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

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:

  1. Base ID
  2. Table  ID
  3. 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):

You can get your Base ID and Table ID by going to the base and table you want to connect to and copy them from the URL: Continue reading How to: Use Excel Power Query to Retrieve Data from Airtable

How I made PlexTraktSync Work for my Setup? (Docker + Portainer)

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s really a headache trying to sync Plex media to Trakt without paying extra for both Trakt VIP and Plex Pass.

Fortunately, I was able to make PlexTraktSync work with my current setup:

  • I have Plex Media Server installed on a Docker in Openmediavault.
  • Although I paid for Lifetime Plex Pass, I didn’t pay for Trakt VIP.
  • Installed PlexTraktSync using the Docker Compose method.

Opening the terminal, I created directories in /docker/plextraktsync like so: Continue reading How I made PlexTraktSync Work for my Setup? (Docker + Portainer)

In the world of Google TV’s, why do you still need the Chromecast function?

In 2020, Google introduced the fourth generation of its Chromecast, dubbed as Chromecast with Google TV (CCwGTV), which was the first time it came with Google TV (a modified Android TV user interface) and a remote. So, in the world of Google TV’s (and Android TV’s in general), is there still a need for the Google Cast function?

Here are the reasons why we still need the Google Cast around:

Queue up YouTube Videos

The one thing I love about the Chromecast is the ability to queue up videos you want to watch from your YouTube mobile app. Oftentimes, when I want to YouTube and chill, I open a video on my YouTube mobile app, cast that thing to my TV with a Chromecast, browse more of the homepage of the YouTube app, then add as many more videos as I like to watch next to the queue.

Although you can queue up videos as well in the web version of YouTube, the same is not true on Android TV’s. I just find it so inefficient to have to quit the video you’re currently watching, browse though the homepage, and select the single video you want to watch next. Continue reading In the world of Google TV’s, why do you still need the Chromecast function?

Beelink S1 and Mi Notebook Pro Windows 10 Drivers

The Beelink S1 and Mi Notebook Pro (15″ 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250U with 8GB RAM) are two of the computers I own. Finding Windows drivers for these devices are hard to find, especially after reinstalling the OS. That’s why I’m sharing the drivers I got saved here, hope you’ll find them helpful:

The Beelink S1 drivers are also applicable to Beelink models AP34, AP34 Pro, M1, and AP42.

Notion Windows App is a Memory (RAM) Hog

Evernote has brought me so much disappointments that I wanted to ditch it as my primary note-taking app in favor of Notion.

Recently, I got a new computer (an i7 Intel NUC 11), and I opted to have 32GB of RAM installed. Now, coming from an 8GB-RAM laptop, I didn’t expect this new Windows machine to hit its memory limit anytime soon with my normal usage. Until I installed the Notion desktop app.

A quick check of my Task Manager reveals Notion app eating up almost 17.5GB of Memory.

A few moments after installing Notion, Continue »

When I’ll be ready for another round of Distro hopping

I’ve been a Distro-hopper, like 14 years ago, especially when I was new to Linux. I’ve tried and tested a good number of distributions: if you found them on the front of Distrowatch back then, there’s a good chance I have tried them out. Since then, my computers may have become a lot more powerful, but if I really needed to install one, I limited my selection to more reliable systems, like Ubuntu and its derivatives, like Xubuntu, Lubuntu and Mint.

But now, I’m inclined to do another round of Distro-hopping once again, and here are the distributions on the top of my list:

  • Manjaro
  • Pop!
  • Zorin
  • Elementary

Any other distros I’ve missed?

How to subscribe to Smart Magic Data

Magic Data is Smart’s take on GOMO that offers fixed data volume without an expiration period.

The fact that Smart doesn’t have a dedicated web page outlining the mechanics of their Smart Magic Data addon speaks volumes about its commitment to keeping the addon available to its regular customers in the near future. The option to register/subscribe disappeared recently from its Gigalife app as well.

Last option to subscribe to Smart Magic Data is via USSD code. Here are the steps to subscribe »

Airtable Creator Plan, are you one of the lucky few?

Sometime in the middle of 2020, Airtable made available to select new users the Creator Plan. It was not available to everybody. No announcements were made about it. No documentation whatsoever.

The Creator Plan is a totally different workspace account than Free, Pro Trial, Plus, and Pro.

Brief Description

So how to describe this plan? One user emailed the dev team, and this is what she got in response:

The Creator plan is a current experiment that gives a new solo user almost all of including blocks, without the usual time constraints of a Pro trial.

Once the person adds collaborators to the Creator workspace, it morphs into a 30-day Pro trial, to experience the power of Airtable Pro with others. Once users are added to a workspace, all users will have 30 days of premium use before payment is required.

*If no collaborators above read-only are added, the Creator-plan (Pro features) will remain in effect indefinitely.*

If I were to describe the plan briefly: it would be closest to the Pro Trial plan without the time constraints. Yet, let me breakdown the features and compare the Airtable Creator Plan to the other plans the best I could. I’ll update this post as more info come my way. Continue reading Airtable Creator Plan, are you one of the lucky few?