Tag: downloading

JMP Student Edition

I really liked the initiatives at JMP/Academic. Not only they offer the software bundled with a textbook, which is both good common sense as well as business sense given how fast students can get confused

(Rant 1 Bundling with textbooks is something I think is Revolution Analytics should think of doing instead of just offering the academic  version for free downloading- it would be interesting to see the penetration of R academic market with Revolution’s version and the open source version with the existing strategy)

From http://www.jmp.com/academic/textbooks.shtml

Major publishers of introductory statistics textbooks offer a 12-month license to JMP Student Edition, a streamlined version of JMP, with their textbooks.

and a glance through this http://www.jmp.com/academic/pdf/jmp_se_comparison.pdf  shows it is a credible and not extremely whittled down version which would be just dishonest.

And I loved this Reference Card at http://www.jmp.com/academic/pdf/jmp10_se_quick_guide.pdf

 

Oracle, SAP- Hana, Revolution Analytics and even SAS/STAT itself can make more reference cards like this- elegant solutions for students and new learners!

More- creative-rants Honestly why do corporate sites use PDFs anymore when they can use Instapaper , or any of these SlideShare/Scribd formats to show information in a better way without diverting the user from the main webpage.

But I digress, back to JMP

 

Resources for Faculty Using JMP® Student Edition

Faculty who select a JMP Student Edition bundle for their courses may be eligible for additional resources, including course materials and training.

Special JMP® Student Edition for AP Statistics

JMP Student Edition is available in a convenient five-year license for qualified Advanced Placement statistics programs.

Try and have a look yourself at http://www.jmp.com/academic/student.shtml

 

 

 

The economics of software piracy

Software piracy exists because-

1) Lack of appropriate technological controls (like those on DVDs) or on Bit Torrents (an innovation on the centralized server like Napster) or on Streaming etc etc.

Technology to share content has evolved at a much higher pace than technology to restrict content from being shared or limited to purchasers.

2) Huge difference in purchasing power across the globe.

An Itunes song at 99 cents might be okay buy in USA, but in Asia it is very expensive. Maybe if content creators use Purchasing Power Parity to price their goods, it might make an indent.

3) State sponsored intellectual theft as another form of economic warfare- this has been going on since the West stole gunpowder and silk from the Chinese, and Intel decided to win back the IP rights to the microprocessor (from the Japanese client)

4) Lack of consensus in policy makers across the globe on who gets hurt from IP theft, but complete consensus across young people in the globe that they are doing the right thing by downloading stuff for free.

5) There is no such thing as a free lunch. Sometimes software (and movie and songs) piracy help create demand across ignored markets – I always think the NFL can be huge in India if they market it.Sometimes it forces artists to commit suicide because they give up on the life of starving musician.

Mostly piracy has helped break profits of intermediaries between the actual creator and actual consumer.

So how to solve software piracy , assuming it is something that can be solved-

I dont know, but I do care.

I give most of my writings as CC-by-SA and that includes my poems. People (friends and family) sometimes pay me not to sing.

Pirates have existed and will exist as long as civilized men romanticize the notion of piracy and bicker between themselves for narrow gains.

  1. Ephesians 4:28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
  2. A clean confession, combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance.-Gandhi
  3. If you steal, I will wash your mouth with soap- Anonymous Mother.
  4. You shall not steal- Moses
  5. Steal may refer to: Theft, the illegal taking of another person’s property without that person’s freely-given consent; The gaining of a stolen base in baseball;

 

 

How to use Bit Torrents

I really liked the software Qbittorent available from http://www.qbittorrent.org/ I think bit torrents should be the default way of sharing huge content especially software downloads. For protecting intellectual property there should be much better codes and software keys than presently available.

The qBittorrent project aims to provide a Free Software alternative to µtorrent. Additionally, qBittorrent runs and provides the same features on all major platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD).

qBittorrent is based on Qt4 toolkit and libtorrent-rasterbar.

qBittorrent v2 Features

  • Polished µTorrent-like User Interface
  • Well-integrated and extensible Search Engine
    • Simultaneous search in most famous BitTorrent search sites
    • Per-category-specific search requests (e.g. Books, Music, Movies)
  • All Bittorrent extensions
    • DHT, Peer Exchange, Full encryption, Magnet/BitComet URIs, …
  • Remote control through a Web user interface
    • Nearly identical to the regular UI, all in Ajax
  • Advanced control over trackers, peers and torrents
    • Torrents queueing and prioritizing
    • Torrent content selection and prioritizing
  • UPnP / NAT-PMP port forwarding support
  • Available in ~25 languages (Unicode support)
  • Torrent creation tool
  • Advanced RSS support with download filters (inc. regex)
  • Bandwidth scheduler
  • IP Filtering (eMule and PeerGuardian compatible)
  • IPv6 compliant
  • Sequential downloading (aka “Download in order”)
  • Available on most platforms: Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD
So if you are new to Bit Torrents- here is a brief tutorial
Some terminology from

Tracker

A tracker is a server that keeps track of which seeds and peers are in the swarm.

