InstaCalc: A Shared Embeddable Calculator

neat!

Let’s see how it will be used.

Quite impressive new Web service and quite innovative

Holy crap this shit is awesome!

I used to think the TI-85+ was neat but this app is great.

This thing freakin rocks.. Simple in its idea but tremendously useful. Even has charting like bar charts and pie charts. Neat!

The is also sensualtube.com with lots of free videos…

sorry wrong post

That is really nifty!

Mike,

FYI, instacalc site is seriously messing with techcrunch page loading.

cool….this blows all the zoho, google spreadsheet stuff, even excel. someone should buy this for gazillion dollars soon!

Hopefully instacalc is just having problems because it was listed on TechCrunch. It is SERIOUSLY slow, even when using it directly from the website (and as Don suggested, it caused TechCrunch to load in ~2 minutes vs. 1-2 seconds normally).

Give Instacalc a break - they probably just need to beef up their hosting to deal with all the sudden new traffic…and this idea is sooo cool.

Hi all, this is Kalid from InstaCalc - thanks for all the responses!

Tom is right, I certainly was not expecting this fast of an uptake, but I’ve offloaded some of the larger files so hopefully the site should load more quickly.

I’m really happy people are finding the site useful. It constantly evolves through feedback, so feel free to drop me a note.

There’s something to be said for smart people who develop tools that we can use. Quick, easy, useful! that’s just plain sexy. I hope you have more cool stuff like this in the works.

This seems like a great collaborative application that will have many uses.

Cool. Nice to see people thinking differently. Sure beats another photo sharing site or a Digg clone.

I agree with Gloria White. It’s only a matter of time before Google or some other company with money to burn gets a whiff of it.

Now, if only I could understand that mathematical/scientific mumbo jumbo.

I think you got Dan’s name wrong, it’s Dan Bricklin, same guy who made the first commercial spreadsheet for personal computers, VisiCalc. Pretty cool!

this is news?

I think this is really cool. But for the guy that said it’s better than Excel, no freaking way. No offense to the creator but it has a long way to go before I ditch Excel for this.

cbmeeks
http://www.codershangout.com

Am I the only idiot who can’t figure this thing out?

Looks good but Google seems to be taking over everything. I think this will be much more useful than ESPNMobile though.

No, you’re certainly not the only idiot. Yes, you are the only one who can’t figure it out

@cbmeeks: Glad you like it! And I agree completely - it’s not meant to be a replacement for Excel. If you need power features like pivot tables, database access or really detailed forecasting, by all means use Excel. But if you need to whip up some “fast and loose” numbers, I suggest InstaCalc.

I think of it like a sports car, filling the gap between rollerskates (calc) and Excel (an 18-wheeler). I personally think it’s more fun to use because of the instant feedback and readable equations, but opinions may vary :). Use whatever tool fits the job best. Email didn’t obliterate the phone, InstaCalc won’t obliterate Excel, and that’s ok. I think there’s room for both; there’s more info in the faq (http://instacalc.com/blog/faq).

@Steve: You might want to check out the overview on the homepage and the tour (http://instacalc.com/blog/tour) to see what makes InstaCalc different. It’s a unique hybrid between a calculator and spreadsheet, so it may not be immediately clear what it can do.

If you found specific descriptions confusing or other parts that didn’t make sense, feel free to email me (kalid@instacalc.com) and I will try to make it more clear. InstaCalc may not be for everyone (and that’s ok!), but I want to make sure that visitors have a good idea of *what* it is :).

Thanks for your comments and feedback,

-Kalid

comparing this to excel is like comparing a burger to a steak… steaks are a lot tastier , more expensive, and better overall, but for a quick meal, good flavor, and convenience, a burgers got you beat.

likewise, for the blogging community, you don’t want to be hosting an excel file for people to download nor do you want to just take a picture of your analysis…

this looks like an easy tool to has out quick analysis, i wouldn’t use it to forecast inventory reorder points, but something like the you-tube valuation makes a lot of sense.

too many words to explain/justify = qed.

Nice thing, although its neither comparable to calculators, sportscars or burgers.
Because you need this to document and explain any calculation, athough it should allow for more than just one presentation mode (after a while these boxes look as aweful to math allergics, such as carl, as calculators already do).
So Kalid - to start with, if you can, allow for an option to hide parts of the calulation ! Sort of tree view, as in your file manager / explorer.

This is Kalid from InstaCalc - thanks again for all the feedback and reviews.

I’ve made many updates to the site, including an HTML-only widget, and have several new features under development. More details here:

http://instacalc.com/blog/inst.....ial-part-2

Thanks for your comments, they help to continually improve the service.