forums – DECISION STATS

Moving data between Windows and Ubuntu VMWare partition

I use Windows 7 on my laptop (it came pre-installed) and Ubuntu using the VMWare Player. What are the advantages of using VM Player instead of creating a dual-boot system? Well I can quickly shift from Ubuntu to Windows and bakc again without restarting my computer everytime. Using this approach allows me to utilize software that run only on Windows and run software like Rattle, the R data mining GUI, that are much easier installed on Linux.

However if your statistical software is on your Virtual Disk , and your data is on your Windows disk, you need a way to move data from Windows to Ubuntu.

The solution to this as per Ubuntu forums is –http://communities.vmware.com/thread/55242

Open My Computer, browse to the folder you want to share. Right-click on the folder, select Properties. Sharing tab. Select the radio button to “Share this Folder”. Change the default generated name if you wish; add a description if you wish. Click the Permissions button to modify the security settings of what users can read/write to the share.

On the Linux side, it depends on the distro, the shell, and the window manager.

Well Ubuntu makes it really easy to configure the Linux steps to move data within Windows and Linux partitions.

NEW UPDATE-

VMmare makes it easy to share between your Windows (host) and Linux (guest) OS

Step 1

and step 2

Do this

and

Start the Wizard

when you finish the wizard and share a drive or folder- hey where do I see my shared ones-

see this folder in Linux- /mnt/hgfs (bingo!)

Hacker HW – Make this folder //mnt/hgfs a shortcut in Places your Ubuntu startup

Hacker Hw 2-

Upload using an anon email your VM dark data to Ubuntu one

Delete VM

Purge using software XX

Reinstall VM and bring back backup

Note time to do this

-General Sharing in Windows

Just open the Network tab in Ubuntu- see screenshots below-

Windows will now ask your Ubuntu user for login-

Once Logged in Windows from within Ubuntu Vmware, this is what happens

You see a tab called “users on “windows username”- pc appear on your Ubuntu Desktop (see top right of the screenshot)

If you double click it- you see your windows path

You can now just click and drag data between your windows and linux partitions , just the way you do it in Windows .

So based on this- if you want to build decision trees, artifical neural networks, regression models, and even time series models for zero capital expenditure- you can use both Ubuntu/R without compromising on your IT policy of Windows only in your organization (there is a shortage of Ubuntu trained IT administrators in the enterprise world)

Revised Installation Procedure for utilizing both Ubuntu /R/Rattle data mining on your Windows PC.

Using VMWare to build a free data mining system in R, as well as isolate your analytics system (thus using both Linux and Windows without overburdening your machine)

First Time

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/4_0Download and Install

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/downloadDownload Only

Create New Virtual Image in VM Ware Player

Applications—–Terminal——sudo apt get-install R (to download and install)

sudo R (to open R)

Once R is opened type this —-install.packages(rattle)—– This will install rattle

library(rattle) will load Rattle—–

rattle() will open the GUI—-

Getting Data from Host to Guest VM

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/55242

Next Time

Go to VM Player

Open the VM

sudo R in terminal to bring up R

library(rattle) within R

rattle()

At this point even if you dont know any Linux and dont know any R, you can create data mining models using the Rattle GUI (and time series model using E pack in the R Commander GUI) – What can Rattle do in data mining? See this slideshow-http://www.decisionstats.com/data-mining-with-r-gui-rattle-rstats/

If Google Docs is banned as per your enterprise organizational IT policy of having Windows Explorer only- well you can see these screenshots http://rattle.togaware.com/rattle-screenshots.html

Global Warfare on Google Plus

Global Warfare is one of the latest games on Google Plus. There are lots of similarities between this game and Evony at http://evony.com

Global Warfare is made by Kabam https://www.kabam.com/games/global-warfare which is making a total of 3 games for Google Plus (out of 18) and it has Google Ventures as a strategic investor as well (and a member on the board). Google is clearly wanting to bet on online gaming with its earlier strategic investment in Zynga as well. It also acquired http://www.labpixies.com/ (which makes the game Sudoko Puzzles and Flood It but it has more games in reserve as can be seen at https://market.android.com/search?q=labpixies, so clearly G+ is being selective on Games directory at https://plus.google.com/games/directory)

With these gaming companies and others like http://www.digitalchocolate.com/about/ and http://www.rovio.com/index.php?page=company and http://www.popcap.com/ – well they are all there on G+

is gaming the ace in hand in G+ plans for Facebook- time will tell.

