Meet the New Windows Azure - ScottGu's Blog

Scott Guthrie announces full VM support in Windows Azure.  Host your VMs, Linux, Windows, DOS in the cloud.

Now if they had a VM to VHD converter they may get even more traction.

Windows Azure now allows you to deploy up to 10 web-sites into a free, shared/multi-tenant hosting environment (where a site you deploy will be one of multiple sites running on a shared set of server resources). This provides an easy way to get started on projects at no cost.

Microsoft has gone and given away free hosting.

Lots more features here.

Meet the New Windows Azure - ScottGu's Blog

Crowdsourcing and Cloud Labor

Technology isn’t the only thing contained in the cloud.  There are people floating around in there too. 

One of the challenges with natural learning, neural networks and text analysis is the ability to categorize an opinion context.  Using a lexicon of various terms, and the syntax of the terms in a statement, you can do a general categorization.  However, what’s to say that “you’re so dumb” and “you’re SO dumb” mean the same thing.  The one with capitals could be a sarcastic comment, depending on the context.

We can do some general analysis of text terms, however manually tagging these may prove to be more accurate.  How do you setup a manual tagging job using real labor?

CrowdFlower’s system leverages large groups of workers to solve massive but technically simple tasks. One of these services is sentiment analysis, the study of public opinion on a given subject. Other sentiment analysis programs use computational linguistics to perform this task, but computers cannot always discern nuances of tone, such as sarcasm or irony. CrowdFlower’s version is unique in that actual humans perform the sentiment analysis.

What Motivates Crowdsource Workers on CrowdFlower & Kaggle – Highlights of SXSW 2012′s “Pay or Play” Crowdsourcing Talk | The CrowdFlower Blog

Sounds interesting!

SSIS Junkie : AdventureWorks2012 now available for all on SQL Azure

Why not host your training platforms in the cloud?  It only makes sense, especially for databases, as every developer doesn’t need the latest Adventureworks database on their laptop, and it’s a big waste to add to a local server.

AdventureWorks2012 now available for all on SQL Azure

SSIS Junkie : AdventureWorks2012 now available for all on SQL Azure

Awaiting the launch of Tailspin toys to the cloud….

The R programming language for programmers coming from other programming languages

Learning R?  An introduction and comparison against other common programming languages.

R is more than a programming language. It is an interactive environment for doing statistics. I find it more helpful to think of R as having a programming language than being a programming language. The R language is the scripting language for the R environment, just as VBA is the scripting language for Microsoft Excel. Some of the more unusual features of the R language begin to make sense when viewed from this perspective.

The R programming language for programmers coming from other programming languages

The Omega Project for Statistical Computing

Looking for R packages and addons?  Here’s a bunch.

The Omega Project for Statistical Computing

The Omega Project for Statistical Computing

Stack Exchange Data Explorer and Big Data

There are a lot of properties under the StackExchange banner.  Here is a tool that lets you run SQL-style queries against them all.

Stack Exchange Data Explorer

Installing hadoop development cluster on Windows and Eclipse -- Introduction

Hadoop & HDFS on Windows here for all the non-Linux types.  Of course, this is missing all the Hive/Pig/etc goodness and the Cloudera configuration.

This tutorial describes how to set up such a cluster on a computer running Microsoft Windows. It also describes how to integrate this cluster with Eclipse, a prime Java development environment.

Installing hadoop development cluster on Windows and Eclipse -- Introduction

Java interop with .NET

To wire up those cloud apps that are written using Java, use some translation tools.

IKVM.NET is useful for several different software development scenarios. Here is a sampling of some of the possibilities.

• Drop-in JVM
• Use Java libraries in your .NET applications
• Develop .NET applications in Java

Uses for IKVM.NET

How-to install R on CentOS « /home/kOoLiNuS

Once you get your Hadoop cluster setup, you’ll probably want R.  Here’s how to install it.

