Can Excel sort by color? Absolutely. In addition to sorting by values, Excel can sort by cell color, font color, and cell icon.
First, you must you must define the colors for your sort columns/fields. For this example, we’ll select colors based on the SALES column.
1. Highlight all the rows with sales from 100 to 500 million. To choose a background color, click Home on the main menu row and go to the Font group. Find the paint-bucket icon that stands for Fill Color, and click the down arrow next to it. A color palette appears, from which you may choose a color by clicking its thumbnail. For our example, we’ve chosen Yellow from the Standard Colors group.
2. Highlight the next group with sales from 77 to 85 million, then choose Blue.
3. From 60 to 65 million, choose green; for 50 million, choose Orange; choose lavender for 40 to 45 million, and cyan (turquoise) from 30 to 39 million
JD Sartain / IDG Worldwide
Choose colors for each specific range
Now that the colors are defined by SALES, you can use them to sort by BOOK, AUTHOR, LANGUAGE, or PUB DATE, and, for example, view authors with sales of Cyan, which denotes the group with sales between 30 and 39 million.
1. Move the cursor anywhere inside the data range, press Ctrl+A to highlight everything.
2. From the Home tab on the main menu, select the Editing group. Click Sort & Filter > Custom Sort and the Sort dialog box opens.
3. If you have headers, be sure to check the box that says: My data has headers.
4. Choose a sort key from the Sort By field box under Column, such as Author.
5. Under Sort On, choose Cell Color from the drop-down list.
6. Under Order, choose the thumbnail for the color by which you wish to sort—in our example, it’s cyan.
7. And, in the last field box, choose On Top, which sorts the selected rows to the top of the spreadsheet (choosing On Bottom sorts the selected rows to the bottom).
8. Next, click the Add Level button, which adds a second sort key to the query.
9. From left to right, choose AUTHOR, Cell Values, A to Z, and click OK.
Notice that all the Cyan cells (30 to 39 million in SALES) are sorted to the top of the spreadsheet and then alphabetized by AUTHOR within the Cyan colored cells. The rest of the spreadsheet is sorted by AUTHOR only with all the remaining SALES totals (except 30 to 39 million).
JD Sartain / IDG Worldwide
Cyan cells sorted to the top alphabetized by AUTHOR’s name
For more samples and detailed instructions regarding sorting by colors, values, and icons, and using conditional formatting, check out these two past articles: How to use Microsoft Excel’s conditional formatting, and How to customize Excel conditional formatting.
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On the run in the year of 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie, on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken.
Director:
Travis Knight
Stars:
Hailee Steinfeld,
Jorge Lendeborg Jr.,
John Cena
The Avengers and their allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.
Directors:
Anthony Russo,
Joe Russo
Stars:
Robert Downey Jr.,
Chris Hemsworth,
Mark Ruffalo
T’Challa, heir to the hidden but advanced kingdom of Wakanda, must step forward to lead his people into a new future and must confront a challenger from his country’s past.
Director:
Ryan Coogler
Stars:
Chadwick Boseman,
Michael B. Jordan,
Lupita Nyong’o
A failed reporter is bonded to an alien entity, one of many entities who have invaded Earth. But the entity takes a liking to Earth and decides to protect it.
Foul-mouthed mutant mercenary Wade Wilson (AKA. Deadpool), brings together a team of fellow mutant rogues to protect a young boy with supernatural abilities from the brutal, time-traveling cyborg, Cable.
Director:
David Leitch
Stars:
Ryan Reynolds,
Josh Brolin,
Morena Baccarin
Thor is imprisoned on the planet Sakaar, and must race against time to return to Asgard and stop Ragnarök, the destruction of his world, at the hands of the powerful and ruthless villain Hela.
Director:
Taika Waititi
Stars:
Chris Hemsworth,
Tom Hiddleston,
Cate Blanchett
Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his new-found ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy.
When a pilot crashes and tells of conflict in the outside world, Diana, an Amazonian warrior in training, leaves home to fight a war, discovering her full powers and true destiny.
