Category: Technology

How to do Lookup in Excel and Power Query

October 6, 2022 / deuts / 0 Comments

Lookup in regular Excel function

The XLOOKUP function has been available to Office 365 and Excel 2021. For compatibility purposes with my workbook’s potential users, I shy away from using this function. Instead, I use the combination of INDEX and MATCH.

Why not VLOOKUP?

I’m not sure if there are any hardware efficiency benefit from using INDEX and MATCH over VLOOKUP or HLOOKUP. But I use INDEX and MATCH primarily for two reasons:

Ability to return the value of the column to the left of your lookup array (left-most column of the table array)
Never worry about adding a column between the returned column and the lookup array. Remember, you indicate the column index number being the returned column from your table array? What if you’ve not touched your file for a long time, return to it and inserting a column in a table, forgetting that you’ve used that table as a table array as a lookup somewhere in your worksheet? You’ll certainly break your VLOOKUP formula.

How to use these formulas

Sorry, but you have to look somewhere else for the usage of these formulas.

Lookup in Power Query

Power Query Lookup Sample File

To better demonstrate the functions, it’s better if we refer to a sample file:
Continue reading

BDO Online Mobile ‘ADD DEVICE’ Message Sending Failed

October 5, 2022 / deuts / 5 Comments

Did I already tell you how awful and trash-worthy BDO Online Banking is? Yet, no matter how bad it is, it has been your bank of choice, because you thought they find ways.

Installing the Mobile App

You installed the mobile app, and done with your mobile app only password. When you login, it asks for your OTP. But instead of receiving the OTP directly, you received a message from (02) 25678 that you need to reply with ‘ADD DEVICE’ instead. Only then will they text you your OTP.

But replying with ‘ADD DEVICE’ the message failed sending no matter how many times you tried.

The Solution

Instead of solving the problem directly, BDO Unibank offered a solution in a Facebook comment, which involves:
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SmartSuite came to challenge Airtable

September 23, 2022 / deuts / 0 Comments

Airtable has been my favorite No Code/Low Code tool for some time now. In a few years I’ve been using it so far, I haven’t really found a good alternative. Even then, Airtable cannot rest on its laurels. Especially now, a new kid in town, SmartSuite, came to challenge its position. Airtable has already been introducing substantial improvements recently, but it needs to up its game even further to hold on to its lead.

One of my favorite Youtuber, Gareth Pronovost, details down the 3 gamechanging features about SmartSuite that Airtable has to catch up on:

How to export your data from the Eufy Smart Scale C1

August 16, 2022 / deuts / 2 Comments

For some time, exporting your data from your Eufy smart scale has been a pain, with hacks developed for this supposedly simple process like this and this. So I posted a follow up query on Anker forum.

Thankfully, I received a response, and it states that starting with the update in the EufyLife app that was released August 5, 2022, you may now export your data from the app in CSV format, under Settings>>Privacy and Data>>Export All Data.

The option may have been buried deep into the settings, but at the least it’s there for data freaks like us. Just enter your password and your email address to where you want the CSV file will be sent to.

All the other available (so far) smart scale of Eufy use the same app, the EufyLife app, so I guess this is applicable to those as well, like the Eufy Smart Scale P2 and the P2 Pro.

How to upgrade your Globe Fiber speed to the updated plan

July 19, 2022 / deuts / 0 Comments

Recently, Globe updated its Globe at Home Fiber Plans to support faster speeds.

I was on Plan 1699 that used to have 60Mbps speed only. I opened the Globe at Home app (I know, it’s very buggy app, you need to bring a lot of patience), hit the Upgrade button under my Plan Details, and my speed was upgraded after 3 days:

And the upgrade even came with a free 3-month Amazon Prime Video subscription, which I barely use (I use Plex).

Intel NUC Laptop

July 19, 2022 / deuts / 0 Comments

The primary reason I got my Intel NUC 11 Performance Kit was for its upgradability, specifically for RAM and storage. So, if you offer me an Intel NUC laptop with a soldered RAM, I’d say pass.

My OnePlus 8 Pro has the Dreaded Green Screen Issue

April 20, 2022 / deuts / 38 Comments

In late 2020, I chose the OnePlus 8 Pro over the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 primarily because of avoiding Samsung’s Exynos chip. The price also played a role, and I was happy with that decision, until just this Monday, April 18, 2022, when I found my device’s display was giving out this green hue throughout the whole screen, even while in the lock screen. Didn’t drop the phone nor submerged it in water recently. My OnePlus 8 Pro is currently running Oxygen OS 12 (Android 12).

I searched around, and apparently several OnePlus phones may have been suffering from this issue for some time already. Many label the issue as green screen or green tint, although my case was unlike some’s who only encounter the problem when they are on some specific apps. Mine’s green tint is everywhere.

: Home Screen with Black Wallpaper

: Twitter App on Dark Mode

: Reddit App on Dark Mode

: Google Chrome in Incognito Mode – Dark Background

I reached out to Digital Walker, the supplier of this specific device and the official distributor of OnePlus in the Philippines, and reported this issue. Continue reading

How to: Use Excel Power Query to Retrieve Data from Airtable

March 31, 2022 / deuts / 0 Comments

When you have your data neatly set up on Airtable, especially when they are particularly financial data and numbers, you would want to connect to them on Excel (or Power BI), and do the analysis (or charts) from the latter.

Excel’s Power Query can ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) data from your Airtable database, and here’s how to even work around the 100 Rows Limit or Pagination.

What you need are:

Base ID
Table ID
API Key

So I created a throwaway Airtable account for the API key, a throwaway workspace from that account, and and loaded the Simple Project Tracker base template, just for this demonstration.

You can get your API key from your account page (https://airtable.com/account):