Interested in getting up and running quickly with data science computing using Python and IPython notebook – Wenming has created a series of blog posting to step you through getting up and running with a IPython notebook on Azure very quickly.
The first three blog posts of the series are out – take a look and test it out:
This past weekend at SXSW, Microsoft and the WorldWide Telescope team worked with NASA, Northrop Grumman and the Space Telescope Science Institute to deliver a one of a kind exhibit around the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The two main anchors of the exhibit was the physical model of the JWST and the WorldWide Telescope Theater. Over the 3 days the WWT Theater hosted over 70 talks using WWT Tours, PowerPoint, and live Skype QnAs – all on a 20 million pixel wall sized display wall.
Behind the scenes – this immersive experience was pulled together by Microsoft Research and our partners for the theater – Epson, NVIDA and Scalable Display Technologies. The 8 Epson projectors worked flawlessly pumping out pixels for over 14 hours a day and this was in a tent without air conditioning and lots of humidity – especially during the first two days of rain. The 8 projectors were driven by 2 NVIDIA Quadro K5000’s in a single PC. The display wall needed the DirectX 11 support to show off the latest WWT Eclipse Alpha build that leverages DX11. Delivering all those pixels to the display wall was one piece, but to make the images seamless and immersive the Scalable Display Manager (SDM) was used. The (SDM) software with it’s EasyBlend technology, made it a snap to wrap and blend the pixels coming from the individual projectors into a really seamless experience.
This whole setup allowed the team to utilize the wall as a very, very large Windows desktop and take advantage of all the Windows applications for the presentations – including
While most of you might not need to create a wall sized display like this one – it shows how desktop technologies created for Windows scales to create immersive experiences. Let me know if you decide to create one….
Today starts South by Southwest Interactive and the Worldwide Telescope team is working with NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute to delivery a exhibit around the James Webb Space Telescope that is close to out of this world. There is the full scale model of the JWST and the wall sized display of the Worldwide Telescope.
Seeing Your World Through a Different Light As the saying goes: everything is bigger in Texas. And coming this weekend, March 8 to 10, there will be a couple of Texas-sized telescopes at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival in Austin. Housed in the mammoth NASA Experience Tent, a wall-sized display will show off Microsoft Research’s WorldWide Telescope (WWT), demonstrating the amazing capabilities of the world’s largest virtual telescope. Outside, on the lawn of the Long Center, there will be a full-scale model of the next generation of the Hubble Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—a truly impressive piece of engineering that’s the size of a tennis court. Microsoft Research is partnering with NASA, Northrop Grumman, and the Space Telescope Science Institute to offer a truly interactive exhibit, with University of Austin astronomy students on hand to show off details of the JWST model on Microsoft Surface devices. Meanwhile, WWT will provide festival goers with an immersive virtual experience as they fly through the universe and explore the planets and stars. As you may know, the WWT brings together imagery from the world’s best ground and space-based telescopes and combines it with 3-D navigation. It also includes guided tours of interesting places in the sky, created and narrated by astronomers and educators. <..>
As the saying goes: everything is bigger in Texas. And coming this weekend, March 8 to 10, there will be a couple of Texas-sized telescopes at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival in Austin. Housed in the mammoth NASA Experience Tent, a wall-sized display will show off Microsoft Research’s WorldWide Telescope (WWT), demonstrating the amazing capabilities of the world’s largest virtual telescope. Outside, on the lawn of the Long Center, there will be a full-scale model of the next generation of the Hubble Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—a truly impressive piece of engineering that’s the size of a tennis court.
Microsoft Research is partnering with NASA, Northrop Grumman, and the Space Telescope Science Institute to offer a truly interactive exhibit, with University of Austin astronomy students on hand to show off details of the JWST model on Microsoft Surface devices. Meanwhile, WWT will provide festival goers with an immersive virtual experience as they fly through the universe and explore the planets and stars. As you may know, the WWT brings together imagery from the world’s best ground and space-based telescopes and combines it with 3-D navigation. It also includes guided tours of interesting places in the sky, created and narrated by astronomers and educators.
<..>
Microsoft Research Connections Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
During this years annual Microsoft Research TechFest, where Microsoft Research exposes compelling research projects to employees and guests, there are a couple Science related projects being highlighted. The Computational Ecology and Environmental Science (CEES) group at our Microsoft Research Cambridge lab is demoing some very interesting projects.
