Webinar: Using R within Oracle #rstats

Webinar: Using R within Oracle — Nov 30, noon EST

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Oracle now supports the R open source statistical programming language. Come to this webinar to learn more about using R within an Oracle environment.

— URL for TechCast: https://stbeehive.oracle.com/bconf/confDetails?confID=334B:3BF0:owch:38893C00F42F38A1E0404498C8A6612B0004075AECF7&guest=true&confKey=608880
— Web Conference ID: 303397
— Web Conference Key: 608880
— Dialup: 1-866-682-4770 , ID 5548204, passcode 1234

After a steady rise in the past few years, in 2010 the open source data mining software R overtook other tools to become the tool used by more data miners (43%) than any other (http://www.rexeranalytics.com/Data-Miner-Survey-Results-2010.html).

Several analytic tool vendors have added R-integration to their software. However, Oracle is the largest company to throw their weight behind R. On October 3, Oracle unveiled their integration of R: Oracle R Enterprise (http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/features-oracle-r-enterprise-498732.html) as part of their Oracle Big Data Appliance announcement (http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/512001).

Oracle R Enterprise allows users to perform statistical analysis with advanced visualization on data stored in Oracle Database. Oracle R Enterprise enables scalable R solutions, while facilitating production deployment of R scripts and Hadoop based solutions, as well as integration of R results with Oracle BI Publisher and OBIEE dashboards.

This TechCast introduces the various Oracle R Enterprise components and features, along with R script demonstrations that interface with Oracle Database.

TechCast presenter: Mark Hornick, Senior Manager, Oracle Advanced Analytics Development.
This TechCast is part of the ongoing TechCasts series coordinated by Oracle BIWA: The BI, Warehousing and Analytics SIG (http://www.oracleBIWA.org).

Product Review – Revolution R 5.0

So I got the email from Revolution R. Version 5.0 is ready for download, and unlike half hearted attempts by many software companies they make it easy for the academics and researchers to get their free copy. Free as in speech and free as in beer.

Some thoughts-

1) R ‘s memory problem is now an issue of marketing and branding. Revolution Analytics has definitely bridged this gap technically beautifully and I quote from their documentation-

The primary advantage 64-bit architectures bring to R is an increase in the amount of memory available to a given R process.

The first benefit of that increase is an increase in the size of data objects you can create. For example, on most 32-bit versions of R, the largest data object you can create is roughly 3GB; attempts to create 4GB objects result in errors with the message “cannot allocate vector of length xxxx.”

On 64-bit versions of R, you can generally create larger data objects, up to R’s current hard limit of 231 􀀀 1 elements in a vector (about 2 billion elements). The functions memory.size and memory.limit help you manage the memory used byWindows versions of R.

In 64-bit Revolution R Enterprise, R sets the memory limit by default to the amount of physical RAM minus half a gigabyte, so that, for example, on a machine with 8GB of RAM, the default memory limit is 7.5GB:

2) The User Interface is best shown as below or at https://docs.google.com/presentation/pub?id=1V_G7r0aBR3I5SktSOenhnhuqkHThne6fMxly_-4i8Ag&start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000

-(but I am still hoping for the GUI ,Revolution Analytics promised us for Christmas)

3) The partnership with Microsoft HPC is quite awesome given Microsoft’s track record in enterprise software penetration

but I am also interested in knowing more about the Oracle version of R and what it will do there.

App to App Porting

I often wonder why bright, intelligent software programmers go out of their way to write turgid and lengthy words in documentation, do not make step by step screenshot/slides for Tutorials, and practically force everyone to reinvent the wheel everytime they create a new platform.

Top of my wish list for 2012-

1) Better GUI for APP CREATION-

example-A GUI utility to create chrome apps something similar to Android App creator http://www.appinventorbeta.com/about/

2) Automated Porting or Translation-

An automated appsot app for reading in an iOS app (or iPhone app) and churning out the necessary Android app code. This is similar to translating blogs from one blogging platform to another using Python at http://code.google.com/p/google-blog-converters-appengine/

but the woefully underpowered http://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/ currently allows only downloads less than 1 MB, while WordPress itself allows 15 MB export files.

3) Better interaction between cloud and desktop apps

example – (google docs and libre office) or webcams to (google hangouts and google voice /youtube)

Are we there yet? Not appy enough !

Google Plus Hangouts gets Enterprise Level Upgrade

Check out the new Google Plus Hangout with Extras

http://www.google.com/support/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1289346&ctx=go&hl=en

About Hangouts with Extras

Hangouts with Extras is a simple and easy way to connect and collaborate with your colleagues in real time. With Hangouts with Extras you can:

Connect with multiple people simultaneously: With group video chat and web conferencing you can connect with multiple people around the world at the same time.

Share your screen: Ever look at something that you couldn’t quite put into words? Well, with screen sharing you give other people the ability to view what’s on your computer screen. You can choose an open window screen on your computer and give everyone in your meeting the ability to look at it. Learn More

Collaborate in real time: You can meet, share notes, and even work on documents at the same time.Learn More

For enterprises- you can throw out your video conferencing software and collaboration tools and get a new mobile app for free.

