Welcome to my Site

March 26, 2016 By Mike Carlo

Welcome to PowerBI.tips, this blog is dedicated to learning and developing visualizations for PowerBI desktop, PowerBI.com and for data modeling in excel.

I’ve been a PowerBI user for almost two years. My background is in mechanical engineering, and I’ve been migrating into a data analytics and data scientist role. As a mechanical engineer part of your job is to develop a test, collect data, and summarize the results. In the collecting data phase engineers can collect gigs of data from sensors. Thus, there is a need to digest that data into what I would call an executive summary. I need to convey what I tested and did my device or product pass the tests.

My Journey to Power BI

In the past I’ve used access to collect data and summarize. Then using connections or data extracts to excel to produce charts or summary visualizations.

All of which brought me to where I am today. I’ve had the technical know how of databases and excel but I lacked the complete tool to build repeatable data to visualization products. This is the perfect fit for PowerBI.

Why This Blog?

This is why I’ve decided to share what I’ve learned about data and data visualization to help you get up to speed with the amazing PowerBI tools.

Hope you enjoy my blog, Mike

Mar 25, 2026

Git Best Practices Diff Noise & Naming - Ep. 513

Mike and Tommy break down the Git habits that make pull requests easier to review, cleaner to merge, and less painful to maintain over time. If your team fights diff noise, inconsistent naming, and mystery changes buried in commits, this episode gives you a practical framework for cleaning that up.

Mar 20, 2026

Publish to Web vs. Embedded - Ep. 512

Mike and Tommy break down the real difference between Publish to Web and Power BI Embedded, and why mixing them up creates security and governance headaches fast. If you need to share reports outside your organization, this episode gives you the practical framework for choosing the right option without accidentally turning convenience into a data leak.

Mar 18, 2026

Scaling a Power BI Side Hustle - Ep. 511

Mike and Tommy break down what it actually takes to grow a Power BI side hustle from occasional freelance work into a repeatable consulting engine. If you're balancing client delivery, productized offers, and the reality of limited time, this episode gives you a sharper playbook for scaling without creating chaos.