is a system of government in which power is constitutionally divided between a central authority and a number of regions.

Before military rule in Nigeria we had three major regions, during the military era States were created, with last ones in 1996. Military Government, disregards the constitution and separations of power, so state creation was a bit easier and arbitrary.

One important factor they failed to consider then was credibility of those States, many a time they claimed it was for developmental purpose. Of course one the advantages of Federalism is the autonomy enjoyed by the regions, which aids the development of the regions at their own pace.

Earlier, I said we don't practice Federalism to its letter, and the major reason is how power is shared between our levels of Government in Nigeria. 
In Nigeria, states cannot exploit their own resources. Most of the resources can only be exploited by the Federal Government. Too many resources are wasting away because FG, won't exploit them and states aren't constitutionally allowed to.

Nigeria States, don't have autonomy over crucial sectors to their development. An example is the power sector; States don't generate their own electricity. While some have coal deposits, they must still depend on the national source. If Federalism had been practiced to its letters, and the states are allowed to source for power on their own, many of our States would be developed more than they are today.

By the last week of every month State Governors with their delegates run to Abuja for allocations. In true Federalism, it should be that the States contribute to the central government purse and this is why I think many of the states should be merged. 
These States are not autonomous in that they cannot survive without FG's allocation. Hence in reality Nigeria Federalism is more of a Unitary System, where the regions cannot do anything without the Central Government.

Finally, even though States creation or merger is a rigorous process with our rigid constitution, we can start the process today. Ultimately, States that cannot generate enough IGR to pay her civil servants should not be allowed to continue. Also, states should be given more autonomy so they can actually develop on their own.

This Article was originally published on Jan 21, on Victor Awotidebe's facebook page

6 Ways to Improve Your Life in The Next 5 Years

These are six ways to help improve your life and achieve set goals, I’m sure anyone who has included these attitudes into life must can testify to them. Make them your habits and you will be grateful come five years from now:

1.            Carry a Note Pad and Pen Always: Every day we find ourselves in unexpected situations, occasions and we cannot be sure where to learn something important about life, our jobs and many other things. If you are looking to improve your life then be ready to learn from the most ridiculous places, you should always carry a note pad and pen, so you can put down every little idea that comes your way. Writing them down makes them easier to develop, also taking down notes at events helps bring clarity when you reflect on the ideas later. One has to be very discreet with this rule as and carry it out on daily bases, even when going out to have fun because the idea which ensures your success might pop up while having fun.

2.            Listening: A lot of people especially younger generations are highly impatient, never ready listen anywhere whether its school, a function or worship center. Listening is very important to our life, as it is by far different from hearing someone talk, it requires more attention and we gain more from the conversion. These days it is actually hard to listen due to our mobile phones, the number of people you have to reply their chat per hour is way too much and lots of us are always distracted when someone is talking to us or we are in conference, its either we are doing something on our phones or we can't wait to get back to our phones.

If you want something highly productive from your life in years to come learn to pay attention, whenever someone is trying to communicate with you physically. You get to learn from what they are saying and you are not in any way disrespecting them.

3.            Meditation/Reflection: This is also highly important, there is no better way to know how good you look than checking your reflection in the mirror. Many leaders in the past and our present time practice reflection or meditation. Taking time to meditate on your life helps you figure out what direction you are heading towards, if redirection is needed you can always discover when you reflect on your actions. Reflection helps to know how close you are to achieving your goals.

Spend at least 45 minutes daily, reflecting on your daily activities, long and short term goals and you will be happier about how things have turned out in five years.

4.            Sell your Image: Your image says a lot about you, what picture comes to peoples’ mind, when they hear your name is highly important. Amongst your colleagues make sure you are well known and something good and important is attached to your image. Always be cheerful, introduce yourself to at least two people a day tell them what you do, you cannot be sure who is capable of helping you.

5.            Be an Opportunist: Take good advantage of every opportunity that comes your way. Chances are rare in life, once we miss them there is a little chance we can get them back. If there seems any opportunity you are constantly open to daily, make good use of it today because sooner or later it won’t be there again.

6.            Build a network: Lastly build a network of people, resourceful people who can actually make positive contributions in your life. Often times they are people you have the same goals as they do, that way you can easily achieve your goals. Also, it is not a bad thing to have a failing, when in need of help remember to ask no matter how awkward it seems, stalling will make the problem last longer.

7 LAWS OF POWER USED BY LEADERS AND CELEBS TO ENCHANT THEIR FOLLOWERS (contd)

5.  MAKE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENT SEEM EFFORT LESS: When we have achieved a particular goal, many of like to tell people how stressful and tedious it was achieving it. This creates the wrong impression, when you successfully complete a task making it seem simple gives you a god like aura.

If you have ever seen a program code, or html page in notepad, only programmers can make sense of it, presenting it to someone who knows about nothing the program or html will be wrong as they not understand it or appreciate, but when the web page is launched, they see the beauty and your work is highly appreciated.