Evony of course was a very good game, as it was also very similar (allegedly) to Civilization, and though its advertising campaign of semi clad characters draws flak, it got the worlds attention and recall. While Evony was situated in medieval world, Global Warfare is a modern warfare equivalent.

Features in Global Warfare-

Alliances,
multiple player online gaming,
social sharing and rewards,
in game purchases,
persistent world

Some drawbacks-

Slight clutter in gaming space (and lack of nice fonts!)
Lack of help forums (or easy availability)
Lack of in game search for searching or navigating alliances

Overall- a nice addition to the G+ family of games

Intel® Threading Challenge 2011 Software Contest

Image via Wikipedia

One more software contests for you, but in the sub million dollar prize range

http://software.intel.com/en-us/contests/intel-threading-challenge-2011/contests.php

Intel® Threading Challenge 2011 – Win a Trip to Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco

Intel® Threading Challenge 2011 is going BIG this year! After three exciting threading competitions, our fourth Threading Challenge is stepping up the excitement with a BIG Grand Prize, a trip to the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco (September 13-15, 2011).

Since 2008, the Intel® Threading Challenge has attracted developers of varying experience from around the world. The active participation from the community has made the Threading Challenge not only a great programming competition, but a great way for community members to engage with each other, trade threading tips, and discover new parallel programming resources.

Last year’s format of two competition levels, Master and Apprentice, generated great excitement and opened the Threading Challenge to a new group of participants. So, we are going to continue the competition with a Master level and Apprentice level, each competing for the Grand Prize for their level, as well as individual problem awards. We know you love a great challenge and great prizes, so our Threading Challenge Team is putting together some exciting threading problems for you.

Monday, April 18, 2011 – Threading Challenge 2011 (Phase 1) Launches (both levels) at 12:00 PM (noon PDT)– The competition for 2011 is very similar to last year’s, but read on whether you’re a previous participant or new to the Threading Challenge, so you will be aware of all elements of the competition and how to compete. Then, you can start threading your way to prizes today!

Choose the right level for you!

Threading Challenge 2011:

• Two levels available for entry: Apprentice & Master
• Phase 1: 3 problems in each level
• Phase 2: Stay tuned for details, coming in Autumn 2011
• We will award 1st, 2nd & 3rd place prizes for each problem in each level
• No overlap of problems and each level’s problems will be offered consecutively
• Participants have the option to use the Intel® Manycore Testing Lab (MTL), consisting of 40 cores, 80 threads
• To enter the Threading Challenge 2011, please read the Official Rules and register for the competition with link in the “To Enter” Section.

The Threading Challenge will be implemented in two phases, with the 1st Phase consisting of 3 problems in each level. The details of the 2nd Phase will be announced in September 2011. For Phase 1, a new problem in each level will be launched on the days listed below at 12:00 noon (PDT) and will be open for entry for 22 days (inclusive of the problem starting day), until closing on the final problem day at 12:00 noon (PDT).

Problem Start and Closing Dates (both Master and Apprentice levels):

Problem 1:
Starts: Monday, April 18, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)
Ends. Monday, May 9, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)

Problem 2:
Starts: Monday, May 9, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)
Ends: Monday, May 30, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)

Problem 3: (Due to U.S. Memorial Day Holiday, Problem 2 will start on Tuesday, May 31, 2011)
Starts: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)
Ends: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)

*All problems start and end at 12:00 noon (Pacific Daylight Time)

Contestants will have 22 days to complete their entry submission (solution only for Apprentice OR solution and write-up for Master) for each problem. You may enter ONLY 1 problem at a time and will need to choose which level (Apprentice or Master) you wish to participate in during each problem cycle. You will be awarded points based on your solution submitted. Be sure to take advantage of our threading resources and tools, and you may validate your solution (optional) using the Intel® Manycore Testing Lab to solve your problems and get involved in the dedicated forums to earn extra points.

