Understanding Boxplots

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I’m learning Data Science with R Programming. It’s been so far an enlightening experience to say the least.

As I was completing an assessment, I stumbled at a question regarding a boxplot. In R, it’s so easy to create a boxplot. Using the function boxplot(), you can instantly stratify what you need to. My problem was not writing the code. My problem was instead understanding what exactly a boxplot was. Following is just a sample boxplot I created based on the code samples:

Looks nice, however, initially I had absolutely no idea what that plot was trying to tell me.

Unless I learn, how a boxplot works, I can’t really finish my learning. Upon searching, I stumbled across one of the best articles I’ve ever read on visualisations.

This post, Understanding Boxplots (Towards Data Science) by Michael Galarnyk, explains the concept in an exceptionally detailed manner.

I hope you all find it useful too.

Vaidy

Happy New Year 2020!

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Wishing all of you a very happy and successful year 2020!

My heart goes to those who are affected by the raging bushfires in Australia’s east coast.

My thoughts and prayers are with every single one of them.

Vaidhy

Microsoft Dynamics GP Addin Templates For Visual Studio 2017 & 2019

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Tim Wappat has given us something precious. I am late to the party, though.

I didn’t realise that Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 shipped with a VS Tools version that’s incompatible with anything above Visual Studio 2015.

This realisation hit me when I tried to install and configure GP 2018 R2 on my virtual machine for an upgrade project.

Obviously, the first place to search for a resolution was our GP forum. This post by Richard Wheeler pointed me to the right direction. Tim’s Visual Studio extension saved me from going insane.

Thank you so much, Tim!

Vaidy

Power BI End-To-End Diagram – Coates Data Strategies

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Melissa Coates (Coates Data Strategies) has published an updated end-to-end diagram of Power BI. This is extremely useful to someone who would like to learn, understand and to present the capabilities of Power BI to any potential client.

She is generous to let us use the PDF version of this diagram. Find it here: Updated Version of the Power BI End-To-End Diagram.

Please remember to give her a shout out.

Vaidy

Long Absence & Resurrection

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I’ve been absent from blogging for an obscene amount of time. Have been MIA on forums, my blog, pretty from every public medium. Except Twitter, of course.

A lot happened in the last 2 years.

The Good: My primary job now revolves around an incredible mining solution named PLODtrack. For those who are interested in knowing about that, follow the link.

The Bad: It has got absolutely no affiliation with Dynamics GP, which means I’ve not been working on GP projects for the last 2 years.

The Ugly: Several. I don’t even know from where to start.

Silverlining: I’ve gained precious experience in the last 2 years. Both professionally and personally. That’s going to drive me from now, until god knows when.

Assurance: I’ve not stopped pursuing Dynamics GP. I’m very much a Dynamics GP consultant at heart and mind. I’ve got that going for me outside of my work hours. And I have absolutely no intention of drifting away.

So, long story short, I shall try to keep this blog alive with some really nice posts. Hopefully won’t take much time from this post till the next.

I’d like to thank those who still visit some of my posts and keep this blog going.

Vaidy

Installing Parallels Tools On Kubuntu 18.04 LTS Virtual Machine

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Another off-topic post from me. And this time, it is for a very interesting issue.

I was trying to install and configure a new virtual machine for Kubuntu 18.04 LTS on my Mac, using Parallels Desktop v13. The installation went on well. My new Kubuntu VM was ready for configuration. All done, except Parallels Tools.

Every time I tried to install Parallels Tools, I received a fatal error and the installation would abruptly stop. Searching this on the Parallels Forum lead me to this post: Fail to build kernel modules on Linux kernel v4.15+.

Trust me, I’m no good at Linux at all. I’m just beginning to explore. So whatever was discussed on this forum post was beyond my limited knowledge. However, on page 2 of this post, there was a link provided which took me to Rudolf Ratusinski‘s step-by-step guide on how to hack Parallels Tools installer and make it work.

Here’s the original link: Parallels Tools fix for Ubuntu 18.04 and other Linux distributions with Kernel version >= 4.15

I must admit. Even I was able to follow the steps and succeed in installing Parallels Tools on my Kubuntu 18.04 VM.

Screen Shot 2018-05-21 at 12.06.48.png

It’s worth noting that Parallels is yet to release a fix for this issue. This hack shouldn’t even be required, had Parallels addressed it straightforwardly.

