Comments on: Office 2010 and PHStat2

By: Donovan Markham

Donovan Markham — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 02:17:19 +0000

Hi, I’m having trouble with phstat. I loaded it okay (I believe). I have the Data files and they work okay. The problem is getting the screen associated with phstat itself to work. I’ve added the analysis tool pak and the VBA tool pak. Also, in the trust center, in accordance with my professor’s instructions, I selected “disable macros with notification”.
Whenever I open Phstat, I get a window asking me to enable/disable macros. No matter which selection I make, Excel opens up, but with all the commands “greyed out”. For the class, I’m supposed to be able to hit a “ph stat button” in the upper left which will give me a drop-down menu that includes confidence intervals, etc. I haven’t seen that “ph stat button” anywhere either. Help!
Please hurry with a reply. I’ll have to drop this class if I can’t get this to work and the drop deadline is Sept. 2nd.

By: PHStat2 development team

PHStat2 development team — Wed, 11 May 2011 00:15:16 +0000

We do your comments a bit unfair. We have evolved PHStat2 over a 12-year period, constantly supporting and updating it as Microsoft has made changes to its Excel product. PHStat2 is designed for students taking an introductory statistics course.

When you run the Office/Excel 2010 setup, the default version is the 32-bit version, the version that PHStat2 supports and the version that Microsoft itself suggests that most users should install.

Stephen’s comment and Matthew’s reply seems to reflect the common confusion that somehow the 64-bit version is more modern or more powerful than the 32-bit version. Actually, the only significant difference is that the 64-bit version can load a worksheet than is larger than 2GB–something corporate Excel users might need to do, but something an introductory statistics student would never need to use!

We (and other third-party add-in developers) regret this confusion that Microsoft has caused in forking their own product into two different things.

Lastly, as stated in its own documentation, PHStat2 is a tool for learning statistics. It is not represented as a “statistical app.” Its design goal is to allow students to focus on results of statistical analysis and to help them not get bogged down in the details of learning Excel.

In the context using Excel in an introductory statistics course, we agree that “Excel is in general powerful enough for this type of work.” We hope that statement does not suggests that somehow PHStat2 works as “black box” apart from Excel. It does not. For most procedures, PHStat2 reflects that statement as it uses Excel directly to create Excel-based solutions. Because most of PHStat2′s results are in the form of “live,” reusable worksheets, students interested in the secondary goal of learning more about Excel can use those results as template models for their own problem-solving without ever having to use PHStat2 again. We feel that is an unique attribute of this add-in when compared to other academic add-ins for statistics.

By: PHStat2 development team

PHStat2 development team — Tue, 10 May 2011 23:33:56 +0000

PHStat2 expects all numbers to be formatted in the North American style using the period as the decimal separator. Your system is localized for using a comma as that separator. Depending on the Windows and Excel version you use, you may be able to change the settings to the North American style.

With the decimal separator set to a comma, typing 0.05 does not work as Windows/Office does not see that as a valid numeric value.

By: Matthew Guay

Matthew Guay — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:57:06 +0000

It’s awesome to have another Florida Tech student stop by my site! I’ll agree with you; there’s really no excuse for apps like this today. You’d at least think that apps packaged with college material would be more future-proof than this. That’s the only class I’ve taken that needed PHStat, though, and honestly I didn’t use it much even in that class. Excel is in general powerful enough for this type of work

Hope your class and the rest of the degree go great!

By: Stephen Barbarino

Stephen Barbarino — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:49:09 +0000

I am also taking stats @ Florida Tech and I am also having the same issue. I have a 64-bit T410 with Office 64 bit. It’s absolutely appaling that at this day and age, coders can’t build an application for both 32 and 64 bit processors. Most machines now come with 64 bit OS’ to utilize more than 3GB of RAM. I hope that none of my other classes need this program.

By: Anika 88

Anika 88 — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 11:41:00 +0000

I have a same problem. Do you find a decision of this problem?

By: Richii

Richii — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 01:37:05 +0000

Oh, I was using a 2.81 version. Phstat2 3.0 should work, but can’t get it, because I have a old book

By: Richii

Richii — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 01:27:48 +0000

There is some problems. When I am trying to calculate a value, and the formula is required to fill out Level of Significance, it always is saying that “the value must be between 0 and 1″. I was using “0,05″ and he drops me out the same error message. When I try to use “0.05″ (with a dot) the program responds with a message that says: “Numeric value required”

Any idea?