Keith Atherton

My Microsoft Certification Journey

The Microsoft Certifications I've earned so far and why I chose them

Posted on February 17, 2023 |

My Microsoft certifications I’m very proud to have earned all eight Microsoft Fundamentals Certifications: Azure Fundamentals Azure Data Fundamentals Azure AI Fundamentals Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals Power Platform Fundamentals Microsoft 365 Certified: Fundamentals Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM) Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (ERP) Why I study for Microsoft certifications Studying for a technical certification, Microsoft or otherwise, is a personal choice which can be motivated by several factors such as: [Read More]

Asking ChatGPT about the Microsoft Power Platform

What can ChatGPT tell us about the Microsoft Power Platform

Posted on February 10, 2023 |

I wondered what ChatGPT thinks about the Microsoft Power Platform… so I asked it! The results were very interesting - here they are: Me: What is the Microsoft Power Platform? ChatGPT: The Microsoft Power Platform is a low-code platform that enables organizations to build custom business applications quickly and easily. It combines three products: Power Apps, Power Automate (formerly known as Microsoft Flow), and Power BI. Power Apps is a platform for creating custom business applications for mobile devices and web browsers. [Read More]

PowerPlatform ChatGPT ChatBot ArtificialIntelligence MachineLearning

What is the Microsoft Power Apps Community?

How you can find (and give) help in the Microsoft Power Apps Community

Posted on February 3, 2023 |

The Microsoft Power Apps Community is a place where you can connect with peers, share ideas, and learn from experts for everything Power App-related. It’s a great place to find help as well as offer help to others. In fact, when searching on Google (other search engines are available) for answers to Power App questions, I’m often directed to the Microsoft Power Apps Community where, often, someone has encountered a similar issue and helpful folks have responded with a solution. [Read More]

PowerApps Community

Power Platform 2023 Release Wave 1 Plan

2023 release wave 1 overview

Posted on January 27, 2023 |

The Microsoft Power Platform 2023 release wave 1 plan was recently announced with a TON of interesting updates! The release plan contains hundreds of new features across Power Platform so here is a brief summary of some of my highlights: Power BI Integrate Power BI into Teams meetings Power BI is adding new in-meeting experiences for Microsoft Teams. Users can add content like reports to Teams meetings by adding the Power BI tab to their meetings. [Read More]

PowerPlatform PowerBI PowerApps PowerPages PowerAutomate PowerVirtualAgents MicrosoftDataverse AI Builder

Festive Tech Calendar 2022

Summary of the event

Posted on January 18, 2023 |

The Festive Tech Calendar 2022 online event ran throughout December, 2022 and was fantastic! I was privileged to be one of the co-organisers along with Gregor Suttie, Richard Hooper, Simon Lee, and Lisa Hoving. It was great to work with the organising team, speakers, our chosen charity, supporters, and everyone else, to be able to deliver a wonderful event. There was a huge number of sessions submitted, and all event sessions are still available for catch-up here: [Read More]

FestiveTechCalendar Event

Azure Data Fundamentals DP-900 Courses on LinkedIn Learning

Prepare to take the DP-900 Microsoft certification exam

Posted on January 13, 2023 |

One of my favourite Microsoft certifications is Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals which requires passing Exam DP-900: Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals. LinkedIn Learning now has courses for all four of the skills measured, and I was lucky enough to be one of the instructors: Azure Data Fundamentals (DP-900) Cert Prep: 1 Core Data Concepts by Gregor Suttie Azure Data Fundamentals (DP-900) Cert Prep: 2 Working with Relational Data on Azure by Adam Wilbert [Read More]

LinkedInLearning Certifications

My Review of 2022

Posted on December 31, 2022 |

[Photo: Sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean on my flight home to Scotland from Florida back in September.] My 2022 My 2022 was a year of highs, lows, and lots of new experiences. However, my highlight of the year has been the many amazing people I’ve connected with throughout my personal life, work, tech community and elsewhere. Some people I’ve known for years, others I’ve met for the first time this year. [Read More]

YearReview 2022

What's all the chat about ChatGPT?

What is ChatGPT, and how to get started with it

Posted on December 12, 2022 |

What is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is a chatbot that uses the GPT-3 language model to generate responses to user input in a conversational manner. GPT-3 (short for “Generative Pretrained Transformer 3”) is a state-of-the-art language processing model developed by OpenAI, capable of generating human-like text. But wait. Everything you read above was generated by ChatGPT itself! ChatGPT’s capabilities, as listed on the intro page, are: Remembers what user said earlier in the conversation Allows user to provide follow-up corrections Trained to decline inappropriate requests And ChatGPT’s limitations, also listed on the intro page, are: [Read More]

ChatGPT ChatBot ArtificialIntelligence MachineLearning

Power Apps Ideas

Use Power Apps Ideas to generate Power Fx formulas

Posted on November 28, 2022 |

Picture this: You have a Power App gallery which contains employee name text data using Power Fx formula ThisItem.Name: Next, you want to change the text format from “Peter Gibbons” to, say, “Gibbons, Peter”. However, you’re not (yet) a Power Fx guru. What can you do??? Well, a feature which I’ve found useful is Power Apps Ideas which allows you to transform examples to Power Fx formulas by using the power of AI models. [Read More]

PowerApps PowerFx AI

Hello, World!

Welcome to my blog

Posted on November 21, 2022 |

Hey! Welcome to my first blog post :)

I’m Keith Atherton and I’ve been a professional software developer for over 20 years. I’m Microsoft certified, a public speaker, a LinkedIn Learning instructor, and a mentor.

In this blog, I’m planning to write about all things development, including .NET, C#, SQL, Microsoft Azure, Power Platform, and non-technical subjects.

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Intro