Learning R Easily :Two GUI’s

Both Rattle and R Commander are very good GUI’s (graphical user interface) for R, and considerably easier for a beginner than the command line console ( but I am more partial to RCmdr for normal statistical analysis while Rattle seemed to have better Data Mining Interfaces and functionality).

Here is a snapshot for both of them.

Installing them both is a breeze as you set a CRAN Mirror from Normal R Console and install package from list of package names . R has hundreds of packages (All free!!) and you can thus install specific packages to your need and usage.The software R automatically downloads and installs them.

rcommdr.GIF..

Installling both these GUI will ensure you cut down the time to learn commands as you can first click and try and learn the syntax that is auto generated side by side.

rattle.GIF

Choosing GUI for R :Simplify

While trolling through R literature, came across some good GUI ‘s for R. I am currently experimenting with two of them .

Out of these I can recommend R Commander http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/ 

Not only is the GUI quite neat and clean, the interface actually prints out R code for you. so its a great help if you are learning R and want to learn and do projects at the same time. I imported a dataset of 200,000 rows and while it did take 3-5 secs longer than SAS or SPSS would have taken —Its very very good for a free STATS package. The graphics are also quite good , and I currently evaluating the modeling and scoring capabilities as well .

The second GUI is Rattle. http://rattle.togaware.com/radownload.html 

It is slightly less easy to install than R Commander which automatically downloads the dependencies in terms of packages and its also bigger (nearly 15 mb) for a dependency named RGtk2.

Coming up , a side by side comparison of these two GUI’s in terms of modeling and a search for additional GUIs.

Speaking of search, there  is a FireFox Add on for searching R specific material.

Learning R for SAS and SPSS Users

So you decided to cut down on your Statistical software expenses and decided to get R.

but the problem is you know SAS /SPSS and you need to learn R fast enough to justify switching over …….

the ideal book for you is  http://oit.utk.edu/scc/RforSAS&SPSSusers.pdf

Thanks to the guys who pointed me here. Its a really easy book, you have the SAS Syntax, the corresponding SPSS Syntax and the R Syntax.

 That’s useful for learners in R who got projects to execute, and need to learn either SPSS or R or even switch from SPSS to SAS.

Macro Economics,Blogs and Web 2.0

My last post on why expensive oil may just provide liquidity to the global financial system produced some acute reactions on Facebook when someone read it using a Facebook app I use for sharing.

As for using Web 2.0 tools for blogs,

I use Facebook apps called Blog friends and Notes , they give me a continuous feed of friends blogs and similarly promote my blog. I also use the Stumble Upon tool bar in Mozilla Firefox browser , which enables me to submit my post to Stumble upon in less than 10 seconds. The free traffic works.And we have a Decision Stats group on http://www.linkedin.com , which of course provides much better networking than Facebook.

I recently started experimenting with blog tool called www.tumblr.com , which seems a cousin of www.wordpress.com , the software which currently runs this site. If you don’t have the bandwidth (or the money ) but need to put up a site , use WordPress.

And if you want to subscribe to the newsletter , please see the right bar. That is enabled thanks to www.feedburner.com , another company taken over by Google.

Bulls ,Bears ,Tigers and Asses

Bull and bear in front of the Frankfurt Stock ...
Image via Wikipedia

Behold the once mighty Bear Sterns

One haughty, now sold for pennies in turn

Its a bear market they say,

Which made Bear Sterns fall away.

The Bulls were rampaging ,

for many a year or two.

Now its the bears turn,

to ravage me and you.

 

 

The tiger economies ,

are falling like pussy cats,

As exotic mortages ,

turn fearless men into scared rats.

In between , you will

find an occasional investment guru /ass too.

Promises to know it all, seen it all,

Pontification on TV for you.

—

Is this a market, we ask,

It seems like a jungle out there,

Leave us in peace, O Wise Ass,

Screw the bulls, and Kill the bear.

Related Articles