Seed

A Seed is used to refer to a peer who has 100% of the data. When a leech obtains 100% of the data, that peer automatically becomes a Seed.

Peer

A peer is one instance of a BitTorrent client running on a computer on the Internet to which other clients connect and transfer data.

Leech

A leech is a term with two meanings. Primarily leech (or leeches) refer to a peer (or peers) who has a negative effect on the swarm by having a very poor share ratio (downloading much more than they upload, creating a ratio less than 1.0)
1) Download and install the software from  http://www.qbittorrent.org/
2) If you want to search for new files, you can use the nice search features in here
3) If you want to CREATE new bit torrents- go to Tools -Torrent Creator
4) For sharing content- just seed the torrent you just created. What is seeding – hey did you read the terminology in the beginning?
5) Additionally –
From

Trackers: Below are some popular public trackers. They are servers which help peers to communicate.

Here are some good trackers you can use:

 

http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce
http://www.torrent-downloads.to:2710/announce
http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
udp://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
http://www.sumotracker.com/announce

and

Super-seeding

When a file is new, much time can be wasted because the seeding client might send the same file piece to many different peers, while other pieces have not yet been downloaded at all. Some clients, like ABC, Vuze, BitTornado, TorrentStorm, and µTorrent have a “super-seed” mode, where they try to only send out pieces that have never been sent out before, theoretically making the initial propagation of the file much faster. However the super-seeding becomes less effective and may even reduce performance compared to the normal “rarest first” model in cases where some peers have poor or limited connectivity. This mode is generally used only for a new torrent, or one which must be re-seeded because no other seeds are available.
Note- you use this tutorial and any or all steps at your own risk. I am not legally responsible for any mishaps you get into. Please be responsible while being an efficient bit tor renter. That means respecting individual property rights.

Chrome Extension- MafiaaFire

The chrome extension MafiaaWire basically gives you an updated list of redirected websites. So the next time , your evil highness shuts down your favorite website- the list promises to give you an update.  While obviously entertainment intellectual property is a very obvious site category for such redirects, in some cases these extensions can be used for simple things like hosting dissents or protesters against govt corruption in non US countries .

Basically under the new SOPA act (an oline version of pepper spray http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act) even browsers like Firefox and Chrome would be liable for any such extension that can be used to download American Intellectual property illegally.

In the meantime – this is an interesting and creative use case of technology and sociology merging in the brave new world.

You can read about it here-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAFIAAFire_Redirector

MAFIAAFire works by downloading a list which contains the names of the “blocked” sites as well as the sites to redirect to. This list is downloaded every time Firefox starts up or every two days on the Chrome version (although the user has the choice to force an update on the Chrome version instead of waiting for two days).

When a user types in a domain name from the list of blocked domains, the add-on recognizes this and automatically redirects the user to the secondary site. Since this happens before the browser connects to the DNS server, this renders any DNS blocks useless.

Although the add-on checks for which sites are entered into the address bar every time (as it needs to check if that site is on its block list), it does not log these requests nor send these requests to any central server. In other words: it does not track the user.

or

Download it from

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hnifiobpjihmmjgiokkaalgomddebhng

Interesting times indeed!

Related-

Encryption

http://poemsforkush.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/encryption/

 

RapidMiner launches extensions marketplace

For some time now, I had been hoping for a place where new package or algorithm developers get at least a fraction of the money that iPad or iPhone application developers get. Rapid Miner has taken the lead in establishing a marketplace for extensions. Is there going to be paid extensions as well- I hope so!!

This probably makes it the first “app” marketplace in open source and the second app marketplace in analytics after salesforce.com

It is hard work to think of new algols, and some of them can really be usefull.

Can we hope for #rstats marketplace where people downloading say ggplot3.0 atleast get a prompt to donate 99 cents per download to Hadley Wickham’s Amazon wishlist. http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/1Y65N3VFA613B

Do you think it is okay to pay 99 cents per iTunes song, but not pay a cent for open source software.

I dont know- but I am just a capitalist born in a country that was socialist for the first 13 years of my life. Congratulations once again to Rapid Miner for innovating and leading the way.

http://rapid-i.com/component/option,com_myblog/show,Rapid-I-Marketplace-Launched.html/Itemid,172

RapidMiner, Marketplace, Extensions 30 May 2011
Rapid-I Marketplace Launched by Simon Fischer

Over the years, many of you have been developing new RapidMiner Extensions dedicated to a broad set of topics. Whereas these extensions are easy to install in RapidMiner – just download and place them in the plugins folder – the hard part is to find them in the vastness that is the Internet. Extensions made by ourselves at Rapid-I, on the other hand,  are distributed by the update server making them searchable and installable directly inside RapidMiner.

