03 July 2018

A Beginner’s Tutorial on Writing VBA Macros in Excel (And Why You Should Learn)


vba-macros-excel

Excel Macros can save you a ton of time by automating Excel processes that you use often. But macros are actually quite limited. It’s easy to make a mistake with the recording tool, and the recording process is awkward.

Using VBA to create macros gives you a great deal more power. You can tell Excel exactly what to do and how to do it. You also get access to a lot more functions and capabilities. If you use Excel regularly, it’s worth learning how to create VBA macros.

We’ll start with the basics.

What Is VBA?

VBA is Visual Basic for Applications, a programming language that you can use in many Microsoft apps. Visual Basic is a programming language, and VBA is the application-specific version of it. (Microsoft discontinued Visual Basic back in 2008, but VBA is still going strong).

Fortunately for non-programmers, VBA is very simple, and the interface that you use to edit it offers a lot of assistance. Many of the commands you’ll use pop up suggestions and automatic completions, helping you get your script working quickly.

Still, VBA takes a while to get used to.

The Advantages of VBA Macros in Excel

If VBA is more difficult than recording a macro, why would you use it? The short answer is that you get a lot more power out of VBA macros.

Instead of clicking around your spreadsheet and recording those clicks, you can access Excel’s full range of functions and capabilities. You just need to know how to use them.

And once you’re more comfortable with VBA, you can do all the things you might do in a regular macro in a lot less time. The results will also be more predictable, as you’re telling Excel exactly what to do. There’s no ambiguity at all.

Once you’ve created your VBA macro, it’s easy to save and share it so anyone else can take advantage of it. This is especially useful when you’re working with a lot of people who need to do the same things in Excel.

Let’s look at a simple VBA macro to see how it works.

An Example of a VBA Macro in Excel

Let’s look at a simple macro. Our spreadsheet contains names of employees, the store number where the employees work, and their quarterly sales.

This macro will add the quarterly sales from each store and write those totals to cells in the spreadsheet (if you’re not sure how to access the VBA dialog, check out our VBA walkthrough here):

Sub StoreSales()

Dim Sum1 As Currency
Dim Sum2 As Currency
Dim Sum3 As Currency
Dim Sum4 As Currency

For Each Cell In Range("C2:C51")
  Cell.Activate
  If IsEmpty(Cell) Then Exit For
  If ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1) = 1 Then
    Sum1 = Sum1 + Cell.Value
  ElseIf ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1) = 2 Then
    Sum2 = Sum2 + Cell.Value
  ElseIf ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1) = 3 Then
    Sum3 = Sum3 + Cell.Value
  ElseIf ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1) = 4 Then
    Sum4 = Sum4 + Cell.Value
End If
Next Cell
 
Range("F2").Value = Sum1
Range("F3").Value = Sum2
Range("F4").Value = Sum3
Range("F5").Value = Sum4
 
End Sub

This might look long and complicated, but we’ll break it down so you can see the individual elements and learn a bit about the basics of VBA.

Declaring the Sub

At the beginning of the module, we have “Sub StoreSales()”. This defines a new sub called StoreSales.

You can also define functions—the difference is that functions can return values, and subs can’t (if you’re familiar with other programming languages, subs are the equivalent of methods). In this case, we don’t need to return a value, so we’re using a sub.

At the end of the module, we have “End Sub,” which tells Excel that we’re done with this VBA macro.

Declaring Variables

The first lines of code in our script all start with “Dim.” Dim is VBA’s command for declaring a variable.

So “Dim Sum1” creates a new variable called “Sum1.” However, we need to tell Excel what kind of variable this is. We need to choose a data type. There are many different data types in VBA—you can find the full list in Microsoft’s help documents.

Because our VBA macro is going to be dealing with currencies, we’re using the Currency data type.

The statement “Dim Sum1 As Currency” tells Excel to create a new Currency variable called Sum1. Every variable that you declare needs to have an “As” statement to tell Excel its type.