Geo-Database Applications at the Speed of Thought In 2012, Microsoft formed a unique partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species. Central to the partnership is creating the Red List Threat Mapping Tool -- a spatial database application that enables experts and decision-makers around the world to find, map, explore, add, modify, and notate the various threats to any focal species. This SQL Server 2012 application enables visitors to query global biodiversity, protected area, and threat databases in real time. New software is being built to make it easy for anyone to construct these kinds of geo-data applications "at the speed of thought," without having to write a line of code. The software natively understands spatial data and spatial search, introduces a new, iterative search method, and produces databases that remain flexible, so that all aspects of the database and the application can be modified at any time. Predictive Decision-Making at the Speed of Thought Since 2007, the Computational Ecology and Environmental Science (CEES) group at Microsoft Research Cambridge has been pursuing the fundamental research needed to build predictive models of critical global environmental systems. Such predictions are needed urgently at a variety of scales—and to support effective decision-making, they must include uncertainty. In recent years, the philosophy of how to make such predictions has become clear: A “defensible modeling pipeline” is needed in which data and models are integrated in a Bayesian context and which is transparent and repeatable enough to stand up in court. The technology, though, is lagging far behind, making this pipeline impossible to build for all but the most technically savvy. Enter CEES Distribution Modeler, a browser app that enables users to visualize data, define a complex model, parameterize it using Bayesian methods, make predictions with uncertainty, and then share all that in a fully transparent and repeatable form.
In 2012, Microsoft formed a unique partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species. Central to the partnership is creating the Red List Threat Mapping Tool -- a spatial database application that enables experts and decision-makers around the world to find, map, explore, add, modify, and notate the various threats to any focal species. This SQL Server 2012 application enables visitors to query global biodiversity, protected area, and threat databases in real time. New software is being built to make it easy for anyone to construct these kinds of geo-data applications "at the speed of thought," without having to write a line of code. The software natively understands spatial data and spatial search, introduces a new, iterative search method, and produces databases that remain flexible, so that all aspects of the database and the application can be modified at any time.
Since 2007, the Computational Ecology and Environmental Science (CEES) group at Microsoft Research Cambridge has been pursuing the fundamental research needed to build predictive models of critical global environmental systems. Such predictions are needed urgently at a variety of scales—and to support effective decision-making, they must include uncertainty. In recent years, the philosophy of how to make such predictions has become clear: A “defensible modeling pipeline” is needed in which data and models are integrated in a Bayesian context and which is transparent and repeatable enough to stand up in court. The technology, though, is lagging far behind, making this pipeline impossible to build for all but the most technically savvy. Enter CEES Distribution Modeler, a browser app that enables users to visualize data, define a complex model, parameterize it using Bayesian methods, make predictions with uncertainty, and then share all that in a fully transparent and repeatable form.
TechFest 2013 - Microsoft Research
After posting about Data Explorer yesterday – I thought about other add-ins for Excel that make hard problems easier…and that lead me back to the SQLServerDataMining.com site….it’s great to see that the SQL Server 2012 Data Mining Add-ins for Office (with 64-bit Support) is available for Office 2013.
The Data Mining Add-ins allow you to harness the power of SQL Server 2012 predictive analytics in Excel and Visio and they have been updated to include 64-bit support for Office 2010, and now Office 2013 as well. Use Table Analysis Tools to get insight with a couple of clicks. Or dive into the Data Mining Client for full-lifecycle data mining, and then visualize your models in Visio.
Download Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 SP1 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft® Office® from Official Microsoft Download Center
Functionality and features for Excel 2013 just keeps getting better, especially when you realize that Self-Service BI can enable Self-Service SI (Science Intelligence) – the latest is the release of the Microsoft "Data Explorer" Preview for Excel which give you a “intuitive and consistent experience for discovering, combining, and refining data across a wide variety of sources including relational, structured and semi-structured, OData, Web, Hadoop, Azure Marketplace, and more.”
There is a good overview and tutorial available at the Data Explorer help site. I also like all the datasets that can be connected to directly…what other data types/file types would help on the Science side?
