Data Analysis

Business Intelligence

• The Business Intelligence Toolkit

A section from the Creative Commons book Getting the Most Out of Information Systems: A Manager's Guide.

Data Analysis Tools

• D3.js - Data-Driven Documents

D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG and CSS. D3’s emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation.

• Download RStudio

Take control of your R code. RStudio is the premier integrated development environment for R. It is available in open source and commercial editions and runs on the desktop (Windows, Mac, and Linux) or over the web with RStudio Server. Download RStudio (for Windows, Mac, or Linux).

• OpenRefine (Formerly Refine.)

Open Refine is a standalone open source desktop application for data cleanup and transformation to other formats, the activity known as data wrangling. It is similar to spreadsheet applications (and can work with spreadsheet file formats), however, it behaves more like a database.

• Data Wrangler (Stanford Visualization Group)

Wrangler allows interactive transformation of messy, real-world data into the data tables analysis tools expect. Export data for use in Excel, R, Tableau, Protovis, ...

• HTSQL—A Database Query Language

HTSQL is designed for data analysts and other accidental programmers who have complex business inquiries to solve and need a productive tool to write and share database queries. HTSQL is free and open source software.

• Jigsaw: Visual Analytics for Exploring and Understanding Document Collections

Jigsaw is a visual analytics system to help analysts and researchers better explore, analyze, and make sense of such document collections.

Learn Data Science

Also See: Computer Productivity Hacks#Educate_Yourself

“	Academic credentials are important but not necessary for high-quality data science. The core aptitudes – curiosity, intellectual agility, statistical fluency, research stamina, scientific rigor, skeptical nature – that distinguish the best data scientists are widely distributed throughout the population. We’re likely to see more uncredentialed, inexperienced individuals try their hands at data science, bootstrapping their skills on the open-source ecosystem and using the diversity of modeling tools available. Just as data-science platforms and tools are proliferating through the magic of open source, big data’s data-scientist pool will as well. And there’s yet another trend that will alleviate any talent gap: the democratization of data science. Autodidacts – the self-taught, uncredentialed, data-passionate people – will come to play a significant role in many organizations’ data science initiatives.	”
	— James Kobielus, Data Scientist: Closing the Talent Gap

• Learn data science in your browser.

Start analyzing real data today, for free. Join 50,000 other learners from around the world.

• The Open-Source Data Science Masters

The open-source curriculum for learning Data Science. Foundational in both theory and technologies, the OSDSM breaks down the core competencies necessary to make data useful.

The Internet is Your Oyster: With Coursera, ebooks, Stack Overflow, and GitHub -- all free and open -- how can you afford not to take advantage of an open source education?

Regular Expressions

• Regular expression (Wikipedia)

In theoretical computer science and formal language theory, a regular expression (abbreviated regex or regexp and sometimes called a rational expression) is a sequence of characters that forms a search pattern, mainly for use in pattern matching with strings, or string matching, i.e. "find and replace"-like operations.

RegEx Tutorials

• RegexOne - Learn regular expressions with simple, interactive examples.

Includes:

- Interactive Tutorial › Learn to use Regular Expressions

- Practical Examples › Practice your Regular Expressions

- RegEx Cheatsheet › Regular Expressions in PHP & More

• Regular Expressions Tutorial: Learn How to Use and Get The Most out of Regular Expressions

Any non-trivial regex looks daunting to anybody not familiar with them. But with just a bit of experience, you will soon be able to craft your own regular expressions like you have never done anything else.

• The Many Uses of Regex

Regex is the gift that keeps giving. Once you learn it, you discover it comes in handy in many places where you hadn't planned to use it.

RegEx Tools

• Regex101: Online regex tester and debugger: JavaScript, Python, PHP, and PCRE

Regex101 allows you to create, debug, test and have your expressions explained for PHP, PCRE, JavaScript and Python. The website also features a community where you can share useful expressions.

• RegExr: Learn, Build, & Test RegEx

Regular expression tester with syntax highlighting, contextual help, video tutorial, reference, and searchable community patterns.

• Pythex: a Python regular expression editor

Pythex is a real-time regular expression editor for Python, a quick way to test your regular expressions.

• Regex Tester

JavaScript regex tester. Highlights matches on the fly.

Text Extraction

PDF Conversion

• pdftotext.org

pdftotext.org is the best online service for easily extracting text from your PDF files. Conversion from PDF to TXT is really fast thanks to our in-browser conversion architecture. Your PDF files are never uploaded to the Internet, so even private PDF files are safe to convert with this service. The conversion is done locally in your browser – you can even convert when you are offline! There is no need for any registration or sign-up, and the service will always be free to use.

• pdf2htmlEX

Convert PDF to HTML without losing text or format.

• PDF TEXT Extraction

Lists several options.

• Capture2Text

Capture2Text enables users to do the following:

1. Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
2. Speech Recognition

• SILVERCODERS DocToText

Extracts plain text from documents in all popular formats.

• Detexter

Detexter is an app designed to extract text from PDF files.

Data Scrape

• Almost Scraping: Web Scraping for Non-Programmers

Tools and tips compiled by journalists from PBS and Omaha World-Herald.

• Open Source at Scrapinghub

Scrapinghub's list of open source scraping projects.

• Sitestalker

Monitor website links with ease. Sitestalker supervises websites and notifies you when your desired content hits the web.Stop wasting your time constantly refreshing websites.

Sitestalker is great for:

Finding jobs

Searching for an apartment

Getting the best bargains

Clipping

• Six tools for web scraping – To use for data journalism & creating insightful content

Tools for gathering data from public sources.

Text Search

• geekDadaji - A SEARCH INITIATIVE

Makes tools to search text content, including:

1. FALCON - Text Search Java Project: JSON based text search Java Project
2. HAWK - PDF Text Search Java Project: Taking initiative for Document Text Search

• Xpdf: A PDF Viewer for X

Xpdf is an open source viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

Windows installer: Short Programs/Scripts (Look for the xpdf3.exe / poppler.exe links in left sidebar.)

Text Transformation

• Transformy - Change your data with one example.

Do you have a list of text strings that you want to modify the format on? Copy and paste the list into the a box, then provide an example of how you want each text string formatted. The hope is that Transformy will do the rest.

See Also

• Computer Productivity Hacks
• Office Productivity Hacks
• Social Networking Tips
• Spreadsheet Tricks
• User:Dave/Web Hack Notes (Non-Wiki)