Starting a For Loop

Loops are some of the most powerful things you can create in any programming language. If you’re not familiar with loops, check out this explanation of Do-While loops. In this example, we’re using a For loop, which is also covered in the article.

Here’s what the loop looks like:

For Each Cell in Range("C2:C51")
[a bunch of stuff]
Next Cell

This tells Excel to iterate through the cells in the range we specified. We’ve used a Range object, which is a specific type of object in VBA. When we use it this way—Range(“C2:C51”)—it tells Excel that we’re interested in those 50 cells.

“For Each” tells Excel that we’re going to do something with each cell in the range. “Next Cell” comes after everything we want to do, and tells Excel to start the loop from the beginning (starting with the next cell).

We also have this statement: “If IsEmpty(Cell) Then Exit For.”

Can you guess what it does?

Note: Strictly speaking, using a While loop may have been a better choice. However, for the sake of teaching, I decided to use a For loop with an Exit.

If-Then-Else Statements

The core of this particular macro is in the If-Then-Else statements. Here’s our sequence of conditional statements:

If ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1) = 1 Then
  Sum1 = Sum1 + Cell.Value
  ElseIf ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1) = 2 Then
  Sum2 = Sum2 + Cell.Value
  ElseIf ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1) = 3 Then
  Sum3 = Sum3 + Cell.Value
  ElseIf ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1) = 4 Then
  Sum4 = Sum4 + Cell.Value
End If

For the most part, you can probably guess what these statements do. You might not be familiar with ActiveCell.Offset, though. “ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1)” tells Excel to look at the cell that’s one column to the left of the active cell.

In our case, that’s telling Excel to consult the store number column. If Excel finds a 1 in this column, then it takes the contents of the active cell and adds it to Sum1. If it finds a 2, it adds the contents of the active cell to Sum2. And so on.

Excel goes through all of these statements in order. If the conditional statement is satisfied, it completes the Then statement. If not, it moves into the next ElseIf. If it gets all the way to the end and none of the conditions have been satisfied, it won’t take any action.

The combination of the loop and the conditionals is what drives this macro. The loop tells Excel to go through each cell in the selection, and the conditionals tell it what to do with that cell.

Writing Cell Values

Finally, we get to write the results of our calculations to cells. Here are the lines we use to do that:

Range("F2").Value = Sum1
Range("F3").Value = Sum2
Range("F4").Value = Sum3
Range("F5").Value = Sum4

With “.Value” and an equals sign, we set each of those cells to the value of one of our variables.

And that’s it! We tell Excel that we’re done writing this Sub with “End Sub,” and the VBA macro is complete.

When we run the macro with the Macros button in the Developer tab, we get our sums:

Putting Together the Building Blocks of VBA in Excel

When you first look at the VBA macro above, it looks quite complex. But after breaking it down into its constituent parts, the logic becomes clear. Like any scripting language, it takes time to get used to the syntax of VBA.

But with practice, you’ll build up your VBA vocabulary and be able to write macros faster, more accurately, and with much more power than you could ever record them.

When you get stuck, running a Google search is a quick way to get your VBA questions answered. And Microsoft’s Excel VBA reference can be helpful if you’re willing to dig through it for a technical answer.

Once you’re comfortable with the basics, you can start using VBA for things like sending emails from Excel, exporting Outlook tasks, and displaying your PC information.

Read the full article: A Beginner’s Tutorial on Writing VBA Macros in Excel (And Why You Should Learn)


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Amazon Prime Day 2018 Kicks Off on July 16


Amazon has announced the first details about Prime Day 2018, including the date when it’s happening, the countries taking part, and the kinds of deals we can expect. And it looks like this, the fourth annual Prime Day, is going to be bigger than ever.

In 2015, to celebrate the company turning 20, Amazon hosted Prime Day. It was so popular Amazon turned it into an annual tradition. Amazon Prime Day is essentially Black Friday exclusively for Amazon Prime subscribers. With products discounted across the board.

When Is Black Friday 2018?