PREVIEW NOW AVAILABLE: Microsoft "Data Explorer" Preview for Excel: Try the upcoming capabilities for Self-Service BI with the Microsoft "Data Explorer" Preview for Excel. This preview gives you an early look into upcoming features that simplify access to public and corporate data. Now you can easily discover, combine, and refine data for better analysis in Excel. Microsoft Data Explorer Preview for Excel
PREVIEW NOW AVAILABLE: Microsoft "Data Explorer" Preview for Excel: Try the upcoming capabilities for Self-Service BI with the Microsoft "Data Explorer" Preview for Excel. This preview gives you an early look into upcoming features that simplify access to public and corporate data. Now you can easily discover, combine, and refine data for better analysis in Excel.
Office Preview | Microsoft BI
This is a good article if you’ve updated to Excel 2013 and want to update your PowerPivot models.
Start PowerPivot in Excel 2013 add-in Important This feature isn’t available in Office on a Windows RT PC. Want to see what version of Office you're using? PowerPivot in Excel 2013 is an add-in you can use to perform powerful data analysis in Excel 2013. The add-in is available in Microsoft Office Professional Plus. It’s built-into Excel 2013 but is not enabled. Here’s how you enable PowerPivot before you use it for the first time. Go to File > Options > Add-Ins. In the Manage box, click COM Add-ins> Go. Check the Microsoft Office PowerPivot for Excel 2013 box, and then click OK. If you have other versions of the PowerPivot add-in installed, those versions are also listed in the COM Add-ins list. Be sure to select the PowerPivot add-in for Excel 2013.
Important This feature isn’t available in Office on a Windows RT PC. Want to see what version of Office you're using?
PowerPivot in Excel 2013 is an add-in you can use to perform powerful data analysis in Excel 2013. The add-in is available in Microsoft Office Professional Plus. It’s built-into Excel 2013 but is not enabled. Here’s how you enable PowerPivot before you use it for the first time.
Start PowerPivot in Excel 2013 add-in - Excel - Office.com
It’s great to see the University of Washington planetarium showcased in this UW Today article. The UW team headed up by Phil Rosenfield has really figured out how to bring Astronomy to the students directly and really engage them. The WWT team at MSR is excited to see students learn about Astronomy and see in in the GoDomes.
Astronomy to go: UW readies new portable planetarium | UW Today
This week many of us from the Microsoft Research Earth, Energy and Science team are down at AGU2012 enjoying all that the American Geophysical Union’s 45th annual Fall Meeting has. MSR has been a participant for many years and really enjoy connecting with scientists and researchers to discuss their scientific challenges.
In the Microsoft Research booth this year we have experts from many different areas available to talk about challenges with collecting, visualizing and managing data. We also have Windows 8 and Office 2013 running on the machines to show what is possible from Surface devices, Desktops, and really large touch screens like the 82'” one from Perceptive Pixel in the booth.
You think a tablet is a touch device? Just touch one of these and you’ll realize that pads are mini compared to the 82"
Also we are hosting the following FireSide Chats at the booth tomorrow – Wednesday.
Wednesday 10:00am -10:30 am
Also glad to see the support for Windows Phone and all HTML apps via the link http://app.core-apps.com/agu-fm12 on that AGU program guide.
Last week at SuperCompter2012, the Windows Azure team showed off it’s Big Compute support by placing in the Top 500 Supercomputer list.
You can get more details on it in Bill Hilf’s blog post - Windows Azure Benchmarks Show Top Performance for Big Compute
Today, we are pleased to announce the fourth release of our compute cluster solution since 2006. Microsoft HPC Pack 2012 is used to manage compute clusters with dedicated servers, part-time servers, desktop computers, and hybrid deployments with Windows Azure. Clusters can be entirely on-premises, can be extended to the cloud on a schedule or on demand, or be can be all in the cloud and active only when needed. The new release provides support for Windows Server 2012. Features include Windows Azure VPN integration for access to on-premises resources, such as license servers, new job execution control for dependencies, new job scheduling policies for memory and cores, new monitoring tools, and utilities to help manage data staging. Microsoft HPC Pack 2012 will be available in December 2012.
