Events, Excel, OfficeWriter, Webinars

New Webinar! Make Reports that Measure Up

Take a look at how OfficeWriter can turn your drab Excel reports into chart-topping spreadsheets. This month, it’s all about music as we cover your favorite bands, artists, and labels.

In this webinar we’ll cover:

  • Grouping and nesting in Excel
  • Using SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
  • Charting in Excel and relationships between genre, artists, labels, and album price

When: Friday, August 23, 2013 at 1 P.M. EST

*Register early as space is limited.

Can’t attend? Register anyway, and we’ll send a copy of the slides and recording following the webinar.



Email, RSS Follow
Email

Office Life, Staff Picks

Staff Picks: What are you reading?

Once a week I snoop around the office, bothering my coworkers with questions on what they’re reading, listening to, consuming, or any other random inquiries of which I’d like to subject them. Sometimes they even respond.

The question:
1. What did you read this weekend/this morning?
 
The answers:

Dan, CEO of SoftArtisans

1. List of ingredients on my Entenmann’s raspberry danish twist.

David, CEO of Riparian Data

1. “Who’s in Charge?” by Michael Gazzaniga

Gazzaniga is a neuroscientist explaining how we make decisions

2. A ton of articles on encryption: Elliptic Curves, Learning with Errors, BitMessage

Aviva, VP of Technical Services

1. Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

Nick, IT Admin

1. I’ve been reading about Salt, a new type of configuration management tool.

Claire, Marketing and Business Development
1. I read The Making of 158 Marimba by Jacklin Studios
Kelly Jacklin created what became the iPhone’s default text message alert sound in 1999, using LISP, Perl, and MIDI.
  Continue reading Staff Picks: What are you reading? →
Email, RSS Follow
Email

Truth in Tech

Truth in Tech Ep 25: StackOverflow and the Next Wave of Social Media Networks

truthintech25

When Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky launched StackOverflow  in 2008, the site quickly became the place for programmers to ask and answer questions. Today, one site has become 105, and cryptographers, grammarians, and homebrewers have joined the original core group of programmers. StackOverflow users Nick Martin and Seth Moore guest star as we discuss what might just be the model for the next wave of social networks.

[hs_action id=”5231″]

Want to guest star? Have an interesting tech topic, startup, or story of the week? Email us! elisek@softartisans.com Or find us roaming the Twittosphere @elisekovi and @clairedwillett.

Email, RSS Follow
Email

Big Data, Excel

Carpe Datum: How to Export Your GMail to Excel

Credit: Hongkiat.com

[Crossposted from Riparian Data]

Straightforward title, straightforward goal, ugly and roundabout (but free!) method of achieving it.

For some time now, I’ve had this goal: download my gmail data, analyze it, and visualize it.

The last time I tried this, I glossed over the whole getting your gmail data into Excel part. This is because I wasn’t able to do all of it myself–Jim had to take my ugly mbox data and make it Excel-readable.

But now, thanks to the basic python skills acquired in my data science class, I can do everything myself! Kinda. The code in part 3 will probably make a real programmer scream, but for the most part, it works–though it’s not fond of commas in subject lines. And if you, like me, are not a programmer–don’t worry! You can still run the code, using my trusty copy/paste/pray methodology.

Alors, here goes:

Step 1: From Gmail to Apple Mail

You have Apple mail, right?  You can also do this with Outlook, and probably other desktop clients.

1) In your Gmail settings, go to the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab” and make sure POP is enabled.

2) Now, add your Gmail account to your desktop client o’choice. If it’s already there, add it again–you’re going to be removing this one.

Important: Do not check the “remove copy from server after retrieving a message” box!

Step 2: From Apple Mail to mbox

This part is easy. Just select your mailbox in the desktop client, and go to Mailbox->Export Mailbox, and choose a destination folder.

Step 3: From mbox to csv

If you try to save your pristine mbox file as a csv, you will get a one column csv. Don’t do that. Instead, use these python scripts (also up on github).

The first script opens a blank csv file, and fills it with the subject, from, and date lines for each message in your mbox. I called it mbox_parser.py.

import mailbox import csv
writer = csv.writer(open("clean_mail.csv", "wb")) for message in mailbox.mbox('your_mbox_name'):     writer.writerow([message['subject'], message['from'], message['date']])

If you don’t know what python is, you can still run this script. Here’s how:

1) copy the above code to a plain text file, and save it as mbox_parser.py. Save it to the same folder you saved your mbox file to.

2) open your terminal (spotlight–>terminal)

3) type cd Users/your_account_name/directory_where_you_saved_your_mbox,

4) type  python mbox_parser.py

5) Voila! In your directory, you should see a new file, cleaner.csv.