Peter Parker balances his life as an ordinary high school student in Queens with his superhero alter-ego Spider-Man, and finds himself on the trail of a new menace prowling the skies of New York City.
Director:
Jon Watts
Stars:
Tom Holland,
Michael Keaton,
Robert Downey Jr.
Arthur Curry, half human half from Atlantis, goes on a trip of a lifetime. Not only does this adventure compel him to come to terms with his real identity, but it also forces him to discover whether he is entirely worthy of fulfilling his own destiny: becoming a king. Written by Domingo Alvarez
Dolph Lundgren is the first actor to star in both the Arrowverse and the DCEU. See more »
Goofs
If Arthur is impervious to “land made” metals, how did he get the scar above his left eye or, for that matter, get tattooed? During his youth Arthur was being trained by Vulko and was probably the one who provided the Atlantean metal to give Arthur his first tattoo. While the scar is the actors Jason Momoa actual scar from previous incident. Arthur could’ve received the scar from another Atlantean metal during his training. See more »
Know My Name
Written by Cory Hueston, Jayson Robbins and Michael Green
Performed by The Blancos
Courtesy of Lava Music / Republic Records
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises See more »
In 1962, Tony “Tony Lip” Vallelonga, a tough bouncer, is looking for work with his nightclub is closed for renovations. The most promising offer turns out to be the driver for the African-American classical pianist Don Shirley for a concert tour into the Deep South states. Although hardly enthused at working for a black man, Tony accepts the job and they begin their trek armed with The Negro Motorist Green Book, a travel guide for safe travel through America’s racial segregation. Together, the snobbishly erudite pianist and the crudely practical bouncer can barely get along with their clashing attitudes to life and ideals. However, as the disparate pair witness and endure America’s appalling injustices on the road, they find a newfound respect for each other’s talents and heart to face them together. In doing so, they would nurture a friendship and understanding that would change both their lives. Written by Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
Nick Vallelonga pulled a fast one in hiring his real life family members to play the onscreen family members. He let Viggo Mortensen believe Peter Farrelly had cast them, but suggested to Farrelly that Viggo had vouched for them as actors. The two only figured out the truth a month into the press tour. See more »
Goofs
The film is set in the early 60s. In one scene, Tony and Don eat extra crispy Kentucky Fried Chicken which wasn’t introduced until 1972. See more »
Quotes
Tony Lip:
You know, if this got out, it would kill your career.
Dr. Don Shirley:
OK Tony, I need you to stop it with the phony altruism and concern for my career.
Dr. Don Shirley:
You were only thinking about yourself back there because you know if I miss a show it’d come out of your pocketbook.
Tony Lip:
Of course I don’t want you to miss a show, you ungrateful bastard! You think I’m doing this for my health? Tonight I saved your ass! So show a little appreciation, maybe! Besides, I told you never to go nowhere without me!
“Larry the Crow” gets a mention. This was an actual crow that Viggo Mortensen found injured near the set, and tried in vain to nurse back to health. He was no doubt named for Viggo’s favorite soccer team, San Lorenzo (Saint Lawrence in Spanish). The team nickname is “The Crows”. See more »
In her much-anticipated foray into the horror-thriller genre, Golden Globe and Emmy nominee Taylor Schilling stars in THE PRODIGY as Sarah, a mother whose young son Miles’ disturbing behavior signals that an evil, possibly supernatural force has overtaken him. Fearing for her family’s safety, Sarah must choose between her maternal instinct to love and protect Miles and a desperate need to investigate what or who is causing his dark turn. She is forced to look for answers in the past, taking the audience on a wild ride; one where the line between perception and reality becomes frighteningly blurry.
Three girls are kidnapped by a man with a diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. They must try to escape before the apparent emergence of a frightful new 24th.
Director:
M. Night Shyamalan
Stars:
James McAvoy,
Anya Taylor-Joy,
Haley Lu Richardson
On the run in the year of 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie, on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken.
