I agree with those points. My comments are in regards to Macros. Why is VBA better for a sales manager? Why not use VB.Net, Python or C#? There is nothing inherently better about VBA.
My issues with Excel come from the perspective of modifying these ad-hoc apps (many business run off these for a long time as they grow). Yes, there are other great features, but for me, for growth, Calc is taking a better approach.
My first job out of college was converting all the Excel spreadsheets that ran the business to web apps so I certainly know how they are used, and more importantly, how they are abused.
If Excel had a real scripting language as it's Macro language the problem wouldn't be nearly so bad. All that business code could just be copy/pasted, have some unit tests implemented then refactored so that the accountants code is now updated by the developer. As it is now the code has to completely rewritten in a new language.
As for the language choice, VB.Net or C# would be fine. I'm not saying it has to be Python. My complaint is that the code is non-transferrable. The apps cannot grow past Excel, and the email the most recent version to the next guy game gets you into versioning hell rather quickly.
No you do not get Sharepoint AND Exchange servers with Office365. Sure you can access them, but that's not what you said.
Also, Calc has Python (and other language scripting) which puts it above Excel in my book. For built in functions yes Excel is better. As soon as you start venturing outside of Spreadsheets and into data analysis (where Macro's come into play) stop using Excel. Move to Matlab or Pandas. Excel Macro's should not be used as a selling point, they are rarely, if ever, the right tool for the job. At least with Calc you can take the business logic from your Macro's and move them into a real script. VBA isn't C# nor VB.Net compatable.
You don't have to, but it would probably be best to keep it consistent. You could run your live server on barebones OS as you normally would, then create a docker image to mirror that. However, as we all know, mirrors often get out of sync fairly quick. But if you use the same image and only update using a Fabric or Ansible script, then you can be pretty certain that all your environments are identical. Not to mention that any newly created environments will brought up to the same point in no time at all.
Try it in a VM first. Most things will be fine, however if it were production ready it wouldn't be marked beta. Something that you need may be disabled or in flux leaving you hanging.
You should build the coolest project you can think off. I highly doubt that a simple laser cut alarm clock is going to get you very far in this contest.
I've used http://www.dx.com quite a bit. Prices are really, really low. Shipping is free. However, you may have to wait two months for your products to arrive.
Since most of this stuff is based off of open source hardware it's pretty much identical to the name brand stuff. So it pretty much comes down to a cost/time ratio consideration when first starting out. Before you know it though, you will have quite a large collection of parts built up.
Also remember you can hit garage sales, recycle yards, and thrift shops to find a lot of old hardware that you can salvage valuable parts out of for less than the price of the parts themselves.
I'd buy the book in a heartbeat if it were digital.
I went paperless a few years ago, one of the biggest deciding factors was my huge collection of dead-tree books that continued to take up space even though the content was obsolete.
A $20 digital version for me would be an instant buy. A $40 dead-tree only version is a no-sale.
Reddit used to be big on karma parties, so when Dropbox first increased the limit from 5GB to 10GB I figured I would try a Dropbox party. I posted my referral link and encouraged others to do the same. A couple hours later I had maxed out my referrals. Since then I've seen others try, and at first they were well received but now they get downvoted pretty quickly.
Anyway, I guess my point is to try and see if other sites you visit will allow threads to share Dropbox invites. It is spam but since the referrals benefit both the invitee and inviter evenly some forums may allow it.
edit: I see there are some comments in thread already doing just that.
My issues with Excel come from the perspective of modifying these ad-hoc apps (many business run off these for a long time as they grow). Yes, there are other great features, but for me, for growth, Calc is taking a better approach.