Most people view Microsoft’s Excel as a simple “spreadsheet program” that’s rapidly being eclipsed by free web-based apps that run on any cheap laptop.
Well think again. Modern-day Excel is an advanced analytics tool that can push today’s fastest hardware to their limits, and it’s sexy enough that it rates its own eSports coverage. No joke—thousands tuned in live to watch the Financial Modelling World Cup that was broadcast by ESPN.
Editor’s note: This story first ran on February 4, 2022, but with ESPN airing an Excel esports: All-Star Battle on ESPN 8: The Ocho over the weekend of August 5, we’re republishing it for spreadsheet enthusiasts who missed the fascinating discussion the first time. If you’re interested in testing your mettle against Excel masters, you can register for the 2022 Financial Modelling World Cup Open, taking place beginning October 8. The $50 entry fee has been temporarily reduced to $25 to celebrate the sport’s ESPN 8: The Ocho moment. Our original interview continues below.
Intrigued by the interest of “gamers” and curious to see just how hard advanced Excel users are pushing the application, PCWorld decided to interview spreadsheet superstar Jason Moore. Moore is the head of analytics and data at an investment firm, and semi-finalist who won cold, hard cash in December’s Financial Modeling World Cup. Moore is also the same Excel expert who provided PCWorld with a workbook that we used to test the the latest and greatest laptop CPUs.
To find out how much hardware you need to push spreadsheets to their limits, what it’s like to be an Excel esports player, and just why Excel is so powerful, read on.
If you think a Core i3 laptop with 8GB of RAM is all you need to run Excel hard, think again. To drive Excel like a real pro competitor, you need as many CPU cores as you can get and a ton of RAM too.
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PCW: A lot of people have a hard time believing that Excel is an esport—is this for real?
Jason Moore: I still can’t believe it, but the comments from the >300,000 YouTube viewers that watched the FMWC finals don’t lie. The challenges were engaging and well designed; and everyone can appreciate a well-designed Excel formula.
PCW: How did you get into Excel as an esport?
Jason Moore: LinkedIn advertisement that asked “Are you the go-to Excel person at work?” Uh…yeah, sign me up!
PCW: What do you do for a day job?
Jason Moore: The company I work for invests in commercial real estate stocks (apartments, hotels, shopping centers, etc.). As the Head of Data/Analytics, I build processes that analyze and present data to the team. For example, each night we track nightly rates at most US hotels for the upcoming six months. Excel is the final stop on that data’s journey to becoming actionable intelligence (i.e., charts that help us understand which companies or markets are doing better or worse than expected).
Jason Moore works as the head of analytics and data at an investment firm and uses five PCs to drive Excel which he says are never fast enough.
Jason Moore
PCW: So you actually drive Excel for a living. Can you describe what Excel is for people who still think of it as a simple spreadsheet application?
Jason Moore: My Excel skills are the differentiator between myself and others in finance, thus it absolutely pays the bills. Excel combines the basic functions of a database (e.g., SQL), a programming language (e.g., Python), and visual analytics (e.g., Tableau) into one powerful platform. Don’t get me wrong, we utilize all those other tools and more, but Excel is the most productive.
PCW: Would you say there’s any particular functions that are the most popular tools you use in Excel more often?
Jason Moore: Besides the obvious basic functions (SUM, AVERAGE, etc.), my go-to functions are AVERAGEIFS, IFERROR, IF, FIND, OFFSET, INDEX-MATCH, and even old school “ctrl-shift” arrays to find weighted averages based on multiple parameters. Although I’d say VBA is the most powerful “tool” in Excel.
Q: Is it fast enough for you? A: Never, which is why I use five PCs.
PCW: Do you use a lot of VBA other scripting or programming languages in Excel?
Jason Moore: In my opinion, VBA is what makes Excel the best programming tool in the world. Using the record macro tool, VBA allows anyone to become a programmer; it’s how I learned to code. From simple task automation, to complex IF-THEN process trees, interacting with external databases, and navigating websites before grabbing their underlying data. VBA can do almost anything while the familiar Excel grid is right there to display your data at each step. We use Python and Alteryx to prep massive datasets, but nothing beats Excel for that “last mile” of delivery. Tableau comes close in certain situations, but Excel wins 9 of 10 times.
