Excel and hardware testing
I write applications for testing electronic equipment via GPIB. All of these tests require data records for the end users as well as for our company's internal records. I've found the combination of VB.Net Windows applications and Excel's COM interop to be the most efficient way of generating and retaining test records.
Additionally, Excel allows me to create templates that allow me to adjust test limits and cosmetic features of the documents without touching the actual code.
Another cool thing about Excel is the macro recorder. If you're not sure how to do something programmatically, you can allow Excel to automatically generate VB code for you just by doing the steps manually.