Till we receive one from them, you may want to read Rudolf’s hack first before trying to install Parallels Tools.

Thanks Rudolf. I really appreciate your time and effort to share this crucial hack with all of us.

Vaidy

Connect SQL Operations Studio For Mac to a SQL Server in Parallels VM

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I’m slowly moving away from Windows. However, being a Microsoft Dynamics GP consultant, that’s not entirely possible. I’ve been working hard to overcome every single roadblock since the last couple of years.

One major gripe, among several others, was the inability to connect the SQL Server instance on my Windows 10 virtual machine, mounted using Parallels. Until now.

Microsoft released SQL Server Operations Studio, which is still under preview, for us to connect to a SQL Server from Windows, Mac OS or Linux. I now have the choice to work from either my Mac OS or my Windows 10 VM.

However, there are some steps we must follow to successfully connect to a SQL Server instance on a virtual machine. This post, from Anton Sizikov, is probably the easiest one to follow. Following the steps explained on this post, Connecting SQL Operations Studio to SQL Express Server in Parallels VM, I was able to successfully use my SQL Server Operations Studio to connect to my VM SQL Server. Below is the SQL Ops Studio in all its “dark theme” glory:

Screen Shot 2018-05-16 at 16.18.41

I couldn’t use my Mac more than pretty much for just browsing, emailing and other daily digital chores. This is one huge step forward to start utilising it well.

Vaidy

 

CredSSP Encryption Oracle Remediation Error – Remote Desktop Connection

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Word of Caution: This article contains a procedure to edit/change Windows Registry. Please take necessary precaution before attempting this.

I received an error this morning while trying to connect to one my clients’ server. The message as follows:

Screen Shot 2018-05-10 at 09.45.07.png

With the help of one of my contacts at the client site, also upon searching and following the link provided in the message itself, couple of help pages stood out:

  1. CredSSP updates for CVE-2018-0886
  2. CredSSP encryption oracle remediation

For those who would like to see the solution immediately without having to go through the details from above links, I shall brief the solution itself here.

There are basically two solutions:

  1. Run “Windows Update” on the remote server (or the workstation) to which you are trying to connect. This will ensure that you have the latest patch on the remote box and you wouldn’t be facing this issue again. This would work provided your machine also has got the latest updates applied.
  2. For those who cannot update the remote box for some reason(s), you would have to create a new registry entry as shown below:

Screen Shot 2018-05-10 at 14.24.19.png

Once above registry key is created, you must restart your workstation / client / computer without fail.

All good now to successfully connect to the remote box again.

A note of thanks to Dave.

Vaidy

Off-Topic: Mac OS High Sierra Push Notification Banners Issue

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I’m blogging after a painfully long time. And, I’d like to share something really interesting that happened on my MacBook Pro this week.

I reset my Mac with Mac OS High Sierra (10.13.4) and all of a sudden, all my notifications stopped working. The Dock labels would show, sound would be there, yet mysteriously, banners wouldn’t come. Upon checking the notification area, there wasn’t any recent notifications listed at all. Baffling, to say the least.

Screen Shot 2018-04-19 at 11.00.36 am.png

Then I chanced upon this apple support forum discussion, Mail notifications | Official Apple Support Communities.

Despite the discussion being for Mail App, the solution given on this discussion worked for me for all apps’ notifications.

Solution is quite simple; change the alert notification from “Alerts” or “Banners” to “None” and change it back. Easy, isn’t it? Not exactly. I had to do this for all of my apps, using the notification centre.

Screen Shot 2018-04-19 at 11.04.49 am.png

I can’t complain though. It’s working now, that’s all I need.

If someone’s having same issue and is looking for a solution, look no further. Check out the discussion on Apple Support Forum (link provided above).

Vaidy

 

Windows 10 Creator Update & Dynamics GP

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An interesting issue/question was posted on our community forum regarding an error message popping up while exiting GP2015 R2 & GP2016 R2.

Specifically, GP2015/2016 R2 on Windows 10 Creator Update is what seems to be throwing this error while exiting.

Link to original forum post: Windows 10 Creator and GP2015 R2

One member, Ron Koendrink, figured out that it’s Mekorma MICR that’s causing this issue on his environment. Per his update, Mekorma had confirmed that it’s an issue for which a fix was available.

Anyone out there who use Mekorma MICR and planning to upgrade your OS to Windows 10 Creator Update, please contact them and get the fix.

A note of thanks to Ron.

Vaidy