Amazon Prime Day 2018 will kick off at 12pm PT on July 16, 2018. It will then take place over 36 hours, six hours longer than Prime Day 2017. There are also deals available every day between now and July 16, meaning Prime Day is no longer really just “a day”.

Amazon Prime Day 2018 is open to Prime subscribers in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Mexico, Japan, India, Italy, Germany, France, China, Canada, Belgium, Austria and—for this first time this year—also in Australia, Singapore, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Amazon Prime subscribers in the U.S. have an extra opportunity to grab a bargain by heading down to a Whole Foods store. Whole Foods customers just need to download the app and scan the Prime Code to get 10 percent off sale items and more besides.

In Amazon’s Prime Day press release, Jeff Wilke, Amazon CEO Worldwide Consumer, said:

“Prime members will enjoy a day (and a half) of our best deals, with 36 hours to shop more than one million deals worldwide. New this year, members can shop exclusive Prime Day Launches from hundreds of brands worldwide, enjoy exclusive savings at Whole Foods Market and experience surprise entertainment events unboxed from giant Smile boxes in major cities. More than 100 million paid Prime members around the world will find our best Prime Day celebration yet.”

You Need to Subscribe to Prime

To take part in Prime Day you obviously need to be a Prime subscriber. However, Amazon offers a 30-day free trial of Prime, so if you signed up now you’d be able to access all of the deals in the run-up to Prime Day and for the duration of the event itself.

If you want to keep an eye on all of the Prime Day deals point your browser at the Prime Day page on Amazon.com. However, to help you prepare in advance we’ve put together a guide to Amazon Prime Day 2018 which details everything you need to know.

Read the full article: Amazon Prime Day 2018 Kicks Off on July 16


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How to Repair Your Mac’s Disk Using Safe Mode, fsck, and More


repair-mac-disk-safe-mode

There’s no need to panic if your Mac won’t start. Ignore the gut-wrenching feeling that fixing your computer will take a long time. macOS includes some simple fixes that can help get everything right straight away.

You don’t need to take your machine to a service center for repair yet. Save yourself time and money by trying to fix it yourself. If you regularly back up with Time Machine, you have little to lose.

Let’s look at how to revive a Mac that refuses to start.

Before We Begin

These tips are for instances where your Mac refuses to boot. You might see a black screen, you could get an error message, or your computer may hang on the white Apple logo. If your machine is running fine, this troubleshooting guide is not for you.

You can, however, run First Aid on your drive anytime in macOS. If you suspect problems with your startup drive due to performance issues or erratic behavior, running First Aid certainly won’t hurt.

To run First Aid on your startup volume, launch Disk Utility and select Macintosh HD (assuming you haven’t renamed your startup volume). Click on First Aid followed by Run to scan the disk for problems and attempt to fix them.

macOS Disk Utility

1. Try Safe Mode

By attempting to boot into Safe mode, macOS will scan and repair any errors it finds on the disk. Safe mode boots your operating system with only the bare minimum it needs to run.

No third party kernel extensions will boot, login items are skipped, and it empties certain caches. Simply by booting into safe mode, you’ll check for problems and take out the trash that might cause them.

To boot into Safe mode: Turn your computer off, then press and hold the Shift key while your computer boots. If your computer has hung on boot, shut it down by holding the power button until the machine switches off (around 10 seconds) first.

Apple Smart Keyboard Hold Shift

Should your computer boot properly, try restarting and booting as normal. If your computer hangs again, try using Verbose Mode by holding Cmd + V on startup and checking to see if a specific kernel extension is causing the issue. You can then restart into Safe mode, remove the problem extension, and try again.

2. Recovery Mode and First Aid

If Safe mode didn’t fix your issue, Recovery mode is your next best bet. Every Mac ships with Recovery mode, which lives on a separate partition on the startup disk. This mode allows you to repair/restore your drive, access the Terminal, and reinstall macOS.

To boot into Recovery mode: Turn your computer off, then press and hold Cmd + R while your computer boots.

