New Year Resolutions (mostly)

Top  New Year Resolutions

I will lose (or do less of)-

  • weight (in pounds or kilos)
  • double (or triple chins)
  • stretch marks,cellulite, acne
  • generally try and eat /drink/smoke less

I will gain (or do more of)

  • exercise
  • more time with family
  • write my book/blog/poetry

I will quit (or stop doing this)

  • smoking
  • drinking
  • miscellaneous time or health wasting addictions

I will start (initiative)

  • my secret hobby (blog)
  • my latent fantasy (business)
  • something I always wanted to do but didnt, and so likely wouldnt, but it looks good on the list (vacation)
  • keeping my new year resolutions because my spouse and kids forced me to (but not say so too loudly).

Happy New resolutions folks

R Journal Dec 2010 and R for Business Analytics

A Bold GNU Head
Image via Wikipedia

I almost missed out on the R Journal for this month- great reading,

and I liked Dr Hadley’s article on stringr package the best. Really really useful package and nice writing too

http://journal.r-project.org/archive/2010-2/RJournal_2010-2_Wickham.pdf

(incidentally I just downloaded a local copy of his ggplot website at http://had.co.nz/ggplot2/ggplot-static.zip

I aim to really read that one up

Okay, announcement time

I just signed a contract with Springer for a book on R, some what in first half of 2011

” R for Business Analytics

its going to be a more business analytics than a stats perspective ( I am a MBA /Mech Engineer)

and use cases would be business analytics cases. Do write to me if you need help doing some analytics in R (business use cases)- or want something featured. Big focus would be on GUI and easier analytics, using the Einsteinian principle to make things as simple as possible but no simpler)

The Year 2010

Nokia N800 internet tablet, with open source s...
Image via Wikipedia

My annual traffic to this blog was almost 99,000 . Add in additional views on networking sites plus the 400 plus RSS readers- so I can say traffic was 1,20,000 for 2010. Nice. Thanks for reading and hope it was worth your time. (this is a long post and will take almost 440 secs to read but the summary is just given)

My intent is either to inform you, give something useful or atleast something interesting.

see below-

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
2010 6,311 4,701 4,922 5,463 6,493 4,271
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total
5,041 5,403 17,913 16,430 11,723 10,096 98,767

 

 

Sandro Saita from http://www.dataminingblog.com/ just named me for an award on his blog (but my surname is ohRi , Sandro left me without an R- What would I be without R :)) ).

Aw! I am touched. Google for “Data Mining Blog” and Sandro is the best that it is in data mining writing.

DMR People Award 2010
There are a lot of active people in the field of data mining. You can discuss with them on forums. You can read their blogs. You can also meet them in events such as PAW or KDD. Among the people I follow on a regular basis, I have elected:

Ajay Ori

He has been very active in 2010, especially on his blog . Good work Ajay and continue sharing your experience with us!”

What did I write in 2010- stuff.

What did you read on this blog- well thats the top posts list.

2009-12-31 to Today

Title Views
Home page More stats 21,150
Top 10 Graphical User Interfaces in Statistical Software More stats 6,237
Wealth = function (numeracy, memory recall) More stats 2,014
Matlab-Mathematica-R and GPU Computing More stats 1,946
The Top Statistical Softwares (GUI) More stats 1,405
About DecisionStats More stats 1,352
Using Facebook Analytics (Updated) More stats 1,313
Test drive a Chrome notebook. More stats 1,170
Top ten RRReasons R is bad for you ? More stats 1,157
Libre Office More stats 1,151
Interview Hadley Wickham R Project Data Visualization Guru More stats 1,007
Using Red R- R with a Visual Interface More stats 854
SAS Institute files first lawsuit against WPS- Episode 1 More stats 790
Interview Professor John Fox Creator R Commander More stats 764
R Package Creating More stats 754
Windows Azure vs Amazon EC2 (and Google Storage) More stats 726
Norman Nie: R GUI and More More stats 716
Startups for Geeks More stats 682
Google Maps – Jet Ski across Pacific Ocean More stats 670
Not so AWkward after all: R GUI RKWard More stats 579
Red R 1.8- Pretty GUI More stats 570
Parallel Programming using R in Windows More stats 569
R is an epic fail or is it just overhyped More stats 559
Enterprise Linux rises rapidly:New Report More stats 537
Rapid Miner- R Extension More stats 518
Creating a Blog Aggregator for free More stats 504
So which software is the best analytical software? Sigh- It depends More stats 473
Revolution R for Linux More stats 465
John Sall sets JMP 9 free to tango with R More stats 460

So how do people come here –

well I guess I owe Tal G for almost 9000 views ( incidentally I withdrew posting my blog from R- Bloggers and Analyticbridge blogs – due to SEO keyword reasons and some spam I was getting see (below))

http://r-bloggers.com is still the CAT’s whiskers and I read it  a lot.

I still dont know who linked my blog to a free sex movie site with 400 views but I have a few suspects.

