Project

General

Profile

Tools

Software purchasing

  • Ways to purchase software
    1. ask Thomas to order it with a p-card
    2. pay for it out-of-pocket, get receipt, and request reimbursement
      • for expenses < $100

Books

Posters

  • Kinko's sells color posters for $7/sq ft and 3x4 ft B&W posters for $12 each

Programming languages

Java

Python

Databases

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is probably the best database engine out there, much better than MySQL and very likely better than Oracle. In particular, it has many more features and more consistent semantics than MySQL, and it's free and open-source compared to Oracle.

MySQL

MS Access database (MDB)

Google Fusion Tables

  • "Upload data tables from spreadsheets or CSV files, even KML. Developers can use the Fusion Tables API to in"
  • "Visualize it instantly: See the data on a map or as a chart immediately. Use filters for more selective visualizations."
  • good for geographic data because of built-in generation of maps

Google Refine

  • "a power tool for working with messy data, cleaning it up, transforming it from one format into another, extending it with web services, and linking it to databases"

MongoDB

  • "a scalable, high-performance, open source, document-oriented database"

Data formats

Diagrams

XML

  • XMLSpy
    • used to generate EML diagrams
  • oXygen
    • generates tree view diagrams
    • can graphically edit XSDs and then save the changes
    • we have 5 free licenses
  • XPath expression builders

XML-database mapping

BSON: Bin­ary JSON

  • "a bin­ary-en­coded seri­al­iz­a­tion of JSON-like doc­u­ments"

OLAP

  • "analyze multidimensional data from multiple perspectives"

Maps