IT Blog

Predictive Analytics and Data Science Books and Resources

What is in my library?  A collection of data science resources and books.  There are so many out there but what is worth investing in?  Which Data Science books are a must read.  These are the best books I have found on topics that include Machine Learning, Data Analysis, Data Science and Statistical Analysis to name a few, have used amazon as the source, they may be found cheaper elsewhere, they are updated regularly and are in no particular order:

As always if you have any thoughts or want to discuss further then lets have a real conversation and get in touch on twitter @naoimigillis.

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Where to Find Datasets? – Data Sources

One of the biggest problems is finding nice datasets, that offer interesting analysis, but where to find datasets?  The biggest problem you have then is oh what am I going to do, some advice, just start…

More datasets will be added as I find them.

As always if you have any thoughts or want to discuss further then get in touch on twitter @naoimigillis.

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Blogging Best Practices

These are some insights and Blogging Best Practices are updated regularly as I find more that I have collected over the years of blogging and social media:

  • Write everything with Search Engine Optimisation in Mind.
  • Know your reader and write for that reader.
  • Use optimum Keywords and use our How to do Keyword Analysis to do this effectively.
  • Be consistent in posting.
  • Be on topic.
  • Add at least one image or video.
  • Have a catchy Headline.
  • Share your blog posts on social media platforms.  Use our Guide to Optimising Sharing Content on Social Media Platforms.
  • Aim to have 300 words in each post however the proportion of shares versus the number of words is optimised at 100 according to analysis of 2 years of Mashable.com data, more about that in the post – How Many Words should my content have?

As always if you have any thoughts or want to discuss further then lets have a real conversation and get in touch on twitter @naoimigillis.

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SEO Checklist

Search Engine Optimisation is an ever moving target constantly changing, before launching any site I run through this seo checklist, it is updated regularly:

  • Have you set up Google Analytics?
  • Have you set up Google Webmaster Tools?
  • Are all the images labelled with meaningful alt tags?
  • Have you used Screaming Frog to search for broken links
  • Have you made an XML sitemap?
  • Has your sitemap been loaded onto Google Webmaster Tools?
  • Have you used HTML Data Structured Markup in Google Webmaster Tools?
  • Have you found any errors like 404s using Xenu?
  • Have you keyworded accurately in every single page and post?
  • Does your website pass the google Mobile Test
  • Have you tested the website in different browsers:
    • Safari – usually a problem
    • Firefox
    • Chrome
  • Have you checked for duplicate content?
  • Have you made a robots.txt file?
  • Have you submitted robots.txt file to Google Webmaster tools?
  • Have you checked the speed of your site?
  • Have you linked all your social media?

As always if you have any thoughts or want to discuss further then lets have a real conversation and get in touch on twitter @naoimigillis.

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What is MicroBlogging?

MicroBlogging is a term used to define the new idea of short status updates like your Facebook status update, your tweets.  They are generally short in length.  They are not a good practice in your own blog as they are difficult for search engines to quantify what the content means and every single time you sit down to write content SEO needs to be at the front of your mind. It has been said that the optimum character length is 300 word count for a search engine to be able to quantify, however the analysis from the word count in the Popularity measured from 2 years of Mashable.com articles contradicts this.  This popularity was measured by the number of social shares.  Since a microblog is essentially social media this has now come full circle.  Examples of MicroBlogging sites include to name a few:

  • Twitter
  • Tumbler
  • Digg
  • Reddit

Microblogging your content on social media is very important to drive traffic to your website and the higher the credibility and popularity of the content then the higher the ranking on search engines.  Unfortunately its is not one size fits all for increasing ranking, its a big picture that needs to be looked at and tailored to your business.  Start sharing on social media.

As always if you have any thoughts or want to discuss further then get in touch on twitter @naoimigillis.  This is my microblogging platform of choice.

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Top 10 Super Bowl Commercials 2015

Biggest night of the year last night for Marketing, oh and some Football in the US.  There were 42 sponsors in total.  For any Mad Men fans out there, this is the ultimate in advertising, with a 30 second spot costing an estimated $4million and a 60 second spot $8 million.

Here are my top 10 Videos.

1. Snickers

Brilliant casting in this unexpected clip.

2. Budweiser

This would have gotten the number 1 spot hands down only for the wolf, made little sense and wolves are not predatory animals in that way.

3. Doritos

Just wait for it.

4. Coca Cola

Coca Cola took their space to show how nasty the online world of cyberbullying and aggression can be and turned it on its head with a few small word changes.

5. Nationwide

Mindy Kaling and Matt Damon, whats not to like about this.

6. Esurance

This is quite biased but its Bryan Cranston, he has to make the list.

7. Clash of the Clans

This could have been awful but it just was not.

8. Sprint

No rational reason why I like this but I like this alot.

9. Always

This would definitely be higher up the list if was not a previous viral ad, it really packs a punch though. Love the way gender stereotype boundaries are being questioned and pushed.

10. Game of War

This had a real Game of Thrones feel to it, so it makes the list for me.

As always if you have any thoughts or want to discuss further then lets have a real conversation and get in touch on twitter @naoimigillis.

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Oculus Rift Dk2 To Buy or Not to Buy??

Recently I have been contemplating buying the Oculus Rift Development (Oculus Rift Dk2).  It retails for ~€300 and is a Virtual Reality Headset.  It would be a really cool experiment to develop a Virtual World and see where the boundaries, if any are.  Their developer tools seem really good and worthwhile taking a glance at them even if only for fun.  But €300 for an experiment seems indulgent with no solid business case behind it.  Has anyone used the Rift for a non gaming related field?  Id love to hear from you.

As always if you have any thoughts or want to discuss further then lets have a real conversation and get in touch on twitter @naoimigillis.

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To Allow Comments or Not to Allow Comments?

Should I allow commenting on my blog is a question that I have pondered since starting this blog, I want this blog to be as interactively real as possible, it has been decided not to allow comments, so how else can it be interactive and how can it be more real than a commenting forum to discuss topics?  Comments allow engagement and interaction, they are not without the downsides though.  Theodore Roosevelt gave a wonderful speech commonly known as “The Man in The Arena”, the full PDF of which is at the following link – The Man in The Arena Speech.  What a wise man he was that his words are as relevant today if not more than they were when he wrote them and spoke them, that they can transcend time effortlessly.

Man in The Arena Speech
Man in The Arena Speech

This idea lends itself very well to commenting and internet trolls and how to manