Ode to my Lenovo

Two weeks back, my trusty Lenovo Z51-70 laptop gave up the ghost. It was showing signs well before that; consistently dropping my network connection, lagging severely when saving files and most tellingly, a noticeable flicker on the monitor. Can't say it didn't give me fair warning when on Saturday, it refused to power on.

Now, that was a sentimental moment.

Rest well, my friend.

I first obtained this flat white beauty during a Christmas Sale in 2014, when I was about to begin a Specialist Diploma in Mobile Apps Development. While my company at the time had issued me a decent notebook, I didn't feel comfortable using company property for my personal enterprise. I had a personal laptop, but it was on its last legs. Thus, I went for an i5 Intel Core that would meet my programming needs.

2015 to 2017

2015 was the second semester of my Specialist Diploma in Mobile Apps Development. With Java being the operating language, I installed Eclipse and the Java Runtime Environment. I also had NodeJS installed, and wrote apps in jQuery Mobile to deploy onto the mobile phone. This would perhaps be the most serious and intensive period of using the Lenovo.

Mobile app development.

Somewhere along the way, in addition to my steady diet of HTML, CSS and JavaScript experimentation, I experimented with things QBasic, LESS and AngularJS. An odd mix, I know, but I was having fun.

MeteorJS came along for me in early 2017. The lessons I learned here would help me years later when I experimented with ReactJS.

2017 to 2019

This was the period of my life where I settled down into a regular nine-to-five. I still experimented on weekends, writing D3 and ReactJS code. It was also the time I picked up Ruby and Rails, for whatever reason.

Like a stallion.

The Lenovo handled it all like a champ. It was tireless, inexhaustible, like a stallion in its prime.

Around the latter half of this period, I started working on my ACTA. Whatever work I needed done, I did it on my trusty laptop.

At some point during this period, I also got married. Late nights at the console were no longer viable, not if I wanted to sleep in the same bed as my wife. Still, I squeezed in whatever time I could.

2019 to 2023

This was the year the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and marked one of the longest durations my wife and I were geographically separated. During this time, my work on the Lenovo intensified, with me trying out Highcharts and VueJS.

During this period, however, I had acquired a MacBook and was gradually transitioning away from my faithful Lenovo which was starting to show its years.

Getting pretty old.

It was also when I embarked on my yet another Specialist Diploma, this time in Data Analytics. The MacBook handled Python and Tableau, but only my Lenovo could run Spotfire and  Power BI. It creaked and groaned, but ultimately delivered.

Why is this particular laptop special?

Why do I feel so strongly about this fella? It's not the first laptop to die on me, after all. I've lived more than forty years. But the last nine years of my professional life have been pretty tumultuous, and also represented the bulk of my career advancement and tech education, spanning two Specialist Diplomas and a Higher Certificate. This Lenovo was with me through all of it. I played no games on it. All I did was write code, and run code. (Some of that code were games I wrote, but we're just splitting hairs at that point!)

Much of whatever important files I have are saved on the cloud - on Google Drive, GitHub and Trello. Thankfully, I can resume my work on a new machine with little trouble. But I'll always treasure my time with this machine.

Rest In PC,
T___T

How I Learned Data Visualization

Recent years have seen me dwelve into Data Analytics. But even before that, I was exploring Data Visualization.

It all began when I ran some experiments with HTML, CSS and JavaScript to produce bar charts. That was straightforward enough, though line charts and pie charts took a lot more creativity.

HTML//CSS/JavaScript projects.

During one of my job interviews, I came across something in the list of required skills - D3 or Highcharts. I did not pass that interview, but after seeing that requirement in other job descriptions, I got curious enough to look it up. What I found blew my mind.

Exploring D3

D3 was the first thing I explored on the official website. Half of the library functions did not make sense to me and I have never been great at reading documentation. Thus, there was one thing left to do. I copied the example code and pasted it into a script, then ran it. Then I started changing the code, finding out what would happen when I commented out certain lines, or changed certain numbers. With my findings, I now knew what to look up on the documentation.

D3 projects

Within a week of practice, I was able to replicate the results of my earlier experiments, but now using D3. And then I wrote web tutorials pertaining to creating that code, because teaching code is a great way to cement that knowledge in your brain.

