When faced with a new software tool, most of us learn what we need to address our immediate problem, and then armed with 10% of the tools that are available we attempt to solve all future problems. In my discussions with colleagues, I have found that the spreadsheet is the quintessence of this effect. Almost everybody has Microsoft® Excel on their computer, yet few use it for anything but the most mundane tasks, rather like a sophisticated, but unwieldy calculator. In fact, I recently saw a newspaper article that heralded the demise of the calculator as a result of the spreadsheet, PDAs and other electronic tools