Apple Smart Keyboard Cmd + R

If you have trouble booting into Recovery mode, perhaps due to problem with your drive, you can start recovery mode from the internet by holding Cmd + Option + R instead. Keep in mind this requires an internet connection and will take a lot longer, since macOS needs to download the image first.

Once you’ve booted into Recovery mode, you’ll see a few options. Launch Disk Utility and then isolate the drive that’s causing problems—it’s probably labeled Macintosh HD. Select it from the list on the left, then click First Aid followed by Run.

3. Use fsck in Single User Mode

File system consistency check (or fsck for short) is a longstanding Unix tool for checking and fixing drive problems.

Depending on the size of your volume, the type of drive you have installed, and the potential problem, fsck can take a while to complete. Patience and persistence is important if you want to fix your drive this way.

To run fsck, you’ll need to boot into Single User mode. This boot mode allows you to make changes to shared user resources. Single User mode doesn’t attempt to boot macOS; it only provides access to a Unix command line.

To boot into Single User mode: Turn your computer off, then press and hold Cmd + S when your computer boots. You’ll soon see a command line prompt. You can type fsck -fy to run fsck.

Apple Smart Keyboard Command + S

Note: If you’ve encrypted your drive, you’ll need to select the relevant user account and enter your password to decrypt it. If you have a firmware password set on your Mac, Single User mode is not available to you.

It’s important to wait for fsck to finish before you restart your computer again. If you interrupt the process while it is making changes to your drive, you may incur data loss. When the process finishes you’ll see one of the following messages:

** The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired.
*****The volume was modified *****
  • If you see this message, you should run fsck -fy again. There’s no harm in trying multiple times, since the process makes changes to your drive on each pass.
** The volume Macintosh HD was repaired successfully.
*****The volume was modified *****
  • This is a more encouraging message, but you aren’t done yet. Run fsck -fy again.
** The volume Macintosh HD appears to be OK.
  • This is what you want to see. fsck has checked the drive and had to make no changes.

When you get the all-clear, it’s time to restart your Mac by running the exit command.

Still Can’t Boot Your Mac?

If your Mac still won’t boot after running First Aid and fsck, you may have some serious problems with your drive. At this stage it’s advisable to back up your files and run Apple Diagnostics to see if there are any obvious problems.

If you really want to try fixing the problem yourself, you’ll need to turn to technician-level Apple Service Diagnostics to learn as much information about the problem as you can.

Recovering Files From Your Mac’s Damaged Disk

If your disk is damaged beyond repair, there’s a chance you will lose some of your data. The first step to try is creating an image of the drive, for which you’ll need to connect a spare external drive that’s at least as big as the startup disk you’re trying to save.

Boot your Mac into Recovery mode with Cmd + R on startup, then launch Disk Utility. In the menu bar at the top of the screen select File > New Image > Image from “Macintosh HD” (or whatever your drive is called).

Copy to External Drive

Specify your external drive and start the process. This may take a while, and if the drive is damaged it may even fail entirely. If the process is successful, you’ll create a DMG file of your old drive which you can mount and sort through at your own convenience.

Copying the Files Manually

Should the imaging fail, you’ll need to copy your files manually. You can do this in Recovery mode, but you’ll need to launch Terminal on startup instead of Disk Utility. To do so:

  1. Connect the external drive you want to use as a destination for your files.
  2. Restart your Mac in Recovery mode by holding Cmd + R on startup, then choose Terminal.
  3. Use the cp -r command to copy your files to the external drive. For example: cp -r /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Users/[username]/Documents /Volumes/Backup/

Let’s break down the command above: cp is the copy command, and -r runs this command recursively. That means it will copy all directories within the directory you specify, then the directories within them, and so on.

The first path is the location of the files you want to copy. Note the backslash (\) in the path name, which you use to specify locations that have spaces in their name. The second path is the location of your external drive, which will always be in /Volumes/ with whatever label you’ve given it (in the example above, the drive is called Backup).