Today, we are pleased to announce the fourth release of our compute cluster solution since 2006. Microsoft HPC Pack 2012 is used to manage compute clusters with dedicated servers, part-time servers, desktop computers, and hybrid deployments with Windows Azure. Clusters can be entirely on-premises, can be extended to the cloud on a schedule or on demand, or be can be all in the cloud and active only when needed.
The new release provides support for Windows Server 2012. Features include Windows Azure VPN integration for access to on-premises resources, such as license servers, new job execution control for dependencies, new job scheduling policies for memory and cores, new monitoring tools, and utilities to help manage data staging.
Microsoft HPC Pack 2012 will be available in December 2012.
Even if you weren’t able to get a registration for //Build/ 2012 – the streaming sessions are a great experience. You can watch the sessions live, like the Azure sessions happening today – or the prerecorded sessions like Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 from yesterday.
Build 2012 | Channel 9
If you’re interested in how carbon impacts the overall climate models – you’ll really be interested in the paper just published by Matthew Smith, et al - our Microsoft Researchers from our Computational Ecology and Environmental Science Group (CEES) in Cambridge England. Not only can you view the paper, but can also provide comments and discuss the paper at the Biogeosciences site.
The climate dependence of the terrestrial carbon cycle; including parameter and structural uncertainties M. J. Smith, M. C. Vanderwel, V. Lyutsarev, S. Emmott, and D. W. Purves Computational Science Laboratory, Microsoft Research Cambridge, 7 J. J. Thompson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0FB, UK Abstract. The feedback between climate and the terrestrial carbon cycle will be a key determinant of the dynamics of the Earth System over the coming decades and centuries. However Earth System Model projections of the terrestrial carbon-balance vary widely over these timescales. This is largely due to differences in their carbon cycle models. A major goal in biogeosciences is therefore to improve understanding of the terrestrial carbon cycle to enable better constrained projections. Essential to achieving this goal will be assessing the empirical support for alternative models of component processes, identifying key uncertainties and inconsistencies, and ultimately identifying the models that are most consistent with empirical evidence. To begin meeting these requirements we data-constrained all parameters of all component processes within a global terrestrial carbon model. Our goals were to assess the climate dependencies obtained for different component processes when all parameters have been inferred from empirical data, assess whether these were consistent with current knowledge and understanding, assess the importance of different data sets and the model structure for inferring those dependencies, assess the predictive accuracy of the model, and to identify a methodology by which alternative component models could be compared within the same framework in future. Although formulated as differential equations describing carbon fluxes through plant and soil pools, the model was fitted assuming the carbon pools were in states of dynamic equilibrium (input rates equal output rates). Thus, the parameterised model is of the equilibrium terrestrial carbon cycle. All but 2 of the 12 component processes to the model were inferred to have strong climate dependencies although it was not possible to data-constrain all parameters indicating some potentially redundant details. Similar climate dependencies were obtained for most processes whether inferred individually from their corresponding data sets or using the full terrestrial carbon model and all available data sets, indicating a strong overall consistency in the information provided by different data sets under the assumed model formulation. A notable exception was plant mortality, in which qualitatively different climate dependencies were inferred depending on the model formulation and data sets used, highlighting this component as the major structural uncertainty in the model. All but two component processes predicted empirical data better than a null model in which no climate dependency was assumed. Equilibrium plant carbon was predicted especially well (explaining around 70% of the variation in the withheld evaluation data). We discuss the advantages of our approach in relation to advancing our understanding of the carbon cycle and enabling Earth System Models make better constrained projections. BGD - Abstract - The climate dependence of the terrestrial carbon cycle; including parameter and structural uncertainties
M. J. Smith, M. C. Vanderwel, V. Lyutsarev, S. Emmott, and D. W. Purves Computational Science Laboratory, Microsoft Research Cambridge, 7 J. J. Thompson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0FB, UK Abstract. The feedback between climate and the terrestrial carbon cycle will be a key determinant of the dynamics of the Earth System over the coming decades and centuries. However Earth System Model projections of the terrestrial carbon-balance vary widely over these timescales. This is largely due to differences in their carbon cycle models. A major goal in biogeosciences is therefore to improve understanding of the terrestrial carbon cycle to enable better constrained projections. Essential to achieving this goal will be assessing the empirical support for alternative models of component processes, identifying key uncertainties and inconsistencies, and ultimately identifying the models that are