Laptop trends as per CES 2023

From CNET on Youtube:

From a giant two-in-one tablet to a pen-enabled e-reader to two dual-screen laptops, Lenovo brought its innovative A game to the giant tech show in Las Vegas.

Do consumers really need dual-screen laptops like this? Is this really where the trend is moving towards for laptops?

For me, just give me a laptop with upgradable RAM and expandable storage, that’s all I need. Unfortonately those are rare features, and if ever, are only available for ultra high end, expensive devices.

Cryptocurrencies are not investment products

Bitcoin isn’t really used much as a currency at all.

When people buy bitcoin, they rarely use it to buy goods and services. They’re really buying access to a Ponzi scheme.

Even before the fall of FTX, I share the same sentiment. Bitcoin could probably actually work as a form of currency. Problem is, people don’t use it as such. They don’t exchange their dollars for these coins to buy goods and services. Instead, they buy them in the hopes that some other people will hop on the bandwagon, and they cash-in on its price appreciation.

And scammers flock to this opportunity to take advantage of people who don’t really know how things like these work but gullible enough to fall for their traps.

Black Friday 2022 Shopping Haul

I know there’s no Black Friday in the Philippines, but that doesn’t mean we can’t participate in the Black Friday sale, especially when they’re about online services like web hosting and VPS.

So here’s what I checked out during the Black Friday of 2022:

Racknerd cPanel 100GB hosting

Shared – 100 GB – $15.89 per YEAR!
Great for businesses and busier websites.
100 GB SSD Disk Space
5 TB Monthly Transfer (FREE Double the bandwidth, just comment your order#)
Unlimited Databases
Host 5 Domains
Free SSL Certificates
cPanel Control Panel
Softaculous Script Installer
LiteSpeed Web Server
Free Offsite Daily Backups (JetBackup)
MailChannels Hybrid – Premium Email Delivery
FREE Clientexec License
Available in Multiple Locations (US, EU, Asia)
Only $15.89 per year!

RamNode 2GB OpenVZ VPS

Use code: 2LET22
2GB OpenVZ SVZS – Any region – $18/yr (includes 1 IPv4, /64 IPv6)
2GB RAM
2 vCores (fair usage)
60GB Disk
2TB BW

The problem with the RamNode OpenVZ VPS is I can’t run Docker on it. So I guess it’ll serve as my test box for all bare metal Linux server related apps. Now, I just hope I still have enough money for Cyber Monday.
Continue reading Black Friday 2022 Shopping Haul

The aggressive Linode marketing campaign

While listening to your favorite tech podcasts or watching your favorite tech youtube channels, you’ll most likely not miss that Linode ad or sponsor. Linode has been aggressively doing marketing recently. I wonder if it’s the consequence of the Akamai acquisition? More puzzling is how will they recoup those marketing expenses?

Linode, together with some same-tier Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting providers like Vultr and DigitalOcean, brag about their cheap VPS offerings. But they’re only cheap when compared to the big boys like Google Cloud, Amazon AWS, and Microsoft Azure. When you hang around LowEndTalk like I do, you’ll get a better grasp of the real definition of cheap VPS hosting, especially now that Black Friday deals are just around the corner.

My two favorite VPS hosting providers so far are Racknerd and Greencloud VPS.

How Citibank let down clients with Entrego

A few months ago, my Citibank credit card was up for renewal. Citibank sent off my replacement card without delay via Entrego.

First Replacement Card

On the morning of the supposed delivery day, I got a text message from Entrego that my parcel was on its way. The day came and went, I got another text in the evening saying the messenger failed to deliver and they’ll attempt re-delivery the next day or so. The next day, same thing happened. After three failed delivery attempts, the parcel went back to sender.

I had to contact Citibank, and they blocked that card and dispatched a replacement to my replacement card. Continue reading How Citibank let down clients with Entrego

When NTC becomes the text spammer

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is an attached agency of the Department of Information and Communications Technology responsible for the supervision, adjudication and control over all telecommunications services and television and radio networks throughout the Philippines.

The NTC is supposed to regulate the telecommunication companies including the use of SMS in the Philippines. Recently it ordered telcos to block clickable links in text messages.

But looking at my Messages app, it appears they are the ones spamming recently instead:

I know, a lot of Filipinos need reminding about these scams repeatedly. But NTC shouldn’t stop at just sending these reminders, and thus spamming us in the process. They need to do their job and stop these spammers from the beginning.

How to do Lookup in Excel and Power Query

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:

  1. Ability to return the value of the column to the left of your lookup array (left-most column of the table array)
  2. 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 How to do Lookup in Excel and Power Query

BDO Online Mobile ‘ADD DEVICE’ Message Sending Failed

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:
Continue reading BDO Online Mobile ‘ADD DEVICE’ Message Sending Failed