The problem with this approach is that you’ll need to remember where your files are located. You’ll also need to hope that they aren’t stored on a portion of the drive that’s damaged. With your files safe, you can move on to fixing your Mac and reinstalling macOS.

The Importance of Backing Up Your Mac

Hopefully you’re able to recover your drive or any important files you may need. Even with a successful recovery, and the many tools at your disposal, there’s nothing quite like the peace of mind a recent backup provides.

You don’t even have to use Time Machine to keep your Mac safe. Why not try one of the many other Mac backup tools?

Read the full article: How to Repair Your Mac’s Disk Using Safe Mode, fsck, and More


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Facebook confirms that it’s acquiring Bloomsbury AI


Facebook announced this morning that the London-based team at Bloomsbury AI will be joining the company.

My colleague Steve O’Hear broke the news about the acquisition yesterday, reporting that Facebook would deploy the team and technology to assist in its efforts to fight fake news and address other content issues.

In fact, Bloomsbury AI co-founder and Head of Research Sebastian Riedel also co-founded Factmata, a. startup that purports to have developed tools to help brands combat fake news.

Facebook doesn’t quite put it that way in the announcement post. Instead, it says the team’s “expertise will strengthen Facebook’s efforts in natural language processing research, and help us further understand natural language and its applications” — but it certainly seems possible that those applications could include detecting misinformation and other problematic content.

While financial terms were not disclosed, we reported that Facebook is paying between $23 and $30 million. Bloomsbury AI is an alumnus of Entrepreneur First, and it was also backed by Fly.VC, Seedcamp, IQ Capital, UCL Technology Fund, and the U.K. tax payer-funded London Co-investment Fund.


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Google Cloud’s COO departs after 7 months


At the end of last November, Google announced that Diane Bryant, who at the time was on a leave of absence from her position as the head of Intel’s data center group, would become Google Cloud’s new COO. This was a major coup for Google, but it wasn’t meant to last. After only seven months on the job, Bryant has left Google Cloud, as Business Insider first reported today.

“We can confirm that Diane Bryant is no longer with Google. We are grateful for the contributions she made while at Google and we wish her the best in her next pursuit,” a Google spokesperson told us when we reached out for comment.

The reason for Bryant’s departure are currently unclear. It’s no secret that Intel is looking for a new CEO and Bryant would fit the bill. Intel also famously likes to recruit insiders as its leaders, though I would be surprised if the company’s board had already decided on a replacement. Bryant spent more than 25 years at Intel and her hire at Google looked like it would be a good match, especially given that Google’s position behind Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud wars means that it needs all the executive talent it can get.

When Bryant was hired, Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene noted that “Diane’s strategic acumen, technical knowledge and client focus will prove invaluable as we accelerate the scale and reach of Google Cloud.” According to the most recent analyst reports, Google Cloud’s market share has ticked up a bit — and its revenue has increased at the same time — but Google remains a distant third in the competition and it doesn’t look like that’s changing anytime soon.


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The 20 Best Shopify Stores to Try Instead of Amazon or eBay


shopify-best-stores

When you think of online shopping, you probably think of Amazon. With revenues of almost 200 billion per year, no other online store comes close in terms of either size or variety of products.

However, biggest doesn’t always mean best. Perhaps you could consider buying your wares from a Shopify store instead! But with so many of them out there, it can be hard to decide where to shop. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the best Shopify stores for you.

What Is Shopify?

Shopify is an e-commerce platform. It allows anyone to create an online store and sell their products. Shopify lets users customize their storefronts, process credit card payments, manage orders, and more.

As a consumer, it’s perhaps sensible to think of Shopify stores as the “Mom-And-Pop” outlets of the 21st Century, whereas Amazon is more akin to a big box store that sells everything.

How Does Shopify Work?

The Shopify platform has a few key features that make it stand out as an excellent choice for anyone who wants to run an online store.

They include more than 100 free templates, a template store, and an app store with more than 1,200 listings. In some ways, it’s similar to WordPress, but for commerce rather than blogging.