2009-12-31 to Today

Referrer Views
r-bloggers.com 9,131
Reddit 3,829
rattle.togaware.com 1,500
Twitter 1,254
Google Reader 1,215
linkedin.com 717
freesexmovie.irwanaf.com 422
analyticbridge.com 341
Google 327
coolavenues.com 322
Facebook 317
kdnuggets.com 298
dataminingblog.com 278
en.wordpress.com 185
google.co.in 151
xianblog.wordpress.com 130
inside-r.org 124
decisionstats.com 119
ifreestores.com 117
bits.blogs.nytimes.com 108

Still reading this post- gosh let me sell you some advertising. It is only $100 a month (yes its a recession)

Advertisers are treated on First in -Last out (FILO)

I have been told I am obsessed with SEO , but I dont care much for search engines apart from Google, and yes SEO is an interesting science (they should really re name it GEO or Google Engine Optimization)

Apparently Hadley Wickham and Donald Farmer are big keywords for me so I should be more respectful I guess.

Search Terms for 365 days ending 2010-12-31 (Summarized)

2009-12-31 to Today

Search Views
libre office 925
facebook analytics 798
test drive a chrome notebook 467
test drive a chrome notebook. 215
r gui 203
data mining 163
wps sas lawsuit 158
wordle.net 133
wps sas 123
google maps jet ski 123
test drive chrome notebook 96
sas wps 89
sas wps lawsuit 85
chrome notebook test drive 83
decision stats 83
best statistics software 74
hadley wickham 72
google maps jetski 72
libreoffice 70
doug savage 65
hive tutorial 58
funny india 56
spss certification 52
donald farmer microsoft 51
best statistical software 49

What about outgoing links? Apparently I need to find a way to ask Google to pay me for the free advertising I gave their chrome notebook launch. But since their search engine and browser is free to me, guess we are even steven.

Clicks for 365 days ending 2010-12-31 (Summarized)

2009-12-31 to Today

URL Clicks
rattle.togaware.com 378
facebook.com/Decisionstats 355
rapid-i.com/content/view/182/196 319
services.google.com/fb/forms/cr48basic 313
red-r.org 228
decisionstats.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/the-top-statistical-softwares-gui 199
teamwpc.co.uk/products/wps 162
r4stats.com/popularity 148
r-statistics.com/2010/04/r-and-the-google-summer-of-code-2010-accepted-students-and-projects 138
socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr 138
spss.com/certification 116
learnr.wordpress.com 114
dudeofdata.com/decisionstats 108
r-project.org 107
documentfoundation.org/faq 104
goo.gl/maps/UISY 100
inside-r.org/download 96
en.wikibooks.org/wiki/R_Programming 92
nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/12/07/07readwriteweb-report-google-offering-chrome-notebook-test-11919.html 92
sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rkward/index.php?title=Main_Page 92
analyticdroid.togaware.com 88
yeroon.net/ggplot2 87

so in 2010,

SAS remained top daddy in business analytics,

R made revolutionary strides in terms of new packages,

JMP  launched a new version,

SPSS got integrated with Cognos,

Oracle sued Google and did build a great Data Mining GUI,

Libre Office gave you a non Oracle Open office ( or open even more office)

2011 looks like  a fun year. Have safe partying .

Privacy Browsing Extensions in Google Chrome

coat of arms of the Palaiologos dynasty, the l...
Image via Wikipedia

Using two Chrome Extensions, Disconnect and AdBlock you can be sure of having a vary very clean browsing experience-it is recommended especially if you dont like the auto sharing of your personal preferences and cannot be bothered by the Byzantine maze of social media privacy fineprint.

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jeoacafpbcihiomhlakheieifhpjdfeo

Disconnect by Brian Kennish

(184) – 44,284 users – Weekly installs: 24,086

Stop major third parties and search engines from tracking the webpages you go to and searches you do.

* Search depersonalization is now optional and off by default. Click the “d” button then the “Depersonalize searches” checkbox to turn this feature on (or back off in case you have trouble getting to Google or Yahoo services). For help with anything else, see the known issues below and ask questions at http://j.mp/dnewgroup.

§

If you’re a typical web user, you’re unintentionally sending your browsing and search history with your name and other personal information to third parties and search engines whenever you’re online.

Take control of the data you share with Disconnect!

From the developer of the top-10-rated Facebook Disconnect extension, Disconnect lets you:

• Disable tracking by third parties like Digg, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Yahoo, without requiring any setup or significantly degrading the usability of the web.

• Truly depersonalize searches on search engines like Google and Yahoo (by blocking identifying cookies not just changing the appearance of results pages), while staying logged into other services — e.g., so you can search anonymously on Google and access iGoogle at once.