A not so christmas-connected topid today as I’m going to write down a few lines on how-to install the open source statistical tool and relative developement libraries R on CentOS release 4 and 5.

How-to install R on CentOS « /home/kOoLiNuS

CentOS 5 - Networking Support - Setting up a folder share using Likewise over an Active Directory Network

You may want to access your CentOS VM using a file share at one point.  Here’s how.

I'm making a shift from Ubuntu to CentOS 5. Things are obviously quite a bit different between the two, as I've discovered. I'd appreciate some input as I make the shift.
The first problem (and hopefully easiest) is designating a folder to be shared. In Ubuntu it was as easy as right-clicking a folder and click Share Folder. I need to learn what the method is for CentOS, either via the GUI or otherwise.

www.centos.org - Forums - CentOS 5 - Networking Support - Setting up a folder share using Likewise over an Active Directory Network

Cloudera–VM Setup to spin up some Cloud Computing Power

Cloudera provides a demo VM for download, to try out Hadoop, Hive, and those other friendly Zoo animals.

https://ccp.cloudera.com/display/SUPPORT/Cloudera's+Hadoop+Demo+VM#Cloudera%27sHadoopDemoVM-RunningtheVM

If you’re trying to get the VM setup on Windows in Oracle VirtualBox

With the VM powered off, click on ... the VM Name->Details-tab>General-> Advanced tab .. and select the checkbox "Enable IO APIC".
Power on the VM.. and that should at least get you and running.

www.centos.org - Forums - CentOS 5 - Miscellaneous Questions - Installing CentOS 5 in VirtualBox

Setup Virtualbox to run in Bridged Network mode

Fix permissions to run Hadoop jobs:

cd /var/lib/hadoop-0.20/cache/cloudera/
chmod 777 .

Hop right into Beehive with Cloudera/Cloudera userid/pw and try out the samples.

http://localhost:50070 

Try out Hue

http://localhost:8088

Setting up the stuff, end-to-end

http://gbif.blogspot.com/2011/01/setting-up-hadoop-cluster-part-1-manual.html

Changing the terminal window colors in VI (because blue directories hurt my eyes)

http://www.cs.colostate.edu/helpdocs/vi.html
http://ricochen.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/change-centos-ssh-shell-color/

See the IP address of the machine
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-find-out-the-ip-address-assigned-to-eth0-and-display-ip-only/

RenderMan in the cloud

I remember working on some rendered video back in the 90s. A single 30 second scene could take days to render at 25fps. This should bring the time down quite a lot.

Pixar's RenderMan® / Press Releases: "New cloud rendering service available in collaboration with GreenButton®

EMERYVILLE, CA – (January 19th, 2012) Pixar Animation Studios today launched a new cloud rendering service called "RenderMan® On Demand™." Developed in collaboration with pioneering cloud services provider GreenButton, this service is now available on Microsoft's Windows® Azure with Linux availability following later in 2012. "RenderMan On Demand" offers nearly instantaneous burst rendering access to hundreds and even thousands of additional cores, enabling artists and studios to deliver the highest-quality cinematic imagery with unprecedented economy and efficiency."

'via Blog this'

From Concept to Code in 6 hours: Shipping my first Windows Phone App - Scott Hanselman

Did I say Cloud?  I meant Cloud + Windows Phone 7.  A great article step-by-step on how to build a WP7 app.

I made my first Phone Application. I've spent about 6 hours on it. It's called Lost Phone Screen and it makes nice wallpaper. It's over at http://lostphonescreen.com. It's a simple customizable Windows Phone 7 Lockscreen. It was way easier and more fun to make than I expected. If I make a million bucks with this thing I'm GONE. You'll never see me again. :)

From Concept to Code in 6 hours: Shipping my first Windows Phone App - Scott Hanselman

How to find all Azure sites

This blog will capture my thoughts and links on cloud technology.

First link: Search Google or Bing for site:cloudapp.net to get all the sites using Microsoft Windows Azure.