most consistent with empirical evidence. To begin meeting these requirements we data-constrained all parameters of all component processes within a global terrestrial carbon model. Our goals were to assess the climate dependencies obtained for different component processes when all parameters have been inferred from empirical data, assess whether these were consistent with current knowledge and understanding, assess the importance of different data sets and the model structure for inferring those dependencies, assess the predictive accuracy of the model, and to identify a methodology by which alternative component models could be compared within the same framework in future. Although formulated as differential equations describing carbon fluxes through plant and soil pools, the model was fitted assuming the carbon pools were in states of dynamic equilibrium (input rates equal output rates). Thus, the parameterised model is of the equilibrium terrestrial carbon cycle. All but 2 of the 12 component processes to the model were inferred to have strong climate dependencies although it was not possible to data-constrain all parameters indicating some potentially redundant details. Similar climate dependencies were obtained for most processes whether inferred individually from their corresponding data sets or using the full terrestrial carbon model and all available data sets, indicating a strong overall consistency in the information provided by different data sets under the assumed model formulation. A notable exception was plant mortality, in which qualitatively different climate dependencies were inferred depending on the model formulation and data sets used, highlighting this component as the major structural uncertainty in the model. All but two component processes predicted empirical data better than a null model in which no climate dependency was assumed. Equilibrium plant carbon was predicted especially well (explaining around 70% of the variation in the withheld evaluation data). We discuss the advantages of our approach in relation to advancing our understanding of the carbon cycle and enabling Earth System Models make better constrained projections.
BGD - Abstract - The climate dependence of the terrestrial carbon cycle; including parameter and structural uncertainties
It’s really good to see Microsoft’s commitment to reducing the companies carbon footprint being recognized by the Carbon Disclosure Project.
Continuing a Commitment to Carbon Disclosure Last week the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) issued its annual climate change report that ranks the greenhouse gas emissions of many of the world’s largest public companies. At Microsoft we’ve remained committed to the principles of carbon disclosure— diligently reporting our carbon emissions, energy and now water use through the CDP for the last eight years
Last week the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) issued its annual climate change report that ranks the greenhouse gas emissions of many of the world’s largest public companies. At Microsoft we’ve remained committed to the principles of carbon disclosure— diligently reporting our carbon emissions, energy and now water use through the CDP for the last eight years
Continuing a Commitment to Carbon Disclosure - Software Enabled Earth - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
Last week I ended up finding that one of my directories of pictures lost their file extensions – so I thought I’d spin up PowerShell in Win8 and see if I could remember how to do.
After a little trial and error I ended up with the following PowerShell Script – reminded me how powerful and easy PowerShell is for scripting all of Windows.
I just finished a seminar presentation to Monash University while sitting in Redmond – the slides were presented using PowerPoint 2013 via Office Presentation Service a free way to control your presentation to anyone in the world. While the PowerPoint broadcast feature has been included in previous versions of PowerPoint it’s really amazing how easy it is to use – all the viewer needs is a browser, so it works on almost any device/smartphone.
Start an online meeting from PowerPoint Now you’ve got several ways to share a PowerPoint presentation over the Web. You can send out a link to the slides, or start a full-on Lync meeting that displays the deck with audio and IM. Your audience can join you from anywhere, on any device using Lync or the Office Presentation Service. Read more: Present online using the Office Presentation Service Start an online presentation in PowerPoint using Lync
Now you’ve got several ways to share a PowerPoint presentation over the Web. You can send out a link to the slides, or start a full-on Lync meeting that displays the deck with audio and IM. Your audience can join you from anywhere, on any device using Lync or the Office Presentation Service.
Read more:
What's new in PowerPoint 2013 - PowerPoint - Office.com
I just saw that some new Curriculum materials for Windows Azure and SQL Databases in the Faculty Connection – those are great resources for helping with teaching students, especially since no knowledge of Cloud Computing is required.
It’s also good to see all the materials that are available for Windows Azure – to help get up to speed, weather it be for using, developing on, or managing. A few I thought might be of interest…
Azure Features - Web Sites, Virtual Machines, Cloud Services, Big Data, and Media Services
Azure Developer Center – Languages supported: Node.js, PHP, Java, Python, and of course .NET
Hadoop on Windows Azure Tutorials /How To Guides
There are also some really good overview materials on the fundamentals of Windows Azure from David Chappell.