• See how many resource and cookie requests are blocked, in real time

and
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom
ExtensionsAdBlock

AdBlock

(6937) - 1,615,373 users - Weekly installs: 153,032
The most popular Chrome extension, with over 1.5 million users! Blocks ads all over the web.
Verified author: chromeadblock.com
=================

New in version 2.1: Translated into dozens of languages!
New in version 2.0: Ads are blocked from downloading, instead of just being removed after the fact!

=======================

The official AdBlock For Chrome!  Block all advertisements on all web pages.  Your browser is automatically updated with additions to the filter: just click Install, then visit your favorite website and see the ads disappear!

FAQs:1. This is the official AdBlock extension: the original ad blocker written from the ground up to be optimized in Chrome.  There's an unrelated, older Firefox project called Adblock Plus, and they're working on making a Chrome version out of the old AdThwart codebase.  At the moment AdBlock blocks some ads that AdThwart only hides, but they're working to improve it.  It's available at bit.ly/id2Gqx; if you have trouble with AdBlock, they're good guys and a fine alternative!

 

Ways to use both Windows and Linux together

Tux, as originally drawn by Larry Ewing
Image via Wikipedia

Some programming ways to use both Windows and Linux

1) Wubi

http://wubi.sourceforge.net/

Wubi only adds an extra option to boot into Ubuntu. Wubi does not require you to modify the partitions of your PC, or to use a different bootloader, and does not install special drivers.

2) Wine

Wine lets you run Windows software on other operating systems. With Wine, you can install and run these applications just like you would in Windows. Read more at http://wiki.winehq.org/Debunking_Wine_Myths

http://www.winehq.org/about/

3) Cygwin

http://www.cygwin.com/

Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts:

  • A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing substantial Linux API functionality.
  • A collection of tools which provide Linux look and feel
  • What Isn’t Cygwin?

  • Cygwin is not a way to run native linux apps on Windows. You have to rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows.
  • Cygwin is not a way to magically make native Windows apps aware of UNIX ® functionality, like signals, ptys, etc. Again, you need to build your apps from source if you want to take advantage of Cygwin functionality.
  • 4) Vmplayer

    https://www.vmware.com/products/player/

    VMware Player is the easiest way to run multiple operating systems at the same time on your PC. With its user-friendly interface, VMware Player makes it effortless for anyone to try out Windows 7, Chrome OS or the latest Linux releases, or create isolated virtual machines to safely test new software and surf the Web

    Visiting Vaisno Devi

    Vaishno Devi Bhawan
    Image via Wikipedia

    Just back from a pilgrimage or a hike of 25 kilometers —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaishno_Devi

    Vaishno Devi Mandir (Hindi: वैष्णोदेवी मन्दिर) is one of the holiest Hindu temples dedicated to Shakti, located in the hills of Vaishno DeviJammu and KashmirIndia. In HinduismVaishno Devi, also known as Mata Rani and Vaishnavi, is a manifestation of the Mother Goddess.

    The temple is near the town of Katra, in the Reasi district in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It is one of the most revered places of worship in Northern India. The shrine is at an altitude of 5200 feet and a distance of approximately 14 kilometres (8.4 miles) from Katra.[1] Approximately 8 million pilgrims (yatris) visit the temple every year[2]

     

     

    Top Cartoonists:Updated

    Here is a list of cartoonists I follow- I sometimes think they make more sense than all the news media combined.

    1) Mike Luckovich He is a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist for AJC at http://blogs.ajc.com/mike-luckovich/

    I love his political satire-sometimes not his politics- though he is a liberal (surprisingly most people from creative arts tend to be liberal- guess because they support and need welfare more, 🙂 ) Since I am in India- I call myself a conservative (when filing taxes) or liberal (when drinking er tea)

    2) Hugh Mcleod- of Gaping Void is very different from Mike above, in the way an abstract painter would be from a classical

    artist. I like his satire on internet, technology and personal favorite – social media consultants. Hugh casts a critical eye on the world of tech and is an immensely successful artist- probably the Andy Warhol of this genre in a generation.

    3) Doug Savage of Savage Chickens http://www.savagechickens.com/ has a great series of funny cartoons based on chickens drawn on Post it notes. While his drawing is less abstract than Hugh’s above, he sometimes touches an irreverent note more like Hugh than anyone else.

    4) Professor Jorge Cham of Phd Comics http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php is probably the most read comic in grad school  – and probably the only cartoonist with a Phd I know of.

    5) Scott Adams of Dilbert http://www.dilbert.com/ is probably the first “non kid stuff” cartoonist I started reading-in fact I once wrote to him asking for advice on my poetry to his credit- he replied with a single ” Best of Luck email”

    They named our email server in Lucknow, UP, India for him (in my business school at http://iiml.ac.in ) Probably the best of corporate toon humor. Maybe they should make the Dilbert movie yet.

    6) Randall Munroe of xkcd.com

    XKCD is geek cartooning at its best.

    For catching up with the best toons in a week, the best is Time.com ‘s weekly list at http://www.time.com/time/cartoonsoftheweek

    It is the best collection of political cartoons.