Shopify is free at the point of sale. It makes money by charging vendors a transaction fee if they aren’t using the proprietary Shopify Payment service.

With the basics explained, let’s look at the 20 best online Shopify stores currently out there.

1. Pipcorn

best shopify stores to shop at

We’ll kick off the list with a sure-fire winner—a popcorn store. After all, who doesn’t love the taste of freshly popped kernels?

Best of all, Pipcorn’s products are healthy. Well, as healthy as popcorn can be. Its products are non-GMO, vegan, gluten-free, and whole grain.

2. Chaos

best shopify stores to shop at

Everyone (who doesn’t fancy fixing a broken screen every few months) should use a case for their iPhone. But cases are all a bit “samey”, aren’t they?

Step forward Chaos. You can customize a case to match your personality. You can even create matching luggage tags, passport holders, and teddy tags.

3. Tattly

best shopify stores to shop at

Tattoos become more popular with every passing day. Ergo, the number of people who regret getting tattoos is also on the rise.

Tattly wants to help cut back on the remorse by selling temporary tattoos from professional artists. And if you order at least 200, the company will print your own design. They’d be great fun at a wedding or large event.

4. National Portrait Gallery

best shopify stores to shop at

Shopify doesn’t only power quirky stores. It’s also the engine behind some well-established brands.

One example is the National Portrait Gallery in the U.K. Its shop sells prints, books, accessories, and other merchandise from the largest portrait museum in the world.

5. Pop Chart Lab

best shopify stores to shop at

Pop Chart Lab sells charts and graphics for almost anything you can think of.

Want a chart of the galaxy? Done. Fancy hanging a seating plan of your favorite team’s stadium on your wall? Pop Chart Lab will have it. Are you a grammar pedant? Grab a display of common issues in English language usage. The list goes on and on…

6. BioLite

best shopify stores to shop at

Here’s one for outdoorsy people. BioLite aims to change the way campers, hikers, and backpackers power their off-the-grid lives.

The shop offers a range of eco-friendly products. For example, you can buy a biomass stove that uses thermoelectric power to both cook your food and charge your phone.

Best of all, every purchase helps power an off-the-grid home in India or Africa.

7. Kutoa

best shopify stores to shop at

Kutoa is another store with sustainability at the heart of its ethos. It sells health bars, but for every bar you buy, the company will provide food to a child in need.

All the company’s bars are gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO, free of added sugar, and free of preservatives.

8. Death Wish Coffee

best shopify stores to shop at

With a name like that you know you’re in line for something different, and Death Wish Coffee definitely delivers.

It claims to be the world’s strongest coffee. We don’t know whether the claims are true, but we do know the two blends the company offers use the finest beans from across Honduras, Guatemala, Sumatra, Peru, and India.

You’ll be enjoying a better cup of coffee in no time.

9. Skinny Teatox

best shopify stores to shop at

Sticking with the theme of hot beverages, here’s one of the tea lovers. Skinny Teatox is a natural detox tea program. The company hits all the right buzzwords, saying it promotes weight loss and good health.

It offers a 7-, 14-, and 28-day program. Each of them revolves around two natural tea blends. Again, we can’t verify the claims, but it’s got to be better than drinking a cola.

10. Canada Icons

best shopify stores to shop at

Canada Icons sells a selection of traditional Canada garments. And we mean traditional. You can pick up a 1975 Walter Walker canoe for $22,000, a pair of Saulteaux snowshoes from 1890 for $1,495, or Annie McKay mukluks for $799.

There’s even a piece of Emily Carr art available for a cool $440,000.

11. Studio Neat

best shopify stores to shop at

Studio Neat sells a real mixed bag of products.

For example, you can pick up a wooden holder for your Apple TV remote or a wide-grip stylus for touchscreen devices, but you can also buy a kit for making homemade syrup or creating clear ice.

And these aren’t cheap gimmicks; all the products ooze class.

12. Goodwin and Goodwin

best shopify stores to shop at

Goodwin and Goodwin is a custom sign store. They can make signs for shops, weddings, or even sandwich boards for cafes.