You’ll notice that the ‘date’ column is a long, jam-packed date string. It’ll be much easier to Continue reading Carpe Datum: How to Export Your GMail to Excel →

Email, RSS Follow
Email

Office Life, The Intern Diaries

The Intern Diaries: Madalyn [Part 2]

This is the fourth installment of our Intern Diaries series, wherein each week our lovely interns give you the inside scoop on what being a programming intern at a high-tech startup is really like. Read the first and second post of the series or listen to this group’s first podcast.

Need to catch up? Read the first part of Madalyn’s 7 step guide to getting a tech internship here.

perfman_hr_job_interview STEP 4: TIME TO IMPRESS

You get that wonderful email, that inspiring phone call: Would you like to come in for an interview? Hooray! Then the nerves hit. Oh no, interview! This is all that’s between you and that internship now. Just remember, don’t freak out. You’ve already risen to the top of everyone at the career fair. Your resume was put on the top of that giant resume pile. The company already strongly believes they want YOU. Why do they think that? Your people skills impressed them at the career fair; they were awed by your dazzling resume; and they have reason to believe (based on your school projects and past experiences) that you’ve got what it takes to work on a team and write good, quality code. But they don’t want a code monkey. They want an engineer. Someone who is thoughtful, and thinks deeply about the code they design.

So you got the interview. The company has thrown the first pitch and you’re up to bat. Unfortunately, as it has been true for me in the past, whenever I feel I’ve bombed the interview I’ve been offered the job, and whenever I think I’ve nailed it I’ve been rejected. So there is no sure-fire way to tell if you’ve done Step 4 correctly when you walk out of that interview room. (Aside from them offering you the job right then and there—which almost never happens).

So you’ll probably be nervous. And guess what? So will the company. They’ll be nervous for the awkwardness that is meeting new people and not knowing what to expect. Your interviewer(s) will be worried about you not being a good fit and having to interview yet ANOTHER candidate. So instead of reading hundreds of tech interview books (which can help with brushing up on those technical questions), here’s what you do:

Keep in mind that your interviewers don’t care all that much if you get the (technical) answer to every question right. They want to find someone who has good team and collaboration skills. They want to hire someone who can think through problems and who doesn’t give up. This is what you have to show them. Think out-loud; talk through problems. Show them your strategies. Draw diagrams on the whiteboard if it helps you (as a visual person, I’m always doing this, both in and outside of interviews). What you’re doing is letting them know you are not just some “computer science student.” You are a problem-solver. And that’s what really matters.

 STEP 5: FOLLOW UP

You’re done with the interview, and now the stress is over. Make sure you email your interviewers and thank them all for their time. It’s most likely that your interview Continue reading The Intern Diaries: Madalyn [Part 2] →

Email, RSS Follow
Email

Business Intelligence, Excel

When to use SUMIF vs. Pivot Tables in Excel

SUMIF and PivotTables can both summarize data based on specific criteria, but they do so in completely different ways. In most cases, PivotTables are going to be faster and easier to get the data that you want, but sometimes using Excel formulas is the only way to handle complicated data.

All the examples from this blog post can be found in this workbook: SUMIF_PivotTable

WHY PIVOT TABLES ARE BETTER

Let’s take a look at a quick example of some fruit sales data, where we want to find information like: all sales for a date, total sales for a fruit in the given time period, or total sales for a type of fruit on a given day.

ExampleData

With SUMIF, you can specify the range of values you are using as the criteria (dates or fruit), the values you want to sum (sales), and the actual criteria that will determine if the values are included in the sum (“7/2/2013”, “Apple”). SUMIFS (new in Excel 2007) extends this functionality to allow multiple criteria (dates and fruit):

ExampleFormulas

Note: Excel also offers COUNTIF, COUNTIFS, AVERAGEIF and AVERAGEIFS starting in Excel 2007.

You can do the same with PivotTables, but the PivotTable will also handle sorting, grouping and organizing your data so you can just lift the aggregated values right out from the table:

ExamplePivotTable

Here the values are automatically generated by the PivotTable. No extra work needed aside from creating the PivotTable, which is as easy as selecting the data range and specifying where the table needs to go.

Excel also applies PivotTable styles, which change be switched in one click and you can even create your own custom styles.

WHY WOULDN’T YOU USE PIVOT TABLES?