We thought that this was a bit unfair, so we decieded to open up the update server to the public, and not only this, we even gave it a new look and name. The Rapid-I Marketplace is available in beta mode at http://rapidupdate.de:8180/ . You can use the Web interface to browse, comment, and rate the extensions, and you can use the update functionality in RapidMiner by going to the preferences and entering http://rapidupdate.de:8180/UpdateServer/ as the update server URL. (Once the beta test is complete, we will change the port back to 80 so we won’t have any firewall problems.)

As an Extension developer, just register with the Marketplace and drop me an email (fischer at rapid-i dot com) so I can give you permissions to upload your own extension. Upload is simple provided you use the standard RapidMiner Extension build process and will boost visibility of your extension.

Looking forward to see many new extensions there soon!

Disclaimer- Decisionstats is a partner of Rapid Miner. I have been liking the software for a long long time, and recently agreed to partner with them just like I did with KXEN some years back, and with Predictive AnalyticsConference, and Aster Data until last year.

I still think Rapid Miner is a very very good software,and a globally created software after SAP.

Here is the actual marketplace

http://rapidupdate.de:8180/UpdateServer/faces/index.xhtml

Welcome to the Rapid-I Marketplace Public Beta Test

The Rapid-I Marketplace will soon replace the RapidMiner update server. Using this marketplace, you can share your RapidMiner extensions and make them available for download by the community of RapidMiner users. Currently, we are beta testing this server. If you want to use this server in RapidMiner, you must go to the preferences and enter http://rapidupdate.de:8180/UpdateServer for the update url. After the beta test, we will change the port back to 80, which is currently occupied by the old update server. You can test the marketplace as a user (downloading extensions) and as an Extension developer. If you want to publish your extension here, please let us know via the contact form.

Hot Downloads
«« « 1 2 3 » »»
[Icon]The Image Processing Extension provides operators for handling image data. You can extract attributes describing colour and texture in the image, you can make several transformation of a image data which allows you to perform segmentation and detection of suspicious areas in image data.The extension provides many of image transformation and extraction operators ranging from Wavelet Decomposition, Hough Circle to Block Difference of Inverse probabilities.
[Icon]RapidMiner is unquestionably the world-leading open-source system for data mining. It is available as a stand-alone application for data analysis and as a data mining engine for the integration into own products. Thousands of applications of RapidMiner in more than 40 countries give their users a competitive edge.

  • Data Integration, Analytical ETL, Data Analysis, and Reporting in one single suite
  • Powerful but intuitive graphical user interface for the design of analysis processes
  • Repositories for process, data and meta data handling
  • Only solution with meta data transformation: forget trial and error and inspect results already during design time
  • Only solution which supports on-the-fly error recognition and quick fixes
  • Complete and flexible: Hundreds of data loading, data transformation, data modeling, and data visualization methods
[Icon]All modeling methods and attribute evaluation methods from the Weka machine learning library are available within RapidMiner. After installing this extension you will get access to about 100 additional modelling schemes including additional decision trees, rule learners and regression estimators.This extension combines two of the most widely used open source data mining solutions. By installing it, you can extend RapidMiner to everything what is possible with Weka while keeping the full analysis, preprocessing, and visualization power of RapidMiner.
[Icon]Finally, the two most widely used data analysis solutions – RapidMiner and R – are connected. Arbitrary R models and scripts can now be directly integrated into the RapidMiner analysis processes. The new R perspective offers the known R console together with the great plotting facilities of R. All variables and R scripts can be organized in the RapidMiner Repository.A directly included online help and multi-line editing makes the creation of R scripts much more comfortable.
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Revolution releases R Windows for Academics for free

Logo for R
Image via Wikipedia

Based on the official email from them, God bless the merry coders at Revo-

Revolution Analytics has just released Revolution R Enterprise 4.3 for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, a significant step forward in enterprise data analytics.  It features an updated RevoScaleR package for scalable, fast (multicore), and extensible data analysis with R. Revolution R Enterprise 4.3 for Windows also provides R 2.12.2, and includes an enhanced R Productivity Environment (RPE), a full-featured integrated development environment with visual debugging capabilities. Also available is an updated Windows release of our deployment server solution, RevoDeployR 1.2, designed to help you deliver R analytics via the Web.

As a registered user of the Academic version of Revolution R Enterprise for Windows, you can take advantage of these improvements by downloading and installing Revolution R Enterprise 4.3 today. You can install Revolution R Enterprise 4.3 side-by-side with your existing Revolution R Enterprise installations; there is no need to uninstall previous versions.

 

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