Director:
Travis Knight
Stars:
Hailee Steinfeld,
Jorge Lendeborg Jr.,
John Cena
T’Challa, heir to the hidden but advanced kingdom of Wakanda, must step forward to lead his people into a new future and must confront a challenger from his country’s past.
Director:
Ryan Coogler
Stars:
Chadwick Boseman,
Michael B. Jordan,
Lupita Nyong’o
The Avengers and their allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.
Directors:
Anthony Russo,
Joe Russo
Stars:
Robert Downey Jr.,
Chris Hemsworth,
Mark Ruffalo
After pursuing Kevin Wendell Crumb and the multiple identities that reside within. David Dunn finds himself locked in a mental hospital alongside his archenemy, Elijah Price and must contend with a psychiatrist who is out to prove the trio do not actually possess superhuman abilities Written by vsuperkuns
Every personality played by James McAvoy had to have a distinct voice and presence. McAvoy therefore worked with director M. Night Shyamalan to define each identity. See more »
Goofs
Ending scene, when the 3 “remaining” characters are awaiting for the people’s reaction in the train station, Mrs. Price starts to hold the hands of her 2 fellow survivors, and the coffee cup she was just given by Joseph seconds before has totally disappeared. See more »
Quotes
[from trailer]
Elijah Price:
First name: Mister. Last name: Glass.
Keeping an eye on the entryway to your home is easy with the smart Ring Video Doorbell 2, but normally it’s a bit on the pricey side. Today, though, Costco members can get a video doorbell of their own, as well as a bonus Chime and one year’s worth of video cloud recording, all for just $150Remove non-product link. The Ring Video Doorbell 2 alone has a list price of $199, so this bundle is a pretty killer deal.
If you’re not a Costco member, you can still get a deal on the Ring Video Doorbell 2 with a discounted price of $168 on Amazon, but it doesn’t include any of the extras you’ll get from Costco.
This doorbell provides security monitoring right at your doorstep; if it detects motion or if the doorbell is pressed, it will send you real-time alerts via the mobile Ring app. For even more convenient monitoring, the doorbell connects to Amazon’s Alexa to send notifications to Echo devices. You’ll be able to check video in high-definition 1080p resolution, while infrared night vision means you can keep watch 24/7. When you get an alert, you can see and hear visitors or use the doorbell as an intercom to talk to them. This bundled deal’s included cloud video recording service will also allow you to save recordings and look back at them or share anytime.
We awarded the Ring Video Doorbell 2 four stars out of five, noting its top-notch motion sensors, high-quality video, and easy Wi-Fi setup as reasons to buy—a combination that earned it a nod as the top battery-powered option in our roundup of the best video doorbells. At this price, with these extras, it’s even more of a no-brainer.
[Today’s deal: Ring Video Doorbell 2 for $150 with extras at CostcoRemove non-product link or $168 at Amazon.]
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Two ten year-old boys are detained by police under suspicion of abducting and murdering a toddler. A true story based on interview transcripts and records from the James Bulger case which shocked the world in 1993.
The world at an end, a dying mother sends her young son on a journey to the place that grants wishes. The Last Boy is a Sci-Fi, Fantasy drama inspired by the works of the 13th Century Sufi Mystic and Poet Rumi.
Director:
Perry Bhandal
Stars:
Luke Goss,
Anna Wilson-Jones,
Peter Guinness
A group of six teenagers find themselves haunted and terrorized by a Kuntilanak when they try to find their missing friend inside Lawang Sewu, a supposedly haunted building in Semarang.