Every single sign is hand-crafted by the shop’s owners.

13. Eye Heart World

best shopify stores to shop at

The products in Eye Heart World’s store aren’t immediately eye-catching. There’s a relatively small selection of handbags, bracelets, wallets, and backpacks. So, what’s so special?

Well, the company behind the store is dedicated to fighting human trafficking and sex trafficking in the United States.

Did you know all 50 U.S. states have reported cases of sex trafficking and the national hotline receives more than 100 calls per day? Indeed, the average age of entry into forced prostitution in the country is just 12 years old.

14. Beardbrand

best shopify stores to shop at

Keeping your beard looking perky is no mean feat. It takes hours of effort to look more like Tom Hardy and less like Gandalf.

Beardbrand could be the answer. It stocks a plentiful supply of shampoos, oils, softeners, balms, brushes, and more.

15. Cookbook Village

best shopify stores to shop at

Cookbook Village started life as a store on eBay before making the jump to Shopify’s platform.

Yes, it sells cookbooks. And while you can find some fairly typical cookbook titles, you can also find vintage and collectible releases to satisfy the rustic chef in you.

16. Burst

best shopify stores to shop at

It’s not easy to find free, high-quality images that you can use in a commercial environment. That’s why Shopify launched Burst.

It’s an in-house project that offers thousands of stock images. All the content is available under the Creative Commons license.

17. Gallery Drinkware

best shopify stores to shop at

Gallery Drinkware is taking a crusade against the overuse of plastic bottles by offering premium glass bottles.

Each of the bottles features work by a famous artist. At the time of writing, WylAnd Guy Harvey, Drew Brophy, and Vincent Van Gogh are the four artists on show. All the designs have a nature-based theme.

18. Zee Dog

best shopify stores to shop at

There’s no point in being the most stylish person in town if your dog looks like Scooby Doo.

Zee Dog sells fashionable leashes, collars, and other canine accessories. Best of all, five percent of all sales—as well as profits the company makes from other partnerships—go towards helping NGOs that work with homeless pets.

19. La La Land

best shopify stores to shop at

La La Land stocks a vast number of kitsch products. You can pick up everything from pencils and pins to greetings cards and wall decorations.

All the products retain a fresh, youthful vibe.

20. Modern Market

best shopify stores to shop at

We’ll end with Modern Market. It’s aimed at photographers. You can buy a range of products, including online lessons, page templates, and even awesome Lightroom and Photoshop presets.

The site also offers featured collections of photographers’ work; hopefully, the collections can help to inspire your next project.

Don’t Forget to Check Out Some Other Stores

Shopify might be quickly emerging as the number one e-commerce platform, but that doesn’t mean you should disregard stores from other online companies.

AmazonBasics and eBay both offer great deals, and plenty of shops offer free international shipping. Take your pick today. You just might come back to one of these Shopify stores for some unique stuff.

Read the full article: The 20 Best Shopify Stores to Try Instead of Amazon or eBay


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A look back at HTC’s 10 most iconic devices


HTC is gone. The company of today is not the company that helped start the smartphone revolution. That’s a shame, too. In the early years of the smartphone, HTC released some of the best devices available.

Here’s a look back at ten of the company’s most iconic devices.


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A look back at HTC’s 10 most iconic devices


HTC is gone. The company of today is not the company that helped start the smartphone revolution. That’s a shame, too. In the early years of the smartphone, HTC released some of the best devices available.

Here’s a look back at ten of the company’s most iconic devices.


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A No-Excuse Productivity Guide for Unproductive People

Light is building a smartphone with five to nine cameras


Light, the company behind the wild L16 camera, is building a smartphone equipped with multiple cameras. According to The Washington Post, the company is prototyping a smartphone with five to nine cameras that’s capable of capturing a 64 megapixel shot.

The entire package is not much thicker than an iPhone X, the Post reports. The additional sensors are said to increase the phone’s low-light performance and depth effects and uses internal processing to stick the image together.