It’s inspiring to see someone take technology and combine with art and artistic abilities to make something beautiful. I ran across the Layerscape Tour Maolwane niebo that combines artwork from children inspired by the skies and mythology.
Truly combing “IT technology with art, literacy, mythology” work from Dorota Sporysz-Kupras
For some Friday fun, I was playing with Cliplets from Microsoft Research – it let’s you combine still shots and video to create pictures that have movement. Below I took some video while at Stanford on my cellphone and ran created a cliplet just to test it out – works really easy.
What Are Cliplets? Microsoft Research Cliplets is an interactive app that gives users the power to create "Cliplets" -- a type of imagery that sits between stills and video, including imagery such as video textures and "cinemagraphs". The app provides a simple, yet expressive way to mix static and dynamic elements from a video clip.
Microsoft Research Cliplets is an interactive app that gives users the power to create "Cliplets" -- a type of imagery that sits between stills and video, including imagery such as video textures and "cinemagraphs". The app provides a simple, yet expressive way to mix static and dynamic elements from a video clip.
This is great to hear that Microsoft along with Technology Leaders Support OASIS Standards for Open Data Protocol.
OData Technical Committee Proposed to OASIS Based on overwhelming feedback from the community, Microsoft announced that they, along with SAP AG, IBM, Citrix, Progress Software and WSO2, are proposing an OData Technical Committee (TC) in OASIS, an international open standards consortium. You can participate directly in producing the standard by joining the OData TC. OASIS will be announcing a Call for Participation in early June, including a notice on the odata.org mailing list. If your organization would like to be featured as a Proposer of the OASIS OData Technical Committee—alongside Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Progress Software, SAP, and WSO2—contact join AT oasis-open.org before June 3rd, 2012.
Based on overwhelming feedback from the community, Microsoft announced that they, along with SAP AG, IBM, Citrix, Progress Software and WSO2, are proposing an OData Technical Committee (TC) in OASIS, an international open standards consortium. You can participate directly in producing the standard by joining the OData TC. OASIS will be announcing a Call for Participation in early June, including a notice on the odata.org mailing list. If your organization would like to be featured as a Proposer of the OASIS OData Technical Committee—alongside Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Progress Software, SAP, and WSO2—contact join AT oasis-open.org before June 3rd, 2012.
Just saw the announcement from the HDF5 group that they’ve released PSH5X-a Windows PowerShell module for HDF5. They also have some good resources up to help get started – including the pseudo-mindmap of the provider….
For folks not familiar with HDF5 -
The HDF5 technology suite is designed to organize, store, discover, access, analyze, share, and preserve diverse, complex data in continuously evolving heterogeneous computing and storage environments. HDF5 supports all types of data stored digitally, regardless of origin or size. Petabytes of remote sensing data collected by satellites, terabytes of computational results from nuclear testing models, and megabytes of high-resolution MRI brain scans are stored in HDF5 files, together with metadata necessary for efficient data sharing, processing, visualization, and archiving.
The HDF5 technology suite is designed to organize, store, discover, access, analyze, share, and preserve diverse, complex data in continuously evolving heterogeneous computing and storage environments.
HDF5 supports all types of data stored digitally, regardless of origin or size. Petabytes of remote sensing data collected by satellites, terabytes of computational results from nuclear testing models, and megabytes of high-resolution MRI brain scans are stored in HDF5 files, together with metadata necessary for efficient data sharing, processing, visualization, and archiving.
