Keith Atherton

The book This is my review of the book The Complete Obsolete Guide to Generative AI by David Clinton. The introduction on the book’s page really grabbed me: How do you keep up with a topic that changes day to day? It seems like whatever you learned about artificial intelligence at lunchtime is obsolete by dinner. That means you have two choices. You can give up in frustration or you can learn what’s long-lasting about generative AI: the what and the why—even as how you use it continues to evolve. [Read More]

Recently, I needed a way to measure how long some Power Fx code in a Power App took to process. This was so that I could measure the performance before and after I made changes to the Power Fx code, to see if my changes improved the performance. [Spoiler alert: In this case, the performance was actually worse after my changes! Still, by measuring the performance, I was able to know this for sure then change direction…] [Read More]

[Photo: Las Vegas, while attending the Microsoft Power Platform Conference in October.] My 2023 Wow, it feels like only yesterday when I was writing my review of 2022 - how time flies! On balance, my 2023 was a great year. As with last year, a highlight has been connecting with many fantastic people, and some have become good friends. If we haven’t met yet, feel free to connect with me. [Read More]

The book This is my review of the book Architecture Modernization: Socio-technical alignment of software, strategy, and structure by Nick Tune with Jean-Georges Perrin. The official book description is as follows: Concrete tools, techniques, and processes to align software architecture with your business domains, organizational design, team topologies, and corporate strategy. I selected this book as I’m always looking to improve my solution architecture skills, and this book’s description sounded like a holistic approach to software design covering the software, strategy, and structure of architecture. [Read More]

Want to learn about Microsoft Power Platform Certifications but don’t know where to start? Here are some tips! Note: All information and screenshots are correct at time of writing but may be different in future as Microsoft certifications are subject to change (and often do!) Which Power Platform-related certifications are available? Power Platform-related certification can be found here on Microsoft Learn: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/certifications/browse/?products=power-platform&resource_type=certification&expanded=power-platform You’ll see several certifications with exams prefixed with PL- which cover various Power Platform services such as Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI. [Read More]

My Microsoft MVP Award I’m honoured to have received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for Business Applications in recognition of my “exceptional technical community leadership”! Microsoft state: MVPs are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. Huge thank you to everyone who has supported me and helped with opportunities along the way - and that includes YOU for being an awesome supporter who reads my blog! [Read More]

What is #100DaysOfSelfCare? During Mental Health Awareness Week in May 2023, the wonderful Azure McFarlane and I started a movement on Twitter with the hashtag #100DaysOfSelfCare. Here is the first tweet: https://twitter.com/MrKeithAtherton/status/1658537794732523521 What is self-care? Self-care is anything you do to take care of yourself so you can stay physically, mentally, and emotionally well. It can be as simple as going for a gentle walk or having lunch away from your desk, to learning something new or trying a new experience. [Read More]

Get Licensing Ready website Microsoft products such as Azure and Power Platform have a variety of licencing options. The Get Licensing Ready website provides material to learn about these licences and to take exams to earn certifications for free! 🎉 Courses available The website contains the following categories: Getting started Microsoft products Microsoft programs New tracks Prior GLR tracks Each category contains one or more courses. For example, the Microsoft products category contains the following courses: [Read More]

The Power Apps Host object The new Host object in Power Apps provides information about the current host running the app. The Host object does not have any properties that accept formulas but you can call functions against it to retrieve the following information: BrowserUserAgent: The complete user agent string that the browser uses to identify itself when running the app OSType: The name of the operating system where the app is running [Read More]

The Microsoft Build 2023 - Microsoft Learn Cloud Skills Challenge is now available! 🎉 Take one of the following 8 challenges to earn a free Microsoft Certification exam: AI-900: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals Aligning Challenge: Microsoft Build: Azure AI Challenge AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator Aligning Challenge: Not applicable / take any challenge AZ-204: Developing Solutions for Microsoft Azure Aligning Challenge: Not applicable / take any challenge AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions [Read More]