Sometimes ago the rapper/ singer Drake, disrespected Jay Z on his track summer sixteen, and everyone knew it. Jay Z never made a public statement, but replied him with a sentence in one of his verses, when he did a lot rap fans respected saying he ended Drake’s career with the shortest bar in rap history. The truth is Drake is a great rapper, but not as long in the game as Jay Z, who seems a godfather to lots of rapper, so for drake to disrespect him, was really a huge blow on his ego, but then he turned it around replying a whole verse with a single bar.

6.  DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE: When you seem to be serving two masters, do not give your loyalty to anyone, especially when the two are in a competition. Giving your loyalty to anyone especially when you are not sure who will win, might get you in trouble, even when your party or candidate wins you would have created unnecessary enmity for yourself. An example is choosing sides when two lovers are having dispute, you should remember that regardless they will eventually make up.

Playing both sides gives a sense of power over both teams, making yourself a kind of consultant for both sides. When the war is over they will both be your friends and owe you a lot of favors.

7. PLAY ON PEOPLES NEED TO BELIEVE TO CREATE A CULT LIKE FOLLOWING: People often want to believe there is more to someone who amazes them than meets the eye. Hence to maintain some power over their fans or audience, celebrities do create an air of mystery around them, making them seem like a semi-god.

In the US a lot of celebrities between 2007 and 2011 were allegedly named members of a secret cult, to an extent that the whole Hollywood was made to seem like a cult.

Beyoncé was allegedly possessed by the spirit of an old Egyptian god, a lot of rappers who had previously described themselves using figurative expressions were taken for it, Lil Wayne for example was said not be a human and videos emerged describing him as an alien in human skin. The truth is to maintain such air of mystery none of this ever confirmed or denied this acquisitions, they became more popular than ever and made lots of money in those years.

Also using the cult like mystery, many individuals in the religious circle have made themselves into a god to be worshiped by their followers. Their followers believe them to be untouchable by any human law, any attempt to speak against them will mean the wrath of god. This strategy has been used by many charlatans’ overtime, note that while you may not practice this law it is worth noting, so as not fall for enchantments of false leaders or charlatans.

Some of these rules may not be directly applicable, but keeping them in mind can help understand actions of some people. The best form of power is to anticipate every single move of someone or their need making them always dependent on you.

7 LAWS OF POWER USED BY LEADERS AND CELEBS TO ENCHANT THEIR FOLLOWERS

The book “48 laws of power” was written by Robert Greene, first published in 2000 in the United States. This is a very insightful book, opening minds into how leaders in the past maintained their power, detailing how some who could not observe these rules lost their powers and sometimes paid ultimate price losing their life.

While we should all keep in mind that there are no universal laws to acquiring wealth or power and many of the personalities never a code to maintaining their written in any book, we cannot however learn from the success and failings of others, so we might not make the same mistake or so we can achieve what took them years to figure out in a short while.

In my observations over time, I discovered many of these rules are still applicable in our society. Many of our leaders and popular celebrities have either subconsciously or consciously followed or ignored these rules, and it certainly has paid off or backfired either ways. So let’s share some of this rules with their applications in our contemporary world;

1.      GUARD YOUR REPUTATION WITH YOUR LIFE: Reputation is very much important, probably the most important after your life. What people think of you, their perception of you depends on how you portray yourself, even when people lie about and spread rumors there is always an element of truth in it, so guard your reputation at all cost. An example is US stand with democracy and observance of fundamental human laws, a country inhumane laws knows that US will not publicly support it at least. Notice the popular celebrities Jay Z and Beyoncé, they never discuss their personal issues in public, sometimes ago when it was reported that Queen B’s sister slapped Jay Z in an elevator, both of them never made comments as to the cause of that and this has helped to greatly keep their fan base.

2.      COURT ATTENTION AT ALL COST: There is the saying, there is no such thing has bad publicity so long as you are in the news, it does not matter why you are. see every opportunity to do something as a means get known. To those just getting off with their careers this is very important, be ready to do volunteer jobs. A lot of time senior colleagues might give assignments that are not related to your job, always leave a good impression regardless.

Sometimes ago the dead Kola Olawuyi, published a story on whom who claims to be God, if you watch or listen I’m pretty sure you will be amazed by how convinced she is that she is God and that alone has given her attention, using some elements of mystery people will want to listen to you, even if they might want to leave latter you have made an impression. When you look at celebrities like Kim K and sisters even though they did things people considered unacceptable, they got the attention needed and has maintained a large fan base since then, making millions in the fashion and entertainment industry.

3.      CONCENTRATE YOUR FORCES: Involving yourself in too many adventures might make you less productive, find something you are very skillful at and put all your energies into it, you will achieve more. We often advised these days to put our energies into all we can but we should learn from stories of people like Mark Zuckerberg, Trump and Bill Gates. They continue to channel their investment towards the same line they started with, Trump’s father was into real estate and he focused more on it and he is highly successful today at it. Glo focused at providing data cheaply, now they hold the largest share of mobile phone users in Nigeria.

