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Wise Owl blogs written by Andy Brown (page 1 of 18)
Showing blogs 1-20 (out of 350)
A placeholder for the January 2020 Power BI Update
Posted by Andy Brown on 16 January 2020
The January 2020 Power BI update isn't out yet, but we will blog about it here as soon as it is announced.
Good news for geeks the world over - you no longer need to eject USB sticks!
Posted by Andy Brown on 16 January 2020
Microsoft have changed the default Windows policy for writing to USB sticks, which means that you no longer have to worry about safely ejecting them.
Azure Data Studio versus SQL Server Management Studio
Posted by Andy Brown on 16 January 2020
Microsoft have brought out a new SQL editor called Azure Data Studio, to act as a substitute for SQL Server Management Studio, but this owl cannot see any justification for its existence!
Introducing the new CREATE OR ALTER command in SQL
Posted by Andy Brown on 10 January 2020
From SQL Server 2016 onwards you can choose to CREATE OR ALTER a procedure, trigger, view or function, as this blog explains.
Revelations about Power BI - hiding preview and left-click drill-through
Posted by Andy Brown on 10 January 2020
When we find new features which we didn't know about, we try to share them! Did you know that you can turn preview off when getting data? Or that you could left-click to drill-through? We didn't!
How to enter the 2020 Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship
Posted by Andy Brown on 10 January 2020
Think you know Excel (or Word/PowerPoint)? Put your skills to the test in the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championships, held in California.
Announcing the first Wise Owl online training course (Excel VBA)
Posted by Andy Brown on 10 January 2020
After a huge investment of time and expertise, we're proud to announce that our first full online training course is now live on our website! The course shows you how to program in VBA in Excel, and is completely free (you don't even have to log in to follow it).
Our January 2020 newsletter competition asks you to complete the missing letters
Posted by Andy Brown on 10 January 2020
Somebody has missed out some of the letters in a series of phrases. Fill in the letters to spell out a hidden instruction!
The December 2019 Wise Owl Christmas Quiz - Analysis of Results
Posted by Andy Brown on 07 January 2020
Which were the hardest and easiest questions in our Quiz of the Year? And more importantly, who won the prize?
A summary of the main changes introduced in the December 2019 Power BI update
Posted by Andy Brown on 23 December 2019
The December 2019 update allows you to customise your visuals pane and format KPIs better, but that's almost it!
A preview of what the feature to customise themes within Power BI will look like
Posted by Andy Brown on 23 December 2019
Power BI is getting a built-in facility to edit themes, although it is currently still in preview. This blog shows what you can expect.
The Wise Owl November 2019 Newsletter Competition winner (and answer)
Posted by Andy Brown on 12 December 2019
November's competition was to use a set of instructions to colour in cells in a spreadsheet and create a picture. This blog shows one possible answer, and reveals the winner!
Pin the tail on the reindeer, Power BI style
Posted by Andy Brown on 12 December 2019
You have 3 attempts to pin the tail on the (slightly caustic) reindeer, a game created by Sam as a Power BI report.
Both of the Wise Owl founders' kittens now have names!
Posted by Andy Brown on 12 December 2019
Andy and Jenny (the two original Wise Owls) have finally got round to naming their new kittens. Whether this deserves a blog post is another question ...
There are few changes in the November 2019 update of Power BI
Posted by Andy Brown on 25 November 2019
The only significant change to Power BI for the November 2019 update is the introduction of conditional formatting for buttons, although there are exciting things now waiting in preview.
A new Power BI ribbon is waiting in the wings!
Posted by Andy Brown on 25 November 2019
Microsoft have announced a new preview version of Power BI ribbon - this blogs shows what it will look like.
We're getting two new kittens next week, but have no idea what to call them!
Posted by Andy Brown on 25 November 2019
Can anyone think of good names for our two new kittens? It was easier thinking of names for children!
You can now use AT TIME ZONE to access different time zones in SQL
Posted by Andy Brown on 25 November 2019
If you're working with different time zones, the AT TIME ZONE keywords introduced in SQL Server 2016 will make your life much easier - this blog explains how they work.
Colour in the picture using the numbers provided in the Excel sheet
Posted by Andy Brown on 25 November 2019
This month's competition is deceptively simple - just colour in the cells using the instructions provided to form a picture of ... what?
Revealed: the answer and winner for last month's competition
Posted by Andy Brown on 25 November 2019
Last month's competition asked you to reveal the hidden question. We had 24 entries nominating their favourite films - congratulations to Victoria Anthony of Sucden Financial for being the first name pulled out of the Wise Owl sorting hat!