PSH5X is a Windows PowerShell module for HDF5. It leverages PowerShell's provider model to produce a file system-like experience for HDF5 (an often cited metaphor). PSH5X helps you perform simple housekeeping tasks such as renaming HDF5 links or copying HDF5 objects, but it can also create new HDF5 items (HDF5 objects, links, attributes) and read or write HDF5 dataset and attribute values. Did you ever ask questions similar to the following? How many groups and datasets are there in an HDF5 file? What fraction of the total file size can be accounted for by HDF5 datasets? Which path names containing the string 'H2O' lead to HDF5 datasets? You'll find that these are examples of the proverbial 'one-liners' in PSH5X. After years of uncontrolled growth of a bewildering jungle of scripting technologies on the Windows platform, there's, finally, a one-stop automation hub, Windows PowerShell. You may not be aware of it, but it comes with every modern Windows desktop or server installation. You can view PSH5X as a ramp leading straight into the fast lane on the PowerShell highway. There you will have access to a myriad of helpful cmdlets to get almost every HDF5 job done. For example, have a look at FAQ 2.01 if you ever wondered how to get data from HDF5 into Excel. There are already several excellent scripting interfaces available for HDF5 including Andrew Collette's h5py Python module. Most people would probably agree that for something as wonderful and multi-faceted as HDF5 there can hardly be too many good choices. With PSH5X we're adding another powerful tool to the arsenal and hope that, with your help, it will find its "niche" in the ecosystem. Questions? Check out a few remarks on terminology, a list of PSH5X cmdlets, the FAQ, the tutorial, advanced features, and several limitations and known issues.
PSH5X is a Windows PowerShell module for HDF5. It leverages PowerShell's provider model to produce a file system-like experience for HDF5 (an often cited metaphor). PSH5X helps you perform simple housekeeping tasks such as renaming HDF5 links or copying HDF5 objects, but it can also create new HDF5 items (HDF5 objects, links, attributes) and read or write HDF5 dataset and attribute values. Did you ever ask questions similar to the following?
You'll find that these are examples of the proverbial 'one-liners' in PSH5X.
After years of uncontrolled growth of a bewildering jungle of scripting technologies on the Windows platform, there's, finally, a one-stop automation hub, Windows PowerShell. You may not be aware of it, but it comes with every modern Windows desktop or server installation. You can view PSH5X as a ramp leading straight into the fast lane on the PowerShell highway. There you will have access to a myriad of helpful cmdlets to get almost every HDF5 job done. For example, have a look at FAQ 2.01 if you ever wondered how to get data from HDF5 into Excel.
There are already several excellent scripting interfaces available for HDF5 including Andrew Collette's h5py Python module. Most people would probably agree that for something as wonderful and multi-faceted as HDF5 there can hardly be too many good choices. With PSH5X we're adding another powerful tool to the arsenal and hope that, with your help, it will find its "niche" in the ecosystem.
Questions? Check out a few remarks on terminology, a list of PSH5X cmdlets, the FAQ, the tutorial, advanced features, and several limitations and known issues.
There’s a good cover story article on Microsoft’s Smart Building Pilot Program in the latest The Leader, it describes the Microsoft Real Estate and Facilitates group effort in using more technology to improve the energy performance of the buildings they manage. The article describes the use of the corporate campus as a living lab focusing on Fault Detection and Diagnosis, Alarm Management, and Energy Management. There’s also a technical overview of the Smart-Building Architecture that is being used – which includes the use of Azure Connect to securely transmit data to relevant vendor applications.
There’s more information in the whitepaper – and other resources….
The Central Role of Cloud Computing in Making Cities Energy-Smart
The Leader - January/February 2012 [12 - 13]
Don’t miss the Learn Windows Azure event next Tuesday, Dec 13th….
Learn Windows Azure Next Tuesday (Dec 13th) Next Tuesday, Dec 13th we’ll be holding a special Learn Windows Azure training event for developers. It will provide a great way to learn Windows Azure and what it provides. You can attend the event either by watching it streamed LIVE online, or by attending in person (on the Microsoft Redmond Campus). Both options are completely free. Learn Window Azure Event During the Learn Windows Azure event attendees will learn how to start building great cloud based applications using Windows Azure. I’ll be kicking off the day with a 90 minute keynote that will provide an overview of Windows Azure, during which I’ll explain the concepts behind it and the core features and benefits it provides. I’ll also walkthrough how to build applications for it using .NET, Visual Studio and the Windows Azure SDK (with lots of demos of it in action). We’ll then spend the rest of the day drilling into more depth on Cloud Data and Storage, how to use the Visual Studio Windows Azure Tools, how to Build Scalable Cloud Applications, and close off with an Q&A panel with myself, Dave Campbell and Mark Russinovich. Register Now for Free The free Learn Windows Azure event will start at 9am (PST) on Dec 13th. You’ll be able to watch the entire event live on Channel9 or attend it in person. Both options are completely free. Register now to watch online or attend the event in person for FREE
Next Tuesday, Dec 13th we’ll be holding a special Learn Windows Azure training event for developers. It will provide a great way to learn Windows Azure and what it provides. You can attend the event either by watching it streamed LIVE online, or by attending in person (on the Microsoft Redmond Campus). Both options are completely free.