Each problems winners will be announced on the site after the problem is closed, and Prizes will be awarded to those problem winners (see official rules for prize distribution information). The Grand Prize, a Trip to Intel® Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, will be awarded for each level to the participant that has the highest total points earned for the three problems in each level (i.e., highest total points for Master level problems and Apprentice level problems).

The Intel® Threading Challenge attracts some of the most talented developers in the world to solve parallelism code challenges. Now is your chance to take multithreading to the next level and possibly win great prizes. Demonstrate your threading expertise today!

More Details:

Intel® Threading Challenge 2011 is organized so any level of developer can have the opportunity to participate. Two levels of participation are available. The Apprentice level gives those just getting started in multithreading development a chance to try out and improve their threading skills. The Master level will be executed similarly to previous threading challenges, providing those with more experience a chance to test their skills and compete against other experienced developers.

Intel® Manycore Testing Lab – Available as Option for Threading Challenge 2011 Participants

This year competitors will have the optional opportunity to develop and validate their code using the Intel® Manycore Testing Lab. This 40-core, 80-thread development environment has the latest hardware and software available and will be used by this year’s judges to test the winning entries in Threading Challenge 2011 Phase 1.

The Intel® Manycore Testing Lab (MTL) will be made available to Threading Challenge 2011 contestants. Use of the MTL will give participants the opportunity to write and test their code on systems exactly configured to what the judges will be using to score submitted entries. No more guessing about if your code will build or how it will run. (There is no requirement to use the MTL for any part of the contest. It is strictly an optional alternative being made available to those that wish to use it.)

Intel trying to get notebook vendors to launch Android Honeycomb tablets in Q3 2011 (intomobile.com)

Reputation on Social Networks

Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility — Image via Wikipedia

Classical Economics talks of the value of utlity, diminishing marginal utility if the same things is repeated again and again (like spam in an online community)

StackOverflow has a great way of measuring reputation – and thus allows intangible benefits /awards -similar to wikipedia badges , reddit karma. Utility is also auto generated like @klout on twitter or lists memberships and other sucessful open source communities online including Ubuntu forums have ways to create ah hierarchies even in class less utopian classes.

Basically it then acts as the motivating game as the mostly boy population try to race on numbers.

in Stack Overflow- you can get buddies to upvote you and basically act as a role playing game too.

—–From http://stackoverflow.com/faq#reputation

To gain reputation, post good questions and useful answers. Your peers will vote on your posts, and those votes will cause you to gain (or, in rare cases, lose) reputation:

answer is voted up	+10
question is voted up	+5
answer is accepted	+15	(+2 to acceptor)
post is voted down	-2	(-1 to voter)

A maximum of 30 votes can be cast per user per day, and you can earn a maximum of 200 reputation per day (although accepted answers and bounty awards are immune to this limit). Also, please note that votes for any posts marked “community wiki” do not generate reputation.

Amass enough reputation points and Stack Overflow will allow you to go beyond simply asking and answering questions:

15	Vote up
15	Flag offensive
50	Leave comments^†
100	Edit community wiki posts
125	Vote down (costs 1 rep)
200	Reduced advertising

A World (Online) Without Money (continuations.com)
Follr.com Social Card Now Supports Reddit.com (socialgears.com)
Dr. Strangedupe: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Duplication (stackoverflow.com)
A new WordPress Stack Exchange (joelonsoftware.com)
Stack Overflow hit 1,000,000 questions last night (stackoverflow.com)
Diary of an Overflow Addict (go.theregister.com)

Cisco SocialMiner

Image via Wikipedia

A new product from Cisco to mine social media for analytics on sentiment-

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps11349/index.html

Cisco SocialMiner is a social media customer care solution that can help you proactively respond to customers and prospects communicating through public social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, or other public forums or blogging sites. By providing social media monitoring, queuing, and workflow to organize customer posts on social media networks and deliver them to your social media customer care team, your company can respond to customers in real time using the same social network they are using.

