Gnumeric 1.10 released

OStatic.com has a review of the new Gnumeric 1.10 release. For those that don't know Gnumeric is an open source spreadsheet application built specifically for the GNOME desktop environment. Gnome can use a wide variety of spreadsheet formats including Microsoft Excel files, Lotus 1-2-3, Applix, Sylk, XBase, Open Office, Quattro Pro, Dif, Plan Perfect, and Oleo. Gnumeric's files is based on the Open Document Format.

The new 1.10 release removes the 65000 line restriction that was so common to many spreadsheet programs. From the Ostatic review...

The rest is all good news, though. Users will find plenty of improvements in Gnumeric 1.10, including better graphs with new plot types, about 40 new functions, and performance improvements for larger spreadsheets.

Gnumeric can be a great alternative to other spreadsheet programs.

R Project named in Intelligent Enterprise 2010 Editor's Choice Awards

News from Revolutions blog says that R Project was named to the Intelligent Enterprise 2010 Editor's Choice Awards. They also state that the R Project is also one of the twelve companies to watch in Business Intelligence. For those that use R it should come as no surprise the increased notoriety that R is receiving.

Other Open Source selections from the Intelligent Enterprise 2010 Editor's Choice Awards include Apache (open source web server), Jaspersoft (open source business intelligence), and Eclipse Foundation (open source software development).

A review of website Programming R

Lately I have been getting deeply involved in the statistics world of R. I have recently taken a job in online marketing and I am finding R to be a very useful tool. The first thing I did was to try to find tools of the R trade. I am finding that there are a lot of great tools for R available on the internet.

One of those online tools is the website Programming R. Programming R seems to be a fairly new website that seems to be only around for about a year. The promise of Programming R is it's dedication to R users from beginner to advanced. I find the articles written for Programming R to be very concise and well written. Programming R also provides book reviews for R. This is a very helpful tool for the beginner user.

One interesting section of the Programming R website is its devotion to R consultants and R jobs. The R project itself promotes these but its refreshing to see an independent website to promote statistical jobs devoted to R.

There is also a web forum which is always useful. Unfortunately its not very featured by its users for some reason. Hopefully as the website grows the forum will be used more often.

Overall I really like Programming R for its writing and content. I recommend new and veteran R users to seek Programming R as a resource.

When to use Excel and when to use R

There is a great post in O'Reilly's Answers that talks about when to use Excel and when to use R. I have been using a lot of R lately to perform some data analysis and logistic regression. R is a great tool for statistical analysis. R is also free and open source.

I am going to be doing some more blogging about statistics and using R (R-project homepage). There is a huge amount of uses with R and I'm sure I will only hit the tip of the iceberg. If you have experience in R please let me know and I would love to share your experiences.

8 Open Source Business Intelligence Software

Business Intelligence software has become a necessity for data rich companies. Business Intelligence software is the software that handles the large amounts of data and transforms it into meaningful information. Of course a lot of the transformation requires technical know-how such as data mining and operations research. Linux Links has put together the top Free and Open Source Business Intelligence software available. Some I have already linked before but there are new ones on this list I was not aware.

1. Pentaho
2. Rapidminer
3. JasperReports community edition
4. iReport
5. OpenI
6. BIRT Project
7. Agata Report
8. DataVision
   

Business Intelligence one of hottest skills for 2010

Computerworld takes a look at the main needs for 2010 and finds that Business Intelligence will be a hot skill. This article is mainly about the IT world but it reflects a growing need for data transformation and data mining in business today. There is a lot that goes into Business Intelligence other than just setting up an enterprise ready database system. The article mentions that there will be a need for analysis and decision making. From the article...

More important than a BI expert, though, are programmer/analysts who can relate the nitty-gritty of data tables, database joins and data structure to business requirements. "That's what I'm finding is more valuable to us at this stage in getting BI established and used by the business

Data analysis and processing information is only going to grow in this data rich economy. Organizations are going to be looking for people who can not just sift through the data but also relate it to business decision analysis. I believe that Operations Research could really see a "re-birth" if you will. I'm going to be looking forward to 2010.

Learn to program in Python by making games

Python is a great programming language for applying some basic mathematical programming. Here is an article via Makezine.com blog about how to learn Python by writing games. This is a follow up to my last article on Artificial Intelligence with Python. Learning a new programming language can be a bit dull. I thought it might be more fun to learn how to write games in Python. Perhaps this is something to do for while off for the New Year.