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I did not check the links... more than likely "success rates" means
the probability that "past performance" would have worked with the
numbers entered.

Meaning 50% of the time your numbers worked (based on how long you
live) and 50% of the time you ran out of money before you die.

I will second the advice to check out retirement calculators on any of
the following sites:

T Rowe Price
Smartmoney
Quicken

I would also consider asking questions here. A few regular posters
have calculators on their web sites. Joetaxpayer immediately comes to
mind.

See the discussion here:
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/sav/20031230a1.asp
and then try the more friendly Monte Carlo tool here:
http://www3.troweprice.com/ric/RIC/

one financial blog mentioned the excel spreadsheets at analyzenow.com

the third(3) link is for an excel file for ..How Saving Income Now Can
Add Income in Retirement.

I saved the link and ran the excel spreadsheet but did not fully
understand the highlighted values (pink vs. white cells) at bottom of
the spreadsheet

can someone explain a little of what the values at bottom mean? I used
his default values but entered age as 50 (his default 40) and savings
500,000 (his default 100,000)

on the bottom it shows 50% and 80% success rates and some values are
negative