PCW: There seems to be this tension between people who think a database is a better use than Excel for very large data sets. Do you agree?
Jason Moore: Define very large. To some a 500,000-record table (20 columns wide) is very large, but Excel crushes a database for extracting insight from that size table. Formatting, searching, sorting, filtering, and charting are all easier in Excel. We have a billion records in a SQL warehouse, but most of those records originate and/or terminate in a spreadsheet (e.g., charts). Obviously databases are better for storing data, and vaults are better for storing money, but not when you actually need to use it. Excel makes it easy enough to pull just the data you need from almost any warehouse.
PCW: You provided PCWorld with a real-world Excel Workbook that we recently used to review laptop CPUs. Can you tell us a little about it?
Jason Moore: That workbook was built in March 2020 to track COVID cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and vaccination rates from thousands of jurisdictions around the world. It also tracks reopening indicators from Google, OpenTable, the TSA, etc. and sends everyone summary charts each morning. It’s half work, half personal to be honest. Investment professionals are trained not to trust anyone, so analyzing real-time data from various unrelated parties helped us filter out the noise fairly quickly, spotting trends and inflections before most others. Although helpful, it’s the only major spreadsheet I don’t want to survive forever; hoping to retire it soon.
PCW: Can you describe the kinds of things you can use Excel to analyze?
Jason Moore: Let’s say you wanted to track the tenants at 3,000 major shopping centers across the U.S. The goal is to understand which retailers are expanding/contracting and which landlords are doing better/worse.
You write numerous Python scripts that scrape tenant lists from the property websites each night (property, tenant, unit, square feet), uploading them to a SQL database. It’s at this stage that Excel becomes a critical differentiator. The data is messy! You’d be surprised how many ways Best Buy is spelled, or how often shopping centers change their name. Sure, Python can attempt to handle it with some fuzzy math algos, or a developer can build a GUI in C++… but I’m not a coder and good luck making either of those transparent to the end user (a financial analyst who works in Excel all day).
So we built spreadsheets that interact with the database (using macros), allowing a person to spot-check and correct various abnormalities once per week in just 10 minutes for all 3,000 shopping centers. Another macro assembles the cleansed data for each landlord’s portfolio, quantifying various metrics over time, compares it to company-reported data and our internal models, then sends an email with summary charts & tables and a link to the raw data should the analyst wish to dig deeper.
P.S., Excel can also scrape the tenant lists from the websites.
No joke: Here’s Excel using all 36-threads of a Core i9 and nearly 64GB or RAM too. (Right click on image and select open in new tab to view original image.)
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The hardware you need to drive Excel hard
PCW: There’s a belief that Excel doesn’t need much hardware to run, can you describe the computer, or PCs you use for Excel? Such as what kind of CPU and how many RAM and storage?
Jason Moore: The latest build (June 2020) is a Core i9-10900X with 256GB of Samsung DDR4-2666 RAM and a 2TB Samsung 983 Enterprise SSD. Some spreadsheets run the CPU at 100 percent for hours, so it has an Asetek 650LS 120mm CPU Cooler. Having as many cores as possible and at least 64GB of RAM is key.
PCW: How large do your spreadsheets get?
Jason Moore: My current record is a 2.3GB stock-picking algorithm. It’s 95 percent calculations, not just a giant warehouse. I’d say my average size is 50 MBs. We had to upgrade everyone’s office PCs so my colleagues could open my spreadsheets; 16GB of RAM isn’t enough if you’re a heavy Excel user (or know someone who is).
PCW: Since you’re a “gamer,” do you run RGB on your builds?
Jason Moore: Haha, no, I had to Google what you meant by that. I’ll talk to Puget Systems, perhaps we can build one that lights up green for “buy” and red for “sell.”
Jason Moore: Never, which is why I have five PCs. I use LogMeIn to access four of them each day, along with dozens of scheduled tasks to fire programs at certain times.
PCW: What kind of monitor do you run and what resolution? Do you run multiple monitors?
Jason Moore: I’ve learned with Excel you want to be consistent with monitor resolution. If you set row height on a 2k resolution monitor it will look squished on a 1080p monitor. Given my numerous PCs I’m still running 1080p until we can switch everything at once.
