Power-Bi

I recently had the opportunity to read a preview of Business Intelligence Essentials You Always Wanted To Know by Irene Tobajas from LUKiN Consulting.

I like the way each chapter started with a set of key learning objectives.

I also like the way that quiz questions are integrated into the text (even though there’s the odd question where I didn’t love the answer. For example, saying that Data Mining wasn’t a component of BI).

2025-04-17

I was pleased to recently get to review a new book by Nagaraj Venkatesan called Architecting Power BI Solutions in Microsoft Fabric . Nagaraj was an MVP for two years and now a cloud solution architect working for Microsoft.

NOTE: I reviewed the book while it was in preview.

I liked the way that Power BI was discussed for different personas: Business Users, Data Scientists, Administrators.

I was puzzled to see a requirement in the front matter for Angular 9, TypeScript 3.7, and ECMAScript 11. I couldn’t find any relevance to them in the book. Hopefully it will be removed before publication.

2025-04-16

Another book that my friends at PackT sent me for review recently was Microsoft Power BI Performance Best Practices by Thomas LeBlanc and Bhavik Merchant.

Over the years, I’ve come across Thomas many times but haven’t had the chance to spend time with him, unlike Bhavik who worked here in Australia quite a bit. They are a good combination to write this book.

Content - Downloads

I like the fact that samples of everything discussed in the book are available. I also like the idea that if you bought the printed book, that you can download a PDF as well.

2024-10-01

Another book that I’ve been sent for review lately, was a pre-release edition of Data Visualization with Microsoft Power BI by Alex Kolokolov and Maxim Zelensky. It looks like it’s released now.

I’ve known Alex for many years, and have acted as a judge in his UI competition each year. He has a flair for data visualization. In the book, he mentioned that he was initially puzzled by many people finding it hard. But noted that “I later discovered that for experienced analysts and data engineers, visualization was entirely unnecessary. They comprehend the data structure, and the relationships are evident to them simply through tables. They genuinely don’t understand the need for all these pie charts and graphs.”

2024-09-18

I recently received another eBook for review from our friends at PackT. This time it was an early release copy of the Third Edition of the Microsoft Power BI Cookbook by Greg Deckler and Brett Powell.

Cookbook Style?

I’m a fan of books written in a cookbook style, rather than a teaching style. Often, people already know the basics and just want to get prompted on how to do specific tasks.

2024-08-03

I was excited to see Gus Frazer’s new book on Data Cleaning with Power BI. Our friends at PackT sent a copy for me to take a look at.

Gus has a background with both Power BI and Tableau, and it’s always interesting to see a mix of perspectives in any book. In this book, he shows a variety of data cleaning/cleansing tasks, then how to do many of them with M in Power Query. And you can tell Gus has a teaching background. because chapters have review questions. The book could well support a course.

2024-06-10

I’ve seen a few books lately from the PackT people. The latest was the second edition of Extending Power BI with Python and R by Luca Zavarella: Perform advanced analysis using the power of analytical languages.

Author

The author is Luca Zavarella. I’ve been working with Power BI since before it was released, and ever since I’ve seen discussions around using R (initially) and Python (later), Luca has been one of those people that everyone listens to.

2024-05-06

I’ve been writing a series on Power BI Implementation Models for Enterprises for Tekki Gurus.

Part 3 that covers what I consider Cloud Friendly Clients is now published:

Note: Sorry but Tekki Gurus have closed down.

Enjoy !

2024-03-08

Once again, I had the great pleasure to record a Fabric Down Under podcast. This time it was with a fellow “Down Under” guest Philip Seamark, from across the “ditch” (as we both call it) in New Zealand.

Phil is a member of the Fabric Customer Advisory Team and works as a DAX and Data modelling specialist.

He gets involved when enterprise customers need deeper technical support.

In this show, I discuss Phil’s thoughts on Direct Lake which is one of the very new options that came with Microsoft Fabric. It adds another mode to Power BI, in addition to Import and Direct Query modes that have been there previously.

2024-03-06

I’ve been writing a series on Power BI Implementation Models for Enterprises for Tekki Gurus.

Part 2 that covers what I consider Cloud Native Clients is now published:

Note: Sorry but Tekki Gurus have closed down.

Enjoy !

2024-01-18