That O365 Guru from Cape Town (#NadirKamdar)

Excel Office Scripts allow you to automate and format Excel workbooks through code, similar to macros, but designed for the cloud. In this step-by-step guide, we’ll start from the basics of creating and recording an Office Script, then integrate scripts with Power Automate to generate a well-designed Excel document stored in SharePoint. By the end, you’ll know how to go from a simple recorded script to an advanced workflow that creates dynamic Excel reports with ease. What are Office Scripts and Why Use Them? Office Scripts in Excel are a powerful automation feature that let you record or write scripts (in TypeScript/JavaScript) to perform repetitive tasks. They operate much like traditional Excel macros, but work in the cloud (Excel for Web and modern Excel desktop):contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}. This means your Excel files can live in SharePoint or OneDrive and still run automated scripts, enabling new scenarios that VBA macros (which only run in desktop Excel) cannot:conten...

Why Consider SVG in PowerApps? SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) images offer several advantages over standard image formats like PNG or JPEG, making them ideal for PowerApps: Infinite Scalability: SVGs are vector-based, so they remain crisp at any size. You can resize an icon or graphic without any loss of quality – no more blurry images on high-resolution displays [1] . This is perfect for apps that need to look good on everything from phones to large monitors. Small File Sizes: SVGs are essentially XML instructions for drawing shapes, not pixel-by-pixel data. This typically leads to smaller file sizes and faster load times compared to bitmap images [2] . A lighter app means better performance for your users. Transparency and Styling: SVG supports transparent backgrounds (unlike JPEG) [3] , so your icons can blend seamlessly with any theme or color. Moreover, because SVGs are code, you can edit their colors or shapes via ...

Fifteen hours. That’s how long it takes to drive from Cape Town to Afriski in Lesotho. We split the drive over two days: 10 hours to Bloemfontein, then another 5 hours to Afriski. Add about 3 hours for bathroom breaks and lunch, and you've got yourself a serious road trip. As we approached the snow-capped peaks, our excitement peaked too. By 4 p.m., we were just 10 kilometers away from Afriski. Snow blanketed everything around us, turning the world into a winter postcard. Suddenly, my car lit up the dashboard like a Christmas tree. Warning lights I'd never seen before started flashing — one even showing a road with a snowflake on it, warning that the road was slippery. "Yes, I know its slippery, I'm driving and I can feel it too!" I muttered, half amused and half nervous. Then, we saw it: a long queue of vehicles. A massive truck had gotten stuck, blocking the road. The snow was too deep and too icy; cars couldn't gain traction to pass. People were already tur...

My Uber Eats Wake-Up Call I recently had a jarring experience that highlighted a new and uncomfortable trend in the food service industry. I ordered breakfast via Uber Eats and, which is common in this case, I was prompted to add a tip at the time of ordering – before the food was even prepared or delivered. Wanting to be generous, I preemptively added a 15% tip to the order. Unfortunately, when my breakfast arrived, I discovered that during transit, half of my coffee had spilled so I was provided with a half-filled cup. The delivery itself was a flop, yet the driver had already pocketed a tip for service that turned out to be subpar. Sure, I could theoretically go through the hassle of reversing or adjusting the tip after the fact, but the process to cancel it is cumbersome . In frustration, I found myself thinking: Did that delivery really deserve a tip? Probably not. The whole ordeal left such a bad taste that I swore off using that delivery service for a while. This incid...