Upgrade your Resume with this Microsoft VBA Training and Save an Extra 40% off

If you've spent any time in an office during the last 20 years, you're likely familiar with Excel—the number-crunching powerhouse that keeps offices and businesses around the world up and running 24/7. It's also likely, however, that you've only skimmed the surface of this incredibly powerful software and aren't taking advantage of its truly awesome capabilities.

That's where Microsoft VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) comes in. Think of it as Excel on steroids—allowing you to streamline countless tasks and turbocharge your data-handling capabilities with just a few lines of simple code. The Microsoft VBA Bundle will teach you everything there is to know about this game-changing platform, and when you enter the coupon code CYBER40 at checkout, you'll knock an additional 40% off its already discounted price of just $29.99.

The bundle is broken down into two modules. The first walks you through the absolute basics of Microsoft VBA using an easy-to-understand and intuitive framework. You'll work your way through four hours of training as you learn how to automate tasks and operations that you perform frequently, so you can shave precious time off your everyday routine. You'll discover how to define and manage variables, set up subroutines, utilize practical methods for using macro errors, and much more.

With these fundamentals under your belt, you'll move on to the second part of the bundle, which expands on your new skill set. You'll walk away from this course knowing how to write and implement Excel events, design and implement special classes of objects, explore and modify the Excel user interface, and more.

Don't miss out on your chance to harness the power of Microsoft VBA with this extensive bundle—on sale for an additional 40% off when you enter the coupon code CYBER40 at checkout.

 

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Alphabet is Considering Folding Nest into Google’s Hardware Division

When Google acquired Nest back in 2014, the Tony Fadell-founded company petitioned for autonomy. It was considered something of a steal for $3.2 billion, but infighting and cultural clashes hampered its productivity. That didn't stop Nest from getting new high-end security cameras and smart thermostats out the door, but Alphabet, Google's parent company, is reportedly looking to streamline things.

A new report from The Wall Street Journal citing "people familiar" with the matter claims that Alphabet might fold Nest into Google's hardware division. It wouldn't be a difficult transition; Nest's more than 1,000 employees have historically complemented Google's product efforts, and its retail and supply chain relationships overlap with Alphabet's own. A former Nest manager who spoke with The Wall Street Journal expressed surprise that the merger hadn't happened sooner.

After a couple of years under the arm of Alphabet, Nest's co-founder and CEO, Tony Fadell, stepped down in 2015. Mr. Fadell was replaced by Marwan Fawaz, a former executive vice president at Motorola Mobility, and the company's been cranking away new products ever since. Just recently, Nest announced a new in-home alarm system that connects to and works with all of its existing products.

 

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Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Google Bans Applications that Inject Ads into the Lockscreen

Display advertising might be Google's bread and butter, but not all ads are created equal — obnoxious banners, pop-ups, and interstitials are a recipe for bad user experiences and low click-through rates. That's why the search giant built an ad-blocking feature into Chrome, and why it's banning another category of ads — lockscreen advertisements — from applications hosted on the Google Play Store.

The blanket ban covers all Android applications that inject advertisements into the lockscreens of smartphones and tablets. But it isn't as cut-and-dry as it sounds: Applications such as Slidejoy, which dole out rewards in exchange lockscreen real estate, are exempt, because they're "exclusive purpose" is "that of a lockscreen."  Here's the relevant language from the Play Store's Terms of Service page:

Lockscreen Monetization

Unless the exclusive purpose of the app is that of a lockscreen, apps may not introduce ads or features that monetize the locked display of a device.

Basically, developers can still monetize applications designed for the lockscreen with ads, but non-lockscreen applications like file explorers, flashlight utilities, and shady games won't make the cut.

It remains to be seen how forcefully Google will apply the new rule — it's not uncommon to see an ad-free application gain a following and add advertisements later. (ES File Explorer, for example, added lockscreen sponsor placements in an update.) We'll have to wait and see how those applications are treated under the new rule.

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Source: Google Play Developer Policy Center Via: Android Police

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Google Assistant Gains Local Delivery and Home Service Support in the US

These days, there's not much the Google Assistant can't do. The platform's cloud-powered intelligence and contextual awareness helps it serve up answers to current events questions, the weather, commute time, and more. And thanks to a growing portfolio of third-party apps, it's getting better every day.

But despite the Google Assistant's versatility, it hasn't always been great at helping with local stuff. In the past, if you wanted to find a nearby restaurant that delivered your house, for instance, or hire a nearby electrician, the Google Assistant couldn't be of much assistance. Starting next week on Android devices, the iPhone, and Assistant-enabled speakers like Google Home in major US cities, though, that's changing — the Assistant's gaining local directory services for handymen, plumbers, household cleaners, and other categories of on-demand services.

Source: Google

Wondering how it'll work? Say you need a plumber. When you ask the Google Assistant for nearby plumbing services by shouting, "OK Google, find me a plumber", it'll prompt you to elaborate on the plumbing problem you're having. If it's a clogged drain, for instance, it'll ask to confirm your address and (1) prompt you to schedule a call with the nearest business or (2) supply a list of alternative plumbers.

You won't get someone at random. Google says it's working with HomeAdvisor and Porch to screen providers and ensure a high level of service. In cities that don't have guaranteed or screened providers, the Google Assistant won't be able to book a reservation for you, but will supply a list of search results instead.

