Tech Talk with Toni

One of these things are not like the others Today's post is inspired by a minor problem I encountered in an automated solution. An unaccounted-for scenario arose, much like the winds that famously brought down the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, leading to an unexpected result. After examining the input values used in the calculation, I pinpointed the cause of the error. This experience made me appreciate what my university lecturers were trying to instill in us: always account for edge cases. A friend of mine had a motto—he aimed to make his code 'monkey-proof,' ensuring that even nonsensical input wouldn't break his program. I believe that building resilient solutions should always be the goal, especially for systems intended for reuse. By considering as many edge cases as possible from the outset, you'll make your solutions far more maintainable in the long run. Now, here are some ways to find edge cases: Know Your Ranges What is the expected range of values for your data...

Steve Jobs , co-founder of Apple, was known for his incredible public speaking skills, particularly during product launches. I’ve noticed that many tech professionals shy away from presenting their work, often finding it far more stressful than the solutions they spent weeks building. But, I am here to let you in on a secret: Being able to speak in front of an audience—whether virtually or in person—will set you apart from the rest. As Isaiah Colthrust , Content Strategist, said, "You are already an expert to somebody," so use this as a source of confidence in your next presentation. Not to brag, but since I started this blog, I’ve been invited to speak at two virtual tech events and a podcast within a year. And even though my sound quality was bad and I was very nervous, I got the opportunity to connect with a lot of amazing people. I’m sharing this not to show off, but to inspire you to step outside your comfort zone and put your thoughts out there. With that being said, h...

Power BI is one of the fastest-growing skills overall according to Coursera's Skill Report 2024  Today’s post is inspired by my decision to learn more about Power BI over Tableau. My bias stems from the fact that Power BI was my first data visualization love, and you never forget your first! Now, when you're in the dashboard creation game, you're likely to be familiar with Tableau and Power BI (PBI for short). If not, think of these tools as canvases for placing your data visualizations such as donut charts and histograms to tell a cohesive story around a specific problem you are trying to solve.  I want to explore the key differences between the two to form a more balanced argument when discussing with a Tableau enthusiast who claims that  "Tableau is better" (very funny). Just so you know, I don’t outright hate Tableau. In fact, I use it for most of the dashboards I create at work. The Tableau community is fantastic, and the tool allows for highly customized vis...

 Finding a pathway from start to finish As a member of many projects in my lifetime—from growing bean plants in a Styrofoam cup for Science class to working on an Accounting group project during my university days—I think I know a thing or two about working on something with a deadline. However, outside of the well-structured educational system projects are not as neatly defined and new problems can arise along the way. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ensure that the final product meets the expectations of stakeholders at a reasonable time.  It turns out that this is easier said that done, there are always backstories of what went wrong behind the scenes even in the most successful projects. For example: The Sydney Opera House faced massive design complexities, budget overruns, delays, and political turmoil, but through innovative solutions, public support, and perseverance, it overcame these challenges to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an iconic c...

Duplication refers to a type of mutation in which one or more copies of a DNA segment is produced   Today's post is inspired by a course I recently completed on DataCamp around Cleaning Data in SQL. In the context of Data Quality, we are often interested in a dimension known as "Uniqueness", which can be thought of as having one copy of each record in a table.  Now you may be asking yourself, "Why is duplication bad?"  To that, I would say that it's expensive to store copies, and it also skews data analysis. For example,  if duplicate records exist, a customer might receive multiple marketing emails for the same promotion, leading to frustration and a poor customer experience. Now, suppose we have a table named orders, to identify these duplicate records, we can use a common SQL technique with the ROW_NUMBER() window function.  WITH CTE AS ( SELECT order_id, customer_id, order_date, amount, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PAR...

Scan for a surprise If you frequent bars or restaurants these days, you will notice that most of them have done away with traditional paper-based menus and opted for a funny-looking square. As someone who believes we should strive for paperless options as much as possible, I really appreciate the use of these QR codes. Now, I don't know about you, but I feel like these pixelated squares are now everywhere, and I don't even know what the "QR" even means. So, out of curiosity, I did a quick search so you don't have to (you're welcome), and it means Quick Response. Think of Quick Response Codes as a 2D barcode that stores more data than the traditional lines we are familiar with seeing cashiers scan as we worry about our total bill in the grocery store. QR Codes can be scanned with most smartphones to quickly access information such as URLs (Uniform Resource Locator), basically the address used to access websites. With that being said, here is a brief history as ...

 The longest word in many English dictionaries is "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis," a lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust.   Today's post is inspired by the influx of Excel formula-related questions people have asked me (even though I'm not that good at it). Steve Jobs said, "If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution."  I've solved many problems by doing this well enough. When you are unable to put your problem into words, you have a harder time finding the solution since you will be Googling or prompting ChatGPT with the wrong things. Imagine a dictionary with a bunch of nonsensical definitions – pretty useless, right? That's what our problem-solving process becomes without a solid starting point. Speaking of foundations, did you know I used to obsess over the origin of words (aka etymology) in science class? Turns out, every word has a story, and it can be surprisingly illuminating. Ta...