Cisco SocialMiner provides:

The ability to configure multiple campaigns to search for customer postings on the public social web about your company’s products, services, or area of expertise
Filtering of social contacts based on preconfigured campaign filters to focus campaign searches
Routing of social contacts to skilled customer care representatives in the contact center or to experts in the enterprise–multiple people can work together to handle responses to customer postings through shared work queues
Detailed metrics for social media customer care activities, campaign reports, and team reports

With Cisco SocialMiner, your company can listen and respond to customer conversations originating in the social web. Being proactive can help your company enhance its service, improve customer loyalty, garner new customers, and protect your brand.

Table 1. Features and Benefits of Cisco SocialMiner 8.5

Feature	Benefits
Product Baseline Features
Social media feeds	• Feeds are configurable sources to capture public social contacts that contain specific words, terms, or phrases. • Feeds enable you to search for information on the public social web about your company’s products, services, or area of expertise. • Cisco SocialMiner supports the following types of feeds: • Really Simple Syndication (RSS) • Facebook • Twitter
Campaign management	• Groups feeds into campaigns to organize all posting activity related to a product category or business objective • Produces metrics on campaign activity • Provides the ability to configure multiple campaigns to search for customer postings on specific products or services • Groups social contacts for handling by the social media customer care team • Enables filtering of social contacts based on preconfigured campaign filters to focus campaign searches
Route and queue social contacts	• Enables routing of social contacts to skilled customer care representatives in the contact center • Draws on expertise in the enterprise by allowing multiple people in the enterprise to work together to handle responses to customer postings through shared work queues • Enables automated distribution of work to improve efficiency and effectiveness of social media engagement
Tagging	• Allows work to be routed to the appropriate team by grouping each post or social contact into different categories; for example, a post can be marked with the “customer_support” tag; this post will then appear on a customer support agent’s queue for processing
Social media customer care metrics	• Provides detailed metrics on social media customer care activities, campaign reports, and team reports • Measures work and results • Manages to service-level goals • Supports brand management • Optimizes staffing • Includes dashboarding of social media posting activity when Cisco Unified Intelligence Center is used
Reporting for social contacts	• Provides a reporting database that can be accessed using any reporting tool, including Cisco Unified Intelligence Center • Enables customer care management to accurately report on and track social media interactions by the contact center
OpenSocial-compliant gadgets Representational State Transfer (REST) application programming interfaces (APIs)	• Provides flexible user interface options • Enables extensive opportunities for customization
Optional integration with full suite of Cisco Collaboration tools	• Allows you to take advantage of the full suite of Cisco Collaboration tools, including Cisco Quad, Cisco Show and Share, and Cisco Pulse technology, to help your social media customer care team quickly find answers to help customers efficiently and effectively • Easy to maintain with existing IT personnel
Operating Environment
Cisco Unified Computing System^™(UCS) C-Series or B-Series Servers	• Requires a Cisco UCS C-Series or B-Series Server. • Server consolidation means lower cost per server with Cisco UCS Servers.
Architecture
Scalability	• One server supports up to 30 simultaneous social media customer care users and 10,000 social contacts per hour.
Management
Cisco Unified Real-Time Monitoring Tool (RTMT)	• Operational management is enhanced through integration with the Cisco Unified RTMT, providing consistent application monitoring across Cisco Unified Communications Solutions.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)	• SNMP with an associated MIB is supported through the Cisco Voice Operating System (VOS).
Reporting
Cisco Unified Intelligence Center	• Create customizable reports of social media customer care events using Cisco Unified Intelligence Center (purchased separately).