Great Free Data Sets For your Bi Testing

One of the biggest problems I have had in my BI career is creating real world data sets to either test or play with the BI applications I work with. Thanks to the team at PowerPivot Info, they have put together a blog post that details a number of freely available data sets that you can download and play with.
I used the 'Federal Aviation Administration' data set which includes over 10 years of flights by airport and on time status. Amazing set of data.
The original blog article with all the data sets is linked below.

http://powerpivot-info.com/post/50-list-suggested-datasets-to-test-powerpivot

Happy mining ;)
Steve

First week with iPad - results

First full week with the iPad and I absolutely love it. Probably not the first one to say so, but I am a convert. I thought I would do an update from the Via train from Montreal to Toronto with my favorite things.

I have the 3G version and have used the maps application to find out where I am. The maps and location are real time and I can watch where I am from the maps as the train moves. very cool. I can hardly wit to try a turn by turn application at some point.

I use the Microsoft toolset in my day to day work life and have found that Docs To Go works best. I use Evernote as my note application which will synch with my desktop machine running Windows 7. I also have picked up iAnnotate which I have used to highlight and make notes in word documents that I have converted to PDFs. I do miss not having a full version of Word as I really use the review features.

Apps are the big reason that the iPad is so useful. Free ones are even better. I found an application called AppShopper which will display applications that become free or enter the app store at no cost. I have found a good number of interesting and fun applications using this app and highly commend it.

That is it so far, more to come.

If you have found any great apps or are also trying to use your iPad in business, please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Test from the iPad

I have just added an iPad to my workflow. 3days and counting. I am trying to find the best blogging app that I can use Squarespace. The first one that I have liked is BlogPress.

Some must have features that are must have for me include;

1. Works with SquareSpace
2. Allows multiple accounts or blogs
3. Save drafts
4. Let me work online

So far BlogPress seems to be the best fit.

Will posts results as this works out.

If you have any that you could recommend please Feel free to leave a comment. I must admit that it is going to be difficult to fine one better Windows live writer.

Steve

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:John Counter Blvd,Kingston,Canada

Conan Speaks At Google

I am a huge Conan O’Brian fan.  Happened to see a link to this video taken over the last week or so.  I have not had such a good laugh in a while. 

He gets into some really interesting talk about continuing on after adversity or set backs.  Not that this is a self-help video, but really interesting how he is operating under the agreement with NBC that bars him from performing in specific ways.

He has a great example about social media.  He put together a show and is touring.  He sold out his shows with one tweet and not paid advertising.   Shows you the power of new media.

Watch the video, great for a laugh.

Steve Young.

Using Windows Live Writer With SquareSpace Blogs

Some of the hardest tasks related to blogging is getting your off-line blog editor to post to your online store.  I tried SquareSpace about a year ago and really loved the offering.  The deal breaker for me was that they did not support offline creation of articles and their posting to your site.  That changed a while ago and this feature has brought me back.  I now publish a number of blogs through this service.

As so no one else has to go through the limited pain of setting up Windows Live Writer to do this, I have the steps listed below in a small tutorial.  The assumption is that you have a SquareSpace Blog. see http://www.squarespace.com  

Step 1 – Get the “Live” tool set

Window Live Writer is part of the Windows Extensions extensions to windows.  Go to http://get.live.com

Programs you can download include:

• Messenger
• Mail
• Writer
• Photo Gallery
• Movie Maker
• Family Safety
• Toolbar

Additional programs:

• Microsoft Office Outlook® Connector
• Office Live Add-in
• Microsoft Silverlight

Step 2 – Open Write and select “Add blog Account”

The Options drop down has the “Add Blog Account” task.

Step 3 – Select “Other blog service”

SquareSpace is not an out-of-the-box option, select “Other Blog Service”.

Step 4 – Add in your service information

Enter your service information in the next dialog.  The Username and Password are the Admin, or user id that you have designated as content creators.

Step 5 – Select Blog Type and Publishing URL

The blog type is “MetaweblogAPI”. 

Enter “http://www.squarespace.com/process/service/PostInterceptor”

as the URL that you will deploy your posts to.

At this point, Writer will go to your blog, update the formatting in Write to match the Theme you are using.  If you change your settings, colors or scheme, you can re-import those settings

Step 6 – NickName

Give Writer a nickname that you can identify what blog you are writeing to.  You can add a number of blogs to the Writer setup and post entries to that blog.  This proves great flexibility to both edit your entries in the formatting of that BLOG, but also to publish to multiple blogs from the same instance.

Step 7 – Updating the formatting after changes

As stated above, if you change your blog’s formatting after you import the account, you can update the settings in Writer by selecting “Options” and “Update Account configuration”

Hope this helps.  If you have any other software packages that you use to do offline editing, I would live to hear about them in the comments listed below.

Steve Young