I extended my fruit example to use sample data from the AdventureWorks database, where I wanted to compare online and retail sales for North America, broken down by quarter: Continue reading When to use SUMIF vs. Pivot Tables in Excel →

Email, RSS Follow
Email

Office Life, The Intern Diaries

The Intern Diaries: Madalyn

This is the third installment of our Intern Diaries series, wherein each week our lovely interns give you the inside scoop on what being a programming intern at a high-tech startup is really like. Read the first and second post of the series or listen to this group’s first podcast.

Madalyn

Hello! My name is Madalyn Coryea and I am in intern this summer at Riparian Data in Watertown, MA. I am heading into my senior year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute as a Computer Science major & Digital Art minor, and this is my second technical internship.

One of the best parts about having a computer science internship is that you get to experience working at a real company on a real team of software developers. At both of my internships I’ve been able to work at companies where I write real code that directly influences the product. This is something I especially look for when I apply for an internship. If you’re like me, and want to be a key player in “the big picture” at your company, make sure you get to know what you’ll be doing at your interviews. If you don’t ask, you won’t know what the company expects from its interns.

Key phrases to look out for are: “We have a summer project that we put the interns on,” or “We have an exciting program planned for you!” Usually this means that the company doesn’t have interns working with their real product. Sometimes these companies are just trying to establish relations with interns to make them full-time employees when they’re done with college. Other times, they are just trying to fill an “intern-quota” to make the company look better. Personally, I would feel like this is wasted time. I want to be treated like a developer, and I want to be a contributor to the software. To avoid getting stuck with a gimmicky internship, I usually want to hear, “We need developers to work on our product.” It’s worked out for me so far! And a great part about being a Computer Science intern is that we are in high demand. This is good news for us! It means we can have our selection of companies to work for. So there’s no reason to go to a boring company at an internship you think you’ll hate.

Once you have your internship, you will really learn if this is what you want to do. Is this the type of code you want to write? Is this the kind of software you want to develop? Do you like front-end or back-end or something else? With the Computer Science industry as huge as it is, there are so many areas where you can find yourself happy with your work. And since internships are a short-term commitment it’s okay to experiment with different types of jobs in software.

So how do you get this wonderful internship? Continue reading The Intern Diaries: Madalyn →

Email, RSS Follow
Email

Truth in Tech

Truth in Tech Ep 23: The Quantified Self – Everything in Measuration

This week on Truth in Tech we roped in Mark Moschel and Eugene Granovsky, co-organizers of the Chicago Quantified Self Meetup group and owners of AskMeEvery. As featured in Mashable, LifeHacker and The Next Web, AskMeEvery is a way to track your activities and behaviors over time through daily questions, making you more mindful of the ways in which you spend your time. Listen as Mark and Eugene give us the scoop on translating your life into numbers. Where did it come from? What apps/devices are at the forefront? What are the types of people who track? Should we really be measuring everything?

truthintech23

Email, RSS Follow
Email

Big Data

Quantify Me: The Rise of Self-Tracking

Credit: Syncstrength.com

“Have you heard of the quantified self?” my coworker asked me.  After a puzzled stare and a furrowed brow I assured her I hadn’t. So of course I immediately clicked over to a new tab and typed “quantified self” in the browser. Turns out I had heard of this concept, I’d just never put a name to it. In fact, I’d been partaking in this movement for years – tracking my whereabouts with Foursquare, logging my calorie intake with MyFitnessPal and recording my workouts with RunKeeper. I even had a stint with Saga, the app that tracked your every single move without you having to do anything! Just install the app and let ‘er rip.

There are a ton of apps and wearable devices dedicated solely to this purpose of tracking and quantifying oneself, all with the ideal goal of finding correlations and being able to improve upon your productivity, fitness, and overall well-being. The Zeo monitor straps to your head, monitors your sleep cycles, and comes equipped with a programmable alarm clock that wakes you at the optimal phase of sleep. Adidas has a chip called miCoach you place in your shoe and it will record your speed, subsequently breaking down your recorded data graphically on their website. Samsung hopped on this trend and partnered with Foursquare to visually capture your whereabouts with their Foursquare Time Machine. Of course curiosity got the better of me and I gladly gave them access to my Foursquare check-ins. Take all of my data, Samsung! Link all of my accounts? Suuure. The more the merrier. Just remember to spit back a cool interactive image so I can see all of my data.

I’m not alone in my curiosity. It was reported last year that wearable monitoring devices raked in an estimated $800 million in sales. And it doesn’t stop there. IMS Research projects that the wearable technology market will exceed $6 billion by 2016. People are buying into this self-tracking movement. So why the obsession?

Continue reading Quantify Me: The Rise of Self-Tracking →

Email, RSS Follow
Email

Blogged