PCW: What about keyboard and mouse? Mechanical switches or dome switches? Is it a full keyboard or compressed without 10-key?
Jason Moore: Your standard Logitech keyboard with 10-key and normal wheel mouse. You gotta have a 10-key.
Excel eSports player don’t require mechanical keyboards but the 10-key is a must.
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Microsoft Excel versus Google Sheets, and what skills you need
PCW: Excel vs. Google Sheets: Which wins, and will Sheets ever compete with Excel?
Jason Moore: I’ve worked in finance almost 18 years and have never seen a Google Sheet. My kids use Sheets (middle and high school), but anyone serious about working in finance will want to move on sooner than later. There were moments when I thought Microsoft was dumbing down Excel and considered trying Sheets, but I ended up just using Excel 2010 for about 10 years (it remains their most stable version IMO). Security concerns are the only reason I’m now using Microsoft 365.
PCW: What are some tips for someone who wants to get into your line of work as far as education or skills to acquire?
Jason Moore: Build a spreadsheet to analyze your monthly spending, your daily electrical usage and/or solar production, local crime statistics, government budgets, inflation metrics, home sales, your investment portfolio, sports stats… you get the picture. Make a simple spreadsheet about a topic that interests you, then tweak it, add more data, record a macro, then more data. There are terabytes of free data available to everyone (e.g., data.gov, NYC Open Data, BLS, BEA, Census Bureau, etc.). OzGrid.com is my go-to Excel resource.
PCW: What’s your best advice for someone getting into advanced Excel techniques?
Jason Moore: Purchase some case studies from Financial Modeling World Cup; solve them yourself then do it again six months later. Watch the YouTube videos from FMWC champ Diarmuid Early, or MrExcel’s Bill Jelen. Join a community of like-minded people on LinkedIn and share your modeling approaches.
PCW: Is there anything you think we should cover that we didn’t cover or—that you want people to know about potential Excel esports players or heavy Excel users?
Jason Moore: Excel doesn’t get enough credit because most people have never actually seen what it’s capable of, even those who have used it for decades. In a messy world it enables an ideal blend of man and machine, hard-coded history and an unscripted future, data and insight…
One of the most irritating (and slightly painful) parts of joining a Microsoft Teams call could soon be fixed by a new update.
The video conferencing service is a popular choice for many companies, meaning calls with large numbers of participants joining at the same time, and from the same location (such as a meeting room) are a common occurrence.
However, often when multiple people join a meeting in the same room, a feedback loop is created, which causes echo, which in most cases quickly escalates to howling – with Microsoft likening the noise to when a musician holds the mic too close to a loudspeaker.
Teams’ howling
Fortunately, a new fix is coming for Microsoft Teams users. In its entry in the official Microsoft 365 roadmap (opens in new tab), the new “Ultrasound Howling Detection” describes how it aims to prevent this noise for users on Windows and Mac across the world.
Microsoft says that the update should mean if multiple users on laptops join from the same location, it will share with the user that another Teams Device is detected in their vicinity and is already joined with audio to the current meeting.
If a user has already joined with their audio on, Microsoft Teams will automatically mute the mic and speakers of any new the person who then joins the call, hopefully putting an end to the howling and screeching feedback.
Thankfully, the update is already listed as being in development, with an expected general availability date of March 2023, so users shouldn’t have to wait too long to enjoy.
The new updates are the result of using a machine learning model trained on 30,000 hours of speech samples, and include echo cancellation, better adjusting audio in poor acoustic environments, and allowing users to speak and hear at the same time without interruptions.
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Mike Moore is Deputy Editor at TechRadar Pro. He has worked as a B2B and B2C tech journalist for nearly a decade, including at one of the UK’s leading national newspapers and fellow Future title ITProPortal, and when he’s not keeping track of all the latest enterprise and workplace trends, can most likely be found watching, following or taking part in some kind of sport.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods lands in theaters on March 17. (Image credit: Warner Bros.)
The final trailer for Shazam! Fury of the Gods has debuted online – and it looks even more charming, funnier, frenetic, and darker than its predecessor.