During the Learn Windows Azure event attendees will learn how to start building great cloud based applications using Windows Azure.
I’ll be kicking off the day with a 90 minute keynote that will provide an overview of Windows Azure, during which I’ll explain the concepts behind it and the core features and benefits it provides. I’ll also walkthrough how to build applications for it using .NET, Visual Studio and the Windows Azure SDK (with lots of demos of it in action).
We’ll then spend the rest of the day drilling into more depth on Cloud Data and Storage, how to use the Visual Studio Windows Azure Tools, how to Build Scalable Cloud Applications, and close off with an Q&A panel with myself, Dave Campbell and Mark Russinovich.
The free Learn Windows Azure event will start at 9am (PST) on Dec 13th. You’ll be able to watch the entire event live on Channel9 or attend it in person. Both options are completely free.
Learn Windows Azure Next Tuesday (Dec 13th) - ScottGu's Blog
Dealing with scientific data can be challenging – especially since it’s in many different formats, files etc. The SQL Labs release of Microsoft Codename “Data Explorer” looks to be a tool that can help bring together many different data sets in a more straight forward way. Not only is it an easy to use tool to bring the datasets together, you can also publish it out in a number of ways to make it easy to share the insight/results with others.
Check out the "Data Explorer" Learning Page for more details on how to use it as well as the Official Blog
Microsoft Codename "Data Explorer" Gain new insights from your data Have you ever had trouble finding data you needed? Or combining data from different, incompatible sources? How about sharing the results with others in a web-friendly way? If so, we want you to try Microsoft Codename “Data Explorer”. With "Data Explorer" you can: Identify the data you care about from the sources you work with (e.g. Excel spreadsheets, files, SQL Server databases). Discover relevant data and services via automatic recommendations from the Windows Azure Marketplace. Enrich your data by combining it and visualizing the results. Collaborate with your colleagues to refine the data. Publish the results to share them with others or power solutions.
Have you ever had trouble finding data you needed? Or combining data from different, incompatible sources? How about sharing the results with others in a web-friendly way? If so, we want you to try Microsoft Codename “Data Explorer”. With "Data Explorer" you can:
Automatically discover data, as we recommend datasets and data services from the Windows Azure Marketplace. Rather than spending your time looking for data, let us bring the data to you.
Easily enrich your data by combining it with data from other places. Use visualization tools to gain insights into your business.
Seamlessly publish your results and share them with colleagues. Generate data feeds that can be consumed by other tools. Continue your analysis in other tools, such as Excel or PowerPivot. Control what you share with whom, securely.
For the last couple of days at Supercomputer 2011 we’ve been demoing WorldWide Telescope being driven via Kinect for Windows – probably the single largest Kinect driven application out there. While we’ve done something like this before (ie. Mix’11), this time we partnered with Scalable Display Technologies and NVIDIA to create a 18x7 foot single machine display. The whole demo is powered with one PC, connected to two Nvidia Quadro Plex devices to drive 8 projectors. The projector alignment and blending was accomplished via the Scalable Display Manager software. This made it one very large desktop – if you look in the bottom right corner of the screen you can see the notification bar
Beyond it being a great demo, it also showcased how this could be built with shipping technologies in a short time.
There is a new release of the Python Tools for Visual Studio and it includes Pyvot: a connector to Excel that allow data transfer and manipulation – check out the tutorial. It also has a PyKinect, to leverage Kinect for new natural user interactions (NUIs)…
An integrated environment for developing Python in VS2010 PTVS 1.1 Alpha is Live! Supports CPython and IronPython Python editor with advanced member and signature intellisense Code navigation “Find all refs”, goto definition, and object browser Local and remote debugging Profiling with multiple views Integrated REPL window with inline matplotlib graphics Support for HPC clusters and MPI, including debugging & Profiling Interactive parallel computing via integrated IPython REPL
Python Tools for Visual Studio