My experimentation was stalled somewhat due to the fact that exploring D3 naturally brought me to explore SVG as well. This was fun as well, but only peripherally related to Data Visualization.

Exploring Highcharts

This portion of my exploration was delayed due to several reasons - struggles with the chaos caused in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, experimentation in other areas and generally, bigger fish to fry. Yet, get to it I did eventually. Again, it began with the documentation in the official website, example code and a lot of trial and error before I produced my first web tutorial.

Highcharts project

At the time of this writing, I have yet to produce as extensively as I have done with D3. The only thing I have produced is a column chart in the same vein of what I had produced earlier with D3 and old-fashioned HTML, CSS and JavaScript... yet it was so easy that I suspect that even if I were to produce as many projects, it would not take me a lot of time.

I will sing the praises of Highcharts some other time.

Exploring other Data Visualization tools

Harkening back to almost the whole of 2021, I undertook a course in Data Analytics, an experience of which I will speak of another day. Suffice to say, part of the course covered Data Visualization. To whit, I was introduced to Data Visualization software which I had never encountered prior to this, such as Tableau, Spotfire and Power BI.

Data Visualization tools

It opened my eyes. Now I was no longer writing code to display the data; it was already being handled by these tools. Instead, I was doing the work prior to the Data Visualization. The cleaning. The reorganization. Making things make sense.

In other words, I was working on another level of the Data Visualization. I won't pretend that it wasn't sometimes mind-numbingly boring work, but it did give me a greater appreciation of the process.

All in all...

My little dive into Data Visualization was mostly brought on by professional curiosity. A curiosity that was in turn triggered by my almost obsessive need to know what things my industry wants of its professionals. But all the knowledge I have gained would not have been possible had I not followed up with the work required. This sounds like a lot of patting myself on the back, but what I really want to say is - stay curious, stay committed. It'll go a long way.

Serious as a chart attack,
T___T

Software Review: Tibco Spotfire

Data visualization seems to be getting some traction in the tech industry, or it could just seem that way due to my sudden exposure. Data visualization software takes care of some of the tedious data wrangling tasks that come with the job of analysis, without the user having to write swathes of code for the visualization itself.

Enter Spotfire by Tibco. It is a data visualization tool that connects to the cloud for user authentication and provides a suite of features for the arrangement and cleanup of data before generating charts and analysis.

The Premise

Spotfire takes care of your data the moment it is imported - from diverse sources such as CSV files, databases and spreadsheets. From there, you can slice or join different tables to form a coherent dataset, perhaps creating new columns from existing data.

Once done, the data may be used in several different visualization types.

The Aesthetics

Basic color scheme is white, with various shades of blue. The round corners and abundance of white space can make this software seem overly simplistic.

The Experience

Using Spotfire was a bit of a pain in the beginning. Some of the icons were a complete mystery as to their usage and it took a fair bit of clicking around and seeing what worked (or didn't work). Sometimes controls were a bit slow to respond, but this could depend on your internet connection.

The Interface

The interface feels clean and simple for the most part. The visualization flow can be as basic as - select a data field, bring up recommended visualizations, and adjust. It can be very straightforward.

The number of different visualizations available is adequate. There does not appear to be much that is super-advanced.

There are more analytics tools available if required. I did not explore that portion of the software.

What I liked

For visualization, controls are relatively straightforward. If nothing else is needed, it can be a very simple process.

The color scheme grew on me the longer I used it. It's not at all pretty, but at the same time, it's not jarring and that earns huge points from me.

What I didn't

No support for MacOS. All these features only apply if you're using a Windows machine. You could use the cloud version, but that seems to be a watered-down version of Spotfire.

Spotfire is kind of slow. There is a certain amount of lag that occurs when working with data outside of visualization, and sometimes even with visualization. This could be a result of my beat-up Windows machine, however.

Sometimes, the interface is not very intuitive and feels a bit clumsy for working with data.

Conclusion

Spotfire isn't unique in its abilities. There are other software packages that do the job just as well as Spotfire, if not better. If all you want is a fuss-free visualization tool, Spotfire is more than adequate. Anything more is perhaps pushing your luck.

My Rating

6 / 10

Try it if you like the (g)raph stuff!
T___T