Shazam’s sequel flick arrives in theaters worldwide on March 17, so it’s about time we were given another look at the forthcoming DC Extended Universe movie (read our DC movies in order guide to find out where it’ll fit in that timeline). Luckily, Warner Bros. has duly obliged. Check it out below:
Okay, there’s some messy CGI and a slightly corny vibe about Shazam 2. But hey, the first problem can be ironed out before the superhero film takes flight, while the latter is part of what makes this movie series spellbinding (see what we did there?).
But we digress – you’re here because you want to find out what you missed from Shazam! Fury of the Gods‘ new trailer. Below, we’ve pointed out six things you might have overlooked. So, what are you waiting for? Shout “Shazam!” and let’s dive in.
1. Who are the Daughters of Atlas?
New movie, new villains. (Image credit: Warner Bros.)
For a film centered around Shazam, we don’t actually see the titular superhero appear in the official trailer for the first 20 seconds.
Instead, we get another glimpse at Fury of the Gods‘ villains, aka the Daughters of Atlas. The powerful trio comprises the power-hungry Hespera (Helen Millen), dragon-riding Kalypso (Lucy Liu), and Athena (Rachel Zegler), the latter of whom seems particularly torn about how the sisters are going about their business.
So, why are they gunning for Shazam and his superpowered foster siblings? Essentially, when Billy Batson was gifted his abilities by Djimon Hounsou’s wizard in the film film (available now on HBO Max), one of those powers was the Stamina of Atlas. The Daughters of Atlas aren’t too happy about their father’s ability being passed down to a child, so they want to take back what is theirs – and they’ll do it so by any means necessary.
2. Mythological monsters
Shazam isn’t the only person taking flight in Fury of the Gods. (Image credit: Warner Bros.)
Shazam’s first DCEU outing featured some horror-imbued creatures in the form of the Seven Deadly Sins. How, then, do you go about topping (or, at the very least) matching what came before? Throw in a bunch of myth-based monsters, of course.
Kalypso’s imposing dragon is the most notable inclusion. It feature prominently throughout the trailer, and we even get an amusing Game of Thrones reference from Shazam – “Hey, Khaleesi!” – in the movie. Hey, Warner Bros. loves to mention its suite of IPs in as many of its films as possible.
But Kalypso’s wyvern isn’t the only fairy-tale-based beast we see. Minotaurs, griffons, and demonic unicorns are just three of the other monsters who’ll turn up in Fury of the Gods. Basically, don’t expect this to be an easy fight for Shazam and company to save the world.
3. You can’t get the staff these days
“So I just point it and then what?” (Image credit: Warner Bros.)
Saving earth from a new titanic threat will be even harder when Shazam’s adoptive family are stripped of their powers, too. And it seems that the staff, which was wielded by Hounsou’s wizard in the first movie, is the key to giving and taking those abilities away.
In 2019’s Shazam!, the titular hero gave powers to his foster siblings to help him combat the Seven Deadly Sins and Doctor Sivana. They’ve still got those power in Fury of the Gods, too, but they won’t have them for long, based by what the trailer suggests.
The footage shows Freddy Freeman and Mary Bromfield being drained of their abilities by the Daughters of Atlas at various points. The trio are using the wizard’s staff to rob the teens of their powers, so it’s clearly of major importance to the movie’s main players.
Later, we see Shazam wielding it – not before he asks the wizard to take his powers back, mind you, when he becomes convinced he can’t defeat the Daughters of Atlas. Anyway, Shazam’s brandishing of the staff suggests he needs it to boost his own abilities if he’s going to defeat the movie’s antagonists and give his siblings their powers back. Expect the staff to play a vital role in Fury of the Gods‘ plot, then.
4. Prison break
Time to break out, Mr. Wizard. (Image credit: Warner Bros.)
In order to get the wizard’s staff, it seems the Daughters of Atlas go after Hounsou’s magic wielder to obtain it.
We see Hounsou’s character imprisoned at various points, including a shot of Hespera chastising him for giving the power of the gods to Billy, Freddy, and company. “You ripped it from our father’s core,” she tells him, which implies Hounsou’s wizard might not be as mighty and heroic as we were led to believe.
Anyway, Hounsou’s wizard interacts with Shazam later in the trailer, so he clearly escapes captivity. Whether he does so alone, or he enlists Shazam’s help – does that magic-infused dust, which he sends through his prison cell window, have something to do with it? – is unclear. Regardless, we’ll see Hounsou’s character break out at some stage.