If you're interested in how the Google Assistant's local features work, check out the press release. Google says the feature's rolling out over the coming week.

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Source: Google Blog

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Alexa Can Now Control Hulu, NBC, and More on the Fire TV

When it comes to the highly competitive voice assistant market, Amazon isn't playing around. It recently rolled out an update that lets developers notify Alexa users with audible pings and flashing LEDs, brought Alexa to smartphones such as the Huawei Mate 9, and and introduced Google Home-like personalised voice recognition to its Echo speakers. Needless to say, the retailer's taking its market dominance very seriously, and Amazon's newest project — support for new voice commands on Fire TV devices — dovetails with the company's other efforts.

Amazon brought Alexa to its set-top Fire TV devices in July, and the integration works pretty much like you'd expect — you can use an Alexa-powered speaker, smartphone, Fire TV remote, or tablet to control video playback, search for videos, and launch any app on the Fire TV. Now, starting this week, Fire TV applications from Bravo, CBS, Hulu, NBC, Showtime, and Sony PlayStation Vue gained support for Alexa voice commands.

Source: Amazon

Here's how it works: When you're in the Hulu app or any of the other updated applications, you can say, "Alexa, go to ESPN", for example, and the Hulu channel for ESPN will start playing. You can pause, play, rewind, or fast-forward the video with subsequent voice commands, or ask to start an episode over, skip it, or go back to the previous episode.

All you need to take advantage is an Alexa-enabled device, of course. (Amazon's Echo Dot, which retails for about $50, isn't a bad choice.) If you've got that part covered, simply updating your Fire TV's applications to their latest respective versions should be enough to get the feature working — they're compatible with the Amazon Fire TV (1st, 2nd, and 3rd Generation), Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote, Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote, and the Fire TV Stick (1st and 2nd Generation).

Give it a try, and check out the blog post from the Amazon Fire TV for more information.

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Source: Amazon Fire TV Blog

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Honor 7X Hands-on

We are excited to get a hands-on look at the Honor 7X which is the newest budget phone from Honor. In this video we just take a quick look at the completely redesigned body, the new premium materials being used, and see how it compares to the previous model.

The new 18:9 display takes up almost all of the front of the phone.

A small camera protrusion on the back houses the 16+2MP sensors.

The camera is a big step uo from other budget phones on the market.

Honor is making a big focus on budget devices right now and it looks like the Honor 7X might end up being our favorite budget phone of the year. A full review later on will explain why this phone is better than other budget phones. Right now the 7X is in pre-production but we will keep you updated on the status of this phone's availability.

While the price for this phone is still unknown, Honor is expected to make an official announcement on December. 5th. Until then, go check out the Honor 7X community forums to see what others are saying about this new phone.

See our Honor 7X Camera Test

We thank Honor for sponsoring this post. Our sponsors help us pay for the many costs associated with running XDA, including server costs, full time developers, news writers, and much more. While you might see sponsored content (which will always be labeled as such) alongside Portal content, the Portal team is in no way responsible for these posts. Sponsored content, advertising and XDA Depot are managed by a separate team entirely. XDA will never compromise its journalistic integrity by accepting money to write favorably about a company, or alter our opinions or views in any way. Our opinion cannot be bought.

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Unlocked HTC U11 Life Receives Android Oreo Update in the US

The HTC U11 Life was announced on November 2 alongside HTC's flagship HTC U11 Plus. While the latter's yet to launch in all markets, the U11 Life hit store shelves earlier this year, including in the US. But there was a problem: In some countries, it shipped with an Android 7.1 Nougat-based version of Sense UI instead of an Android 8.0 Oreo-based one. Luckily, that's changing for the better.

HTC promised that the U11 Life in the US would be updated to Android Oreo, and it's finally making good on that promise. On Thursday, HTC Vice President of Product Management Mo Versi announced that Oreo would head to all unlocked variants of the smartphone starting November 30.

HTC u11 life unlocked customers! You're next with Oreo! It's available to download starting today! Thank you!

— Mo Versi (@moversi) November 30, 2017

It won't start rolling out at once, though and unfortunately, HTC didn't publish a changelog. As of publication time, we don't know what's new in the Oreo update, which bugs have been fixed, how many gigabytes in size the update is, or even which Android security patch is included. Here's what we can speculate: Based on the fact that the unlocked HTC U11's Oreo firmware was roughly 1GB and shipped with the November 1, 2017 security patch, the U11 Life's update probably won't be far off.

It's also unclear if HTC enabled Project Treble in the Oreo update. Considering that the global U11 Life is an Android One smartphone and so is required to support Treble, it wouldn't be surprising to see HTC enable it in the update for the Sense-based unlocked US variant, which could potentially enable much faster and simpler custom ROM development.

For the uninitiated, the HTC U11 Life has a 5.2-inch Full HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 SoC, either 3GB or 4GB of RAM (depending on the model), a 16MP camera, a 2,600mAh battery, and up to 64GB of internal storage. The unlocked variant costs $349 in the US.

Have you received the Oreo update on your unlocked HTC U11 Life device? If so, let us know in the comments whether Project Treble is enabled in the build.

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Source: Mo Versi on Twitter

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