Some novel uses for Excel are more for entertainment than work. One-time Excel expert Harald Staff created a Web radio player that plays inside an Excel worksheet. You can see it at work by . Simply click one of the listed stations to play it.

Other users have found a practical solution for being caught on a holiday without dice by writing a simple random number formula in an Excel cell to .

When it comes to interesting uses for spreadsheets, Google Spreadsheets has some tricks up its sleeve that even Excel doesn't offer. One of these is the capability to create maps with data that's stored in a worksheet through a . (Coincidentally, a similar feature was available in Excel 2000 and earlier versions; however, it was subsequently removed and became the stand-alone application Microsoft MapPoint.)

In Google Spreadsheets you start by adding data listed by region, using or . The codes go in the leftmost column; in subsequent columns, you add the data to show on the map, one column for each map. You then insert the Heatmap gadget, select the data, and choose the map to use--the data will be plotted as colors on the map.