Practical help

Practical technology guides

Understand network basics, domain records, security hygiene and data workflows.

How to summarize an IP range into CIDR blocks

Represent an IPv4 start and end address as the smallest set of exact CIDR blocks.

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IPv6 prefixes and subnet ranges explained

Understand IPv6 CIDR prefixes, compressed notation, address ranges and why IPv6 has no broadcast address.

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MAC address formats and randomized addresses

Read a MAC address format and understand its unicast, multicast and local-administration bits.

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IPv4 subnet masks and CIDR explained

Understand network addresses, broadcast addresses, host ranges and /31 or /32 edge cases.

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How to calculate percentage change

Find a percentage increase or decrease, and see why the starting value matters.

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How to compare spreadsheets when rows have moved

Use a stable identifier to distinguish real data changes from a different row order.

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Keep leading zeros when converting CSV to Excel

Why identifiers such as 00123 change, and how text cells help preserve them.

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Merge CSV files with different column orders

Match headings instead of column positions, and understand what happens to missing columns.

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What a CSV cleaner can safely fix

Separate predictable formatting cleanup from changes that require human judgment.

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