2025-12-23 Tuesday - Microsoft 365 COPILOT Function Safety Warning

Microsoft 365 caution regarding usage of COPILOT function in Excel:

See 'When NOT to use the COPILOT function'
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/copilot-function-5849821b-755d-4030-a38b-9e20be0cbf62

"""
COPILOT uses AI and can give incorrect responses.

To ensure reliability and to use it responsibly, avoid using COPILOT for:

Numerical calculations: Use native Excel formulas (e.g., SUM, AVERAGE, IF) for any task requiring accuracy or reproducibility.

Responses that require context other than the ranges provided: The COPILOT function only has access to the prompt and context provided to or referenced by the function. It does not have access to other data from your workbook, data from other files or enterprise information.

Lookups based on data in your workbook: Use XLOOKUP to look up data based on a table or range.

Tasks with legal, regulatory or compliance implications: Avoid using AI-generated outputs for financial reporting, legal documents, or other high-stakes scenarios.

Recent or real-time data: The function is non-deterministic and may return different results on recalculation. Currently, the model's knowledge is limited to information before June 2024.
"""

2025-12-18 Thursday - A Study in Extremes - Two Books

 

[image credit: anaterate on pixabay.com]

Today's meditation:
(my companion post, on LinkedIn)

I love working with teams, and helping organizations elevate their capabilities, in my areas of specialization, that encompass the many dimensions of architecture (Enterprise, Solution, Domain, Data, Security, Integration, Application, System, and Infrastructure).

But, I also have a burning desire to continually push the boundaries of my knowledge, outside of my core areas of focus - and so, I have often volunteered as a technical editor, reviewer, and advisor - for book publishers, book product managers, acquisition editors, and authors. Because of such work that I have done, over a long period of time now, publishing houses often request my particpation in manuscript reviews, and assessing book proposals.

However, reviewing manuscripts is often a pain - and not too infrequently - complete drudgery. The same common patterns of mistakes are often made, repeatedly, throughout a manuscript.

Because I have a love for the written word - and I love reading books - I have a very keen sensibility for what makes a good book - and a good reader experience (whether the writing is fiction, or non-fiction - and especially for technical material).

Today is a study in extremes:

Book #1:
Should never have been published. It is absolute shite. It is a perfect example of a vanity project - so someone can claim they have written a book. It will fade away and be forgotten (quickly). The author does not illuminate or teach - they just recite. There is no evidence of critical thinking, experience, or expertise. There is no depth - it is just theft of your time to trudge through the meaningless drivel. There is a critical difference between a first-time neophyte writer - and someone that is just shoveling a bag of words.

Book #2:
Extremely well written. It is almost becoming tedious as I annotate my comments for each diagram, code example, section, and chapter - using such repeated phrases: "clear", "concise", "excellent", "good pacing", nice elaboration", etc. The authors demonstrate a mastery of their subject-matter, and provide meaningful content that elevates the reader's learning experience.

p.s.
While at university (in a writing honors program), I was encouraged by my professor to pursue a PhD in literature - so evident was my love of the written word, even then.

My early training as a musician also informs my sense of harmony and symmetry in both the written word - and the design of systems and software.

2025-12-07 Sunday - Book Review - Microsoft Azure in Action

  

[image source: Amazon.com]

Thanks to Divya Aravind for the very kind invitation to review this book. 

Microsoft Azure in Action, by Lars Klint 
https://www.amazon.com//dp/1617299650 

[My Amazon review entry] 

A concise introduction and overview of Microsoft Azure

This is a good book if you are new to Microsoft Azure - and it is appropriate for leadership teams, managers, delivery teams, infrastructure folks, networking staff, cybersecurity, operations personnel, and architects of all types. Everyone for whom Azure is new - will gain beneficial insights, for their respective roles, by reading this book. 

While trying to comprehensively tackle Azure in a single book (in less than 370 pages) is an impossible task for anyone - this book provides an excellent means for IT staff to quickly get oriented and familiarized with much of the core Azure concepts, services, and best practices. 