This is the logical end-point for Light. The company introduced the $1,950 L16 camera back in 2015 and starting shipping it in 2017. The camera uses sixteen lenses to capture 52 megapixel imagery. The results are impressive especially when the size of the camera is considered. It’s truly pocketable. Yet in the end, consumers want the convenience of a phone with the power of a dedicated camera.

Light is not alone in building a super cameraphone. Camera maker RED is nearing the release of its smartphone that rocks a modular lens system and can be used as a viewfinder for RED’s cinema cameras. Huawei also just released the P21 Pro that uses three lenses to give the user the best possible option for color, monochrome and zoom. Years ago, Nokia played with high megapixel phones, stuffing a 41 MP sensor in the Lumia 1020 and PureView 808.

Unfortunately addtional details about the Light phone are unavailable. It’s unclear when this phone will be released. We reached out to Light for comment and will update this report with its response.


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Light is building a smartphone with five to nine cameras


Light, the company behind the wild L16 camera, is building a smartphone equipped with multiple cameras. According to The Washington Post, the company is prototyping a smartphone with five to nine cameras that’s capable of capturing a 64 megapixel shot.

The entire package is not much thicker than an iPhone X, the Post reports. The additional sensors are said to increase the phone’s low-light performance and depth effects and uses internal processing to stick the image together.

This is the logical end-point for Light. The company introduced the $1,950 L16 camera back in 2015 and starting shipping it in 2017. The camera uses sixteen lenses to capture 52 megapixel imagery. The results are impressive especially when the size of the camera is considered. It’s truly pocketable. Yet in the end, consumers want the convenience of a phone with the power of a dedicated camera.

Light is not alone in building a super cameraphone. Camera maker RED is nearing the release of its smartphone that rocks a modular lens system and can be used as a viewfinder for RED’s cinema cameras. Huawei also just released the P21 Pro that uses three lenses to give the user the best possible option for color, monochrome and zoom. Years ago, Nokia played with high megapixel phones, stuffing a 41 MP sensor in the Lumia 1020 and PureView 808.

Unfortunately addtional details about the Light phone are unavailable. It’s unclear when this phone will be released. We reached out to Light for comment and will update this report with its response.


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The UDOO BOLT is a powerful computer on a tiny board


When we last met UDOO the team was building a powerful Raspberry Pi-based DIY board with a bunch of impressive features including more ports and a better processor. Now the team behind the first units has released the UDOO BOLT, a DIY board that can run “AAA games” thanks to a built-in AMD Ryzen Embedded V1202B 3.2 GHz SoC processor and a Radeon Vega 3 graphics card. The system is also Arduino compatible so you can connect it to your robotics and other electronics projects.

The BOLT, when outfitted with a chunk of RAM, is, according to the creators, “almost twice as powerful as a MacBook Pro 13-inch equipped with an Intel i5 and three times more powerful than a Mac Mini.” Because it is nearly a fully-fledged computer you can stick it into a case and treat it like a mini-workstation with a USB keyboard and mouse and HDMI out to a monitor. The BOLT can drive four monitors at once, two via 4K HDMI and two via USB-C. It runs Linux or Windows.

The team plans on shipping in December 2018. The starter kit costs $298 on Kickstarter and includes a power supply and 4GB of RAM. The 8GB unit with SATA and Wireless costs $409.

Is a DIY board with a massive processor and graphics card a bit of overkill? Absolutely. However, because the system is designed for experimentation and on-the-fly design, you can easily repurpose a board like this for a kiosk, store display, or workstation. Because it is so portable you could slap a few of these on school desks and give the kids powerful computers that run nearly everything you can throw at them. Plus it’s pretty cool to be able to play VR games on a machine the size of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

UDOO has been adding onto the traditional Raspberry Pi/Arduino stack for so long that they’ve become experts at making basic boards much more powerful. Given their earlier models could run drones and control multi-legged robots all while running Android, this new product should be a real treat.


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