Small drawbacks in the Google Plus- ~~lack of integration with Youtube (it is one way integration from youtube to hangouts but not the other way round~~ fixed), lack of a whiteboard for sketches- (like again a shortcut to a google doc 🙂 ) or even bundling the record from your web cam to record your desktop.

Ultimately enterprises want to know how they can use this stuff for e-learning modules or webcasts.

—————–END—————————-

Alternative uses-

Check out NY Met Museum with Friends (thanks to Google Art Project)

Play Linkin Park Playlist (100 videos) with Friends btw. great graphic redesign of Youtube icons!! Now if we could only convince the Google Docs to get more integrated with Open Office or LibreOffice templates

or even set up a DJ table session using Google Hangouts. with Extras of course.

But as it stands it may be good to go for webcasts !!

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

The Amazing Microsoft Robotics

Amazing stuff from the makers of Kinetic-

Operating systems of Robots may be the future cash cow of Microsoft , while the pirates of Silicon Valley fight fascinating cloudy wars! 🙂

http://www.microsoft.com/robotics/#Product

Product Information

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 beta (RDS4 beta) provides a wide range of support to help make it easy to develop robot applications. RDS4 beta includes a programming model that helps make it easy to develop asynchronous, state-driven applications. RDS4 beta provides a common programming framework that can be applied to support a wide variety of robots, enabling code and skill transfer.

RDS4 beta includes a lightweight asynchronous services-oriented runtime, a set of visual authoring and simulation tools, as well as templates, tutorials, and sample code to help you get started.

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 beta Datasheet – English (PDF Format)

View the product video on Channel 9!

This release has extensive support for the Kinect sensor hardware throug the Kinect for Windows SDK allowing developers to create Kinect-enabled robots in the Visual Simulation Environment and in real life. Along with this release comes a standardized reference spec for building a Kinect-based robot.

See how Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4 beta is being used to bring ideas to life in the Microsoft Robotics@Home competition.

: Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR) helps make it easier to handle asynchronous input and output by eliminating the conventional complexities of manual threading, locks, and semaphores. Lightweight state-oriented Decentralized Software Services (DSS) framework enables you to create program modules that can interoperate on a robot and connected PCs by using a relatively simple, open protocol.

: Visual Programming Language (VPL) provides a relatively simple drag-and-drop visual programming language tool that helps make it easy to create robotics applications. VPL also provides the ability to take a collection of connected blocks and reuse them as a single block elsewhere in your program. VPL is also capable of generating human-readable C#.

: DSS Manifest Editor (DSSME) provides a relatively simple creation of application configuration and distribution scenarios.

: The DSS Log Analyzer tool allows you to view message flows across multiple DSS services. DSS Log Analyzer also allows you to inspect message details.

: Visual Simulation Environment (VSE) provides the ability to simulate and test robotic applications using a 3D physics-based simulation tool. This allows developers to create robotics applications without the hardware. Sample simulation models and environments enable you to test your application in a variety of 3D virtual environments.

LibreOffice – Extensions and Templates

Just an announcement from The Document Foundation (which has notable supporters including Google etc at http://www.documentfoundation.org/supporters/)

With both Google Docs and Libre Office – it seems like a flank attack on Office productivity software (from the cloud and from the PC/tablet ground)- however Microsoft’s Sharepoint is much better in collobration compared to the Google Docs and it has huge number of templates (more than the 38 extensions and 13 templates right now at the links below (just like WordPress has huge number of themes compared to Blogger)

Anyways, check out- it is an interesting start

http://extensions.libreoffice.org/

Extension Releases

Extensions for all program modules
Gallery Contents for all program modules
Language Tools for all program modules
Dictionaries of different languages for all program modules
Writer-Extensions
Calc-Extensions
Impress-Extensions
Draw-Extensions
Base-Extensions
Math-Extensions

….

and http://templates.libreoffice.org/

Template Releases

Accounting -Templates
Agenda-Templates
Arts-Templates
Book-Templates
Brochure/Pamphlet-Templates
Budget-Templates
Business-Templates
Business POS-Templates
Business Shipping-Templates
Calendar-Templates
Card-Templates
Curriculum/Resume-Templates
CD/DVD-Templates
Certificate-Templates
Checkbook-Templates
Christmas-Templates
Computer-Templates
Conference-Templates
E-book-Templates
Education-Templates
Academia-Templates
Elementary/Secondary School-Templates
Envelope-Templates
Fax-Templates
Genealogy-Templates
Grocery-Templates
Invoice-Templates
Labels-Templates
Letter-Templates
Magazine-Templates
Media-Templates
Memo-Templates
Music-Templates
Newsletter-Templates
Notes-Templates
Paper-Templates
Presentation-Templates
Recipe-Templates
Science-Templates
Sports-Templates
Timeline-Templates
Timesheet-Templates
Trades-Templates
To Do List-Templates
Writer-Templates

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About Hangouts with Extras

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Amazing stuff from the makers of Kinetic-

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Template Releases

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