4.      ENTER ACTION WITH BOLDNESS: These I can give to Nigerian politicians who has been accused of one crime or the other especially the current senate leadership, regardless of these alleged crimes, they maintained a public image, showing no fear or cowardice at any point in time.

Having doubts at the beginning of an event is a recipe for failure, especially when you leading people. Followers will abandon their leader at any sense of weakness, this was how PDP gradually lost the last election, they often showed cowardice in many events they could have boldly maintained their stand. Obasanjo’s tenure is by far the most successful, all because of his approach to issues and till date no one can question him, he is forever highly respected by both citizens and leaders.  

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Inflation not Recession, Recession not Inflation (Pt 2)

Peak in economic cycle is the highest level of economic activities, when activities are falling from this level then the economy is approaching a recession. RECESSION by most acceptable definitions refers to a fall in GDP for two consecutive quarters, a sustained recession is called DEPRESSION. At the lowest point of economic activities, we have TROUGH. When economic activities are rising from the lowest point, the economy is in RECOVERY period. The stages from a Peak to the Trough is called Business Cycle. Nigerians should not that this is cyclical not periodic, and every economy experiences it.

Now, often times these days Nigerians confuse inflation with recession. Traditionally inflation should occur in a time of economic boom or expansion, as recession is theoretically a time of low economic activities, with prices steeping downwards. Majorly a recession features increase unemployment as firms will have to lay off workers due to fall in prices, incomes are also falling because there are few jobs and firms might have to cut workers’ salaries too, a recession is often characterized by deflation, not inflation. Hence we can say that Nigeria is a very unique situation which is often called STAGFLATION, a situation when increase in prices is accompanied by increase in unemployment.

How long these issues will last in every economy depends on how effective policies by made by planners are. Presently, most talks from government and ministry of finance are about getting money from international or regional bodies. These two problems cannot be solved by just putting more money into the economy, trying to expand an economy experiencing inflation, will further escalate issues and a recession should be solved by expansionary policies. What planners should do in this situation is to understand causes of these two issues, and proffer solutions.

Hence, we should understand what has stimulated inflation in our economy, which is really obvious. Increase in local price of oil products (majorly PMS) and fall in the value of our currency relative to other currencies. To solve Nigeria inflation problems, government must implement policies to reduce cost of oil production in Nigeria, so that the increase being transferred to consumers can be reduced.

Recession is due to reduction in economic activities, which is measured by GDP. To end recession, production must be stimulated, with reduction in oil production this problem might further escalate. Hence there is the need to solve the problem of vandalism.

Following the discussion to this point, it can be noted that stimulating local production can reduce inflation by reducing import bills and also stimulating local production can solve recession by increasing GDP.

Hence it seems a great idea to want to borrow so production can be stimulated by raising funds from available sources, but we should not forget that prices of other products depends on price of PMS, hence to solve inflation in the short run will be to reduce its cost of production(PMS). Also, it should be noted that getting more funds will not solve the Nigerian recession problems but, actually using the money to stimulate productions.

Image Credit: dailyreckoning.com via google images

Inflation​ ​not​ ​Recession,​ ​Recession​ ​not​ ​Inflation (Pt 1)

Both inflation and recession are now very popular terms among Nigerians, because these are the present economic problems facing the country and like every macroeconomic issue it affects everyone both rich and poor, young and old. Lots of Nigeria have misconceived this two economic concepts, even though we are presently experiencing both in Nigeria, these two are distinct economic phenomena, both have different policy implications and policy instruments to be geared towards them are different.

INFLATION by economic theory is the persistent rise in general price level, the general price level refers to the average of prices of all commodity at a particular time. This means that increase in the price of one commodity does not necessarily mean inflation has occurred, for inflation to occur by increase in price of one commodity that commodity must be on a very demand in the market, that is why fluctuations in prices PMS often lead to fluctuations in average price level in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s inflation rate has been on the increase since last year, increasing month by month and now at 17.6% according to NBS. Having inflation close to 20% is not very good, by economic theory double figured inflation like 20 per cent are termed galloping inflation, presently every week you get to the market and you cannot buy most goods the price you bought them the previous week, so imagine how difficult it might be if inflation in Nigeria, gets to that rate.

ECONOMIC RECESSION is a term from BUSINESS OR ECONOMIC CYCLE, a business or economic cycle refers to short run fluctuations to aggregate economic activities, economic cycle is often called business cycle (is majorly a stock market term), because stock market prices tend to rise or fall in anticipation of economic changes (GDP). This means economic cycle refers to shocks to aggregate economic activities, which is measured by gross domestic products in most countries. Phases of economic cycle include PEAK, RECESSION or CONTRACTION, TROUGH and RECOVERY or EXPANSION periods.

Read Part 2 here