Data Mining, Down Under » Tips & Tutorials

Ten Data Mining Mistakes to Avoid

Shane Butler — Fri, 15 May 2009 10:19:37 +0000

Some really good advice here from John Elder in a series of video tutorials on data mining mistakes to avoid. Tip #5, regarding contaminating the project with future data is a good one, although sometimes it can be quite tricky (if not impossible) to ‘rewind’ the data! I believe the video series is a part of the launch of The Handbook of Statistical Analysis and Data Mining Applications. You can watch part one below or head over to YouTube for the entire series.

RapidMiner 4.3 Released

Shane Butler — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:19:56 +0000

Rapid-I has released an new and improved version of the open source data mining suite RapidMiner (formely called YALE). I’ve been evaluating RapidMiner lately as a possible addition to my data mining toolbox. I’ve found the biggest hurdle in learning how to use it is probably the GUI. It is a tree-based GUI which I find much harder to understand than the graph-style approach used by many others. However RapidMiner is quite a powerful tool, and the Community Edition is free, so there is probably a lot of benefit in getting used to the strange GUI.

The built in tutorial is a really good way to get a grasp of the system and I highly recommend spending some time on this if you are interested in learning RapidMiner. I would also recommend a series of RapidMiner video turtorials over at Neural Market Trends that are worth checking out too.

RapidMiner 4.3 includes a 3D lift chart

Data Mining the Financial Markets

Shane Butler — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:32:10 +0000

Thomas A. Rathburn has written a series of three articles on data mining the financial markets. Rathburn takes a detailed look into the success and failures of his efforts in the markets and with 10 year US bonds in particular. You can check it out here part 1, part 2, and part 3. The articles are also available as a podcast here: 1, 2, 3.

[via KDnuggets]

In-cell Graphing

Shane Butler — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:30:11 +0000

The guys from Juice Analytics have put together an interesting series on in cell graphing (parts 1, 2, & 3). This is a feature that is due in the upcoming version of Excel 2007, however the technique the Juice guys use works across all versions of Excel and is quite visually appealing too. Added bonus, I can confirm it works in OpenOffice.org, Gnumeric and even Google Spreadsheets (all to varying degrees).

Data Mining with Oracle

Shane Butler — Tue, 30 May 2006 11:45:32 +0000

If you are interested in data mining and haven’t already seen the Oracle Data Mining and Analytics blog, it is worth checking out. It has some great how to’s, including time series forcasting (parts 1, 2, 3) and real-time scoring & model management (parts 1, 2, 3).

Fayyad on Data Mining (cont)

Shane Butler — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 23:55:51 +0000

Dont forget to read the other KDnuggets interviews with Usama Fayyad:

Part 2: his Data Mining work at Yahoo!

Part 3: his interests, hobbies and outlook for the future, including this gem: “Any smart young (and good) data miners out there: I think I can keep you very busy indeed!”

KDnuggets Interviews Fayyad

Shane Butler — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 01:23:53 +0000

In the latest issue of KDnuggets News Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro talks to Usama Fayyad in an interview series covering his time at Yahoo, data mining challenges, data mining start-up DigiMine, the resulting spin-off consulting company DMX Group and consulting lessons. I have to say, what a great interview. Fayyad points to lessons on data stratergy, consulting and the potential of web mining. I am surprised at how fast a company could be founded, then have a spin-off and then be purchased — quite impressive. The interview will continue in the next issue of KDnuggets.