5. Is that you, Doctor Strange?
Where have we seen this kind of aesthetic before? (Image credit: Warner Bros.)
Remember when we said Zegler’s Athena doesn’t seem as keen to destroy earth as her sisters? That’s because, at the 1: 14 mark, we see her use her powers with a uncertain look on her face. You wouldn’t look like that if you were convinced you were doing the right thing, would you?
Based on the fact she’s pushed away by Kalypso (using the staff no less), seconds later, it seems she’ll be swapping sides at some stage.
Interestingly, it seems the wizard’s staff can do more than give or take a person’s powers away. One perceived ability certainly has an air of the Doctor Strange/Marvel-based mystic arts about them. Just look at the Escher-style nature of how the scenery bends and folds in on itself when Athena is pushed back, and when Shazam evades numerous buildings at the 1: 44 mark. We’d be very surprised if DC and Warner Bros. didn’t take a leaf out of the MCU’s book with such an aesthetic.
6. Light the way
A yellow bolt out of the blue. (Image credit: Warner Bros.)
Shazam and his fellow superheroes get a costume upgrade in Fury of the Gods. The group’s threads are more streamlined and less plastic-looking this time around, which is pleasing to see.
Fans had been worried, though, that these suits wouldn’t feature one of the first movie’s most underrated (if somewhat tacky) aspects: the glowing lightning bolt on Shazam’s chest. Shazam’s costume in the 2019 movie was manufactured in a way that allowed the bolt to physically light up, avoiding the problem of having to add awkward lighting effects during the post-production phase.
Thankfully, Shazam! Fury of the Gods‘ official trailer confirms that Shazam’s lightning bolt will glow. However, given the sleeker look of the costumes this time around, it appears that the illumination effect has been added in post. Regardless of how it’s been implemented, we’re just glad it’s a feature that’s been retained.
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Jokes aside about Chrome’s incognito mode, the ability to open a private tab for sensitive browsing is incredibly useful. You can perform searches that you want to keep from affecting your recommendations or appearing in your search history—which applies as much to tax information and medical questions as anything more scintillating.
And now on all phones and tablets, you can protect your incognito tabs from prying eyes by locking them down. A quick tweak to Chrome settings on iOS and Android makes biometric or PIN authentication required to view your private tabs whenever you leave the app and then return. It’s an extra layer of protection for when you forget to close a tab when you’re done—easy to do if you’re constantly hopping between apps. No need to worry about banking info sitting unguarded, for example.
Trying to feature out for yourself is easy. If it’s rolled out to your Android device (or if you’re only now trying it on your iPhone or iPad), just tap on the three dot menu in Chrome, then Privacy and Security. Toggle on Lock Incognito Tabs When You Close Chrome. Now when you switch away from Chrome and then come back, you’ll have to pass an authentication check before you can see and interact with those private tabs again.
Flipping the toggle is all you need to do to enable this feature. (Shown here in iOS.)
PCWorld
For folks who use incognito tabs more on mobile than dedicated apps, this feature is a very welcome addition—and one I hope to see come to desktop computers next. I leave my incognito windows open on PC for long stretches way more often than on a phone or tablet. I haven’t yet met a browser window stuffed with tabs that I didn’t like to keep around. And sometimes I’m reading up on something I don’t want roommates to know about; other times, I have private correspondence I’m working on that I really don’t want to be seen.
I can always lock my PC, but I occasionally forget to slam my fingers on Win + L before dashing off to deal with an overflowing pot or vomiting cat. The best alternative is setting up Dynamic Lock in Windows, but that only works if you move far enough away from your computer to trigger the auto-lock. It unfortunately doesn’t prevent someone also in your kitchen from wandering by your screen and teasing you about your recent discovery of r/illegallysmolcats. Ask me how I know.
Alaina Yee is PCWorld’s resident bargain hunter—when she’s not covering PC building, computer components, mini-PCs, and more, she’s scouring for the best tech deals. Previously her work has appeared in PC Gamer, IGN, Maximum PC, and Official Xbox Magazine. You can find her on Twitter at @morphingball.