A few words about the quality that has gone into the writing of this book: 
First, the content is well organized. 
Second, the writing is concise. 
Third, the selected material is the most relevant information to impart to the reader - to get them hands-on, soonest. 

From the Forward, I agree with this sentiment: 
"I first met Lars at TechEd Sydney in 2014, where he was doing what he does best: making complex technology feel approachable and energizing. ... Lars doesn’t just explain what Azure can do; he offers a hands-on guide" 
-- Scott Gutherie 

From the Preface, note the author's goals for the book: "hands-on", "straight to the point", "practical examples", and "relatable". 
These objectives are well met by this book. 

One of the best aspects of the author's writing - is the patient step-by-step detailed guidance - that includes the WHY of many decision decisions - and the REASON for choosing particular configuration options. 

Four parts of the book - that I think the majority of folks will find most interesting - in particular, include: 
Chapter 4 (Networking in Azure) 
Chapter 6 (Security)
Chapter 8 (Serverless) - re: touching on API Gateway usage 
Chapter 10 (Relational databases) - re: 10.5 Disaster Recovery 

I'm giving this book a solid 4 Stars - as I believe it is a worthwhile book to have on your bookshelf. 
 

███████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 

During my background research for this review, I found a number of additional resources that readers of the book might find of possible interest:

Official Microsoft Azure resources:  

• Azure Documentation
• Azure Updates 
• Azure subscription and service limits, quotas, and constraints
• Microsoft Azure Pricing calculator 
• Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework 
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ 
• Architecture 
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/ 
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/browse/
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/guide/ 
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/icons/ 
• Functions 
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/  
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/supported-languages 
• https://github.com/Azure/functions-action 
• Kusto Query Language (KQL)
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/kusto/query/?view=microsoft-fabric 
• Azure for Rust Developers 
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/developer/rust/ 
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/developer/rust/what-is-azure-for-rust-developers 
• Security 
• Security Adoption Resources 
• Microsoft Cybersecurity Reference Architectures 
• https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/security/ 
• Azure Example Resources
• https://github.com/Azure-Samples 
• https://github.com/Azure-Samples/functions-custom-handlers 
• Azure Developer Community
• https://azure.github.io/dev-community/
• https://azure.github.io/dev-community/awesome-azure/ 
• https://azure.github.io/awesome-azd/
• https://github.com/Azure/awesome-azd 
• Azure Community Space
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/community
• Microsoft Q&A > Azure
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/133/azure 

 Other non-Microsoft Azure resources: 

• stackoverflow - Microsoft Azure Collective
• https://stackoverflow.com/collectives/azure 
• Meetups: 
• Microsoft Tech Groups
• https://www.meetup.com/pro/azuretechgroups/
• Microsoft Azure Community User Group (London, UK)
• https://www.meetup.com/microsoft-azure-community/ 
• GitHub Azure-related Awesome lists
• https://github.com/lukemurraynz/awesome-azure-architecture
• (updated ~2 weeks ago)  
• https://github.com/johnlokerse/awesome-azure-devops
• (updated ~4 months ago)  
• https://github.com/kmcquade/awesome-azure-security
• (2 years since last update) 
• https://github.com/Azure-Samples/azure-ai
• (2 years since last update) \

2025-12-07 Sunday - Lessons from an HR Thought Leader

I've just read some of the posts by Bryan Howard  (Chief Executive Officer, Peoplyst) - an  HR consulting/advisory thought leader - and just really enjoyed his writing so very much...so insightful.

Sharing some snippets from two of his recent posts that really caught my attention...

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7393677270416105472/

• "We can't afford to give raises," the division leader said.
• "So you won't pay someone 15% more to stay,
• but you'll pay someone else 30% more to start?"

 

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7403164257367900161/

• "Our one-on-ones are pointless."
• Everyone says they're fine. Then they quit," the director told me.

• "It's not a one-on-one," I said.
• "It's an interrogation." 

• "Turns out when you stop interrogating people,
• they start telling you the truth."