Posted by
Andy Brown
on 10 December 2024
In what is becoming a Christmas tradition, here are a few suggestions for things to buy the nerd in your life (you?) for Christmas this year.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 December 2024
Not before time, we've updated our Power BI Desktop skills test to the latest version. It's interesting to look back at the original test to see just how much has changed!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 November 2024
Think you're good at Power BI Desktop data manipulation? See if you can present our Excel football results as a final table (showing games played, goals scored/conceded and points won) to have a chance of winning this month's £50 prize.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 01 November 2024
Announcing the winner of our October 2024 newsletter competition, giving the answers and showing which questions people found most and least difficult
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 September 2024
Congratulations to Rory O'Connor of Freemans Grattan Holdings for winning last month's logic puzzle competition. Here's the answer!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 September 2024
Feeling stressed? Keep one of these wildlife webcams from Namibia open as you work to put everything in perspective.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 26 September 2024
Many thanks to all of those people who have kindly reviewed us on Google. We are pleased to say that we now have over 50 reviews!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 September 2024
Announcing the winner of last newsletter's competition (and also giving the answers in case anyone is still struggling to identifiy the 16 book titles).
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 September 2024
Five tribute acts played in 5 different venues on successive days of one week in September. Can you use your skills of logical deduction to work out who played which venue when, and what the capacity of each venue was? The incentive is a chance to win our monthly fifty-pound prize.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 July 2024
We've created clues to help you identify 16 different books (they're all well-known). The more you can guess, the greater will be your chances of winning our £50 voucher!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 July 2024
"Is the periodic table yummy? Well, it depends on the element." Any website containing this text bears further investigation. Watch the epic spaceman shrink down by a factor of 10 every 20 seconds until he's the size of an atom, find out how to repair Oreo biscuits using the Japanese art of Kinstugi and learn which elements of the periodic table you should and shouldn't eat: all (and much more) at the Kottke archives.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 20 June 2024
In computing it's enough to solve a problem, but as a bonus it's nice to do so in the most elegant way (although elegance is a subjective quality). This blog gives my 3 favourite ways to solve last month's Excel desert island competition.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 06 June 2024
This month we ask you to travel to the terrifying Skull Island and find the hidden treasure buried there, armed only with some - unlikely - Excel clues
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 June 2024
Apologies for making this word search slightly harder than usual - you can see the answer in this blog, as well as discover who was the lucky win of the month's prize
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 05 June 2024
The Northwest Computer Museum not only has a vast array of old hardware, software, documentation and games on displays, but allows you to interact with much of this. Time to brush up your BBC Basic programming skills?
Posted by
Andrew Gould
on 09 May 2024
It's my 20th anniversary at Wise Owl this month! I'm celebrating in style with a Power BI data model and report summarising some statistics from the past two decades of teaching IT courses.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 May 2024
Congratulations to Samantha Wareham of Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust for winning our Easter quiz (out of the 47 answers received, hers was the entry chosen by our randomised Excel sorting hat). You can see some further analysis of the answers in this blog.
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 03 May 2024
Our grid contains 24 hidden thematic treats. Once you've found them all, the unused letters will spell out a message. Email this to us and you have a change of winning a £50 voucher!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 27 March 2024
While doing a thorough site audit we came across some pages which we no longer link to, but which we don't want to lose. This blog ensures that you (and Google) can still get to them!
Posted by
Andy Brown
on 04 March 2024
Last month we asked you to identify 5 Abba songs from cryptic pictures. Out of 16 correct entries our randomised sorting hat chose the name of Alison Palmer of Devon Council, who wins a £25 voucher. An explanation of the answers follows!