In this humanistic comedy, set against the backdrop of economic crises and bad news, an extravagant international cast of characters meet, fight, and fall in love, while hiding from the end… See full summary »
Director:
Vladan Nikolic
Stars:
William Leroy,
Katerina Misichroni,
Robert Rees
“Back Roads” centers on a young man stuck in the Pennsylvania backwoods caring for his three younger sisters after the shooting death of his abusive father and the arrest of his mother. … See full summary »
Director:
Alex Pettyfer
Stars:
Jennifer Morrison,
Juliette Lewis,
Alex Pettyfer
Three students went missing in October 2018. Sarah McCormick, Kyle Miller, Joseph Moore. Authorities have now come forward with the information that video surveillance was found inside of … See full summary »
Directors:
Joseph Mazzaferro,
Jospeh D. Thomas
Stars:
Lisa Arcaro,
Mara Darrow,
Michael Kenneth Fahr
Philip is a disabled white billionaire, who feels that life is not worth living. To help him in his day to day routine, he hires Del, an African American parolee, trying to reconnect with his estranged wife. What begins as a professional relationship develops into a friendship as Del shows his grouchy charge that life is worth living. Written by Tom Daly
Nessun Dorma
Written by Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Adami, Renato Simoni
Performed by Aretha Franklin
Published by Universal Music – MGB SONGS on behalf of Casa Ricordi S.R.L. / Universal Music – Careers
Courtesy of RCA Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing See more »
If you’re in need of a diminutive Bluetooth speaker that still packs an auditory punch, Amazon’s got a deal for you right now. The Bose SoundLink Micro Bluetooth speaker is on sale for $80. That’s about $20 off the usual price, and $30 under the speaker’s MSRP. We saw it for $10 less around the holidays but for this time of year it’s a great price for a stellar wireless speaker.
We reviewed the SoundLink Micro in late 2017 and loved it, awarding the speaker a 4 out of 5 star rating. At the time we weren’t big fans of the $110 price tag, but at $80, it’s a very good deal. The Bose SoundLink Micro sounds pretty good for its diminutive size, offering good audio channel separation, but not good enough to create a true stereo sound. For that, you’ll need two of these speakers and put them in what Bose calls party mode. Music audio sounds crisp and the bass hits impressive levels for a palm-sized portable speaker.
The SoundLink Micro is waterproof with an IPX7 rating, which means you can dump it in water about as deep as a bathtub for less than 30 minutes without issue. Bose says you can expect up to six hours of play time on one charge. The Bluetooth wireless range maxes out at 30 feet.
This is also a truly micro speaker, measuring about 4 x 4 x 1.5 inches. That makes it smaller than a coffeehouse latte, as you can see in the picture above. Seriously, this thing is tiny—but it doesn’t sound like it.
[Today’s deal: Bose SoundLink Micro Bluetooth speaker for $80 at Amazon.]
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Ian is an independent writer based in Israel who has never met a tech subject he didn’t like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming hardware, video and music streaming services, social networks, and browsers. When he’s not covering the news he’s working on how-to tips for PC users, or tuning his eGPU setup.
The web browser is by far the most important piece of software on your PC—at least for most users. Unless you’re at a workstation crunching numbers or editing the next Star Wars you probably spend the majority of your computer time staring at a web app or a website.
That’s why it’s important to make sure you’ve always got the best tool for the job. In 2019 that does not include Internet Explorer. If you still want the built-in option for Windows, that would be Edge, though not for much longer as Microsoft plans to replace Edge (or at least its underlying technology) with a Chromium-based browser. Whatever happens with Edge there are so many other options out there including Google’s Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera.
Let’s take a look at the four major browsers (including Edge) to see how they stack up in early 2019. You might be surprised to find that our favorite overall this year is Opera. Read on to find out why.
(If none of these internet browsers strike your fancy, head over to Haveaheartsavealife’s roundup of 10 intriguing alternative browsers.)
Browsers in brief
Chrome
Google
A perennial favorite, Google Chrome tops the metrics charts of both StatCounter and NetMarketShare by a huge margin. Google’s browser has built a dedicated fan base thanks to its massive extensions library, and the fact that it just gets out of your way to put the focus on web content, not the browser’s trimmings.
Chrome isn’t quite as simplistic as it once was, but it’s still very easy to use. There isn’t much to Chrome except a huge URL bar—known as the OmniBar—plus a space for extensions, a bookmarking icon, tabs, and that’s it.
Yet Google still finds a way to hide all kinds of features inside the browser, including deep integration with Google’s services. This allows you to sync your bookmarks, passwords, open tabs, and more across devices. Chrome also has multi-account support if you need it on a family machine, a built-in PDF viewer, built-in Google Translate functionality, a task manager, and the always handy Paste and go context menu item.
If there’s one complaint people have about Chrome it’s that the browser eats up available memory. Our browser testing in 2015 showed that Chrome was definitely a memory beast, but a few years later it fared pretty well in our tests.
Firefox
Mozilla
For users who love extensibility but want greater privacy than a Google-made browser can provide, the open-source Mozilla Firefox is a great choice. Firefox paved the way for other browsers to become extensible, and Firefox’s relatively new extensions architecture will hopefully help its catalog match Chrome’s Web Store one day. Firefox also has a sync feature to see your open and recent tabs, browsing history, and bookmarks across all your devices.
Firefox 64 continues the strong efforts to update Mozilla’s browser that we saw with Firefox 57, which brought a new and updated design with refreshed icons, and a new library section that houses your history, pocket reading list, downloads, and synced tabs. Firefox 64 adds to that with a new task manager, and the ability to use Windows 10’s native sharing tool—personally, I think the old copy-and-paste method is still superior.
Before Chrome, Opera was a popular choice among power users—a position former Opera CEO Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner is trying to take back with Vivaldi. Opera today is really one of the more under-rated browsers around. It’s based on the same core technologies as Chrome (the Blink rendering engine and the JavaScript V8 engine), which means it can run many Chrome extensions—there’s even an extension for installing extensions from the Chrome Web Store.
Opera’s also got a few unusual features like Turbo, which saves on load times and bandwidth by compressing webpages on Opera’s servers. It’s also got a nice security feature called domain highlighting that hides most of the URL so that users can see easily and clearly if they’re on Google.com or google.com.scam.com—with scam.com being the actual website.
Microsoft Edge has always been a work in progress and is about to be abandoned in its current form. Microsoft announced in December that Edge would become a Chromium-based browser. Once the switch happens, Edge will have similar underpinnings to Chrome and Opera. It’s not clear exactly when this transition will occur, but it’s expected before the end of 2019 or perhaps early 2020.
You’ll see below that performance for the current version of Edge is pretty good in some respects, but speed is just one important factor for a browser in 2019. The Edge extensions library is small and will likely stagnate now that its underlying technology is going away. Edge’s sync functionality is still restricted to favorites and the reading list, and the browser doesn’t get updates nearly fast enough. All of these issues should improve once Edge becomes a Chromium-based browser.
Despite its current shortcomings, Edge has several helpful features that will appeal to some users. Edge is deeply integrated with Windows 10’s inking capabilities, as well as with OneNote, making it easy to clip a webpage, annotate it, and save it to a notebook. Cortana is also a big part of Edge. You can use Microsoft’s digital assistant to quickly search for information, compare prices, or get a quick calculation.
Like Chrome, Edge has a casting feature. It also has a nifty set-aside tabs feature to stash a collection of websites. Other plusses included the ability to read and annotate ebooks (great for tablets) and PDFs, easily pin websites to the taskbar, edit URLs in your favorites list, browse in full screen, see and manage website permissions, and “read aloud” web content. Perhaps the best recent feature, however, is the “Continue on PC” option that lets you push webpages to your PC from your phone with the appropriate apps installed.
In the April 2018 Update, Edge got some small but significant feature boosts including the ability to mute tabs and automatic form fill, an updated flyout menu, and clutter-free printing that carves out all the web ads and other detritus you really don’t need on the printed page. Edge also boosted the ebook reading experience with support for narration in EPUB files and improved note taking.
The more recent October 2018 Update brought a minor improvement with the addition of blocking autoplaying videos on websites. For more on the current state of Edge check out our Windows 10 April 2018 Update Review and our look at the October 2018 Update.
Read on for our benchmark results and our pick for best browser.
JD Sartain / IDG Worldwide
JD Sartain / IDG Worldwide
JD Sartain / IDG Worldwide
Google
Mozilla
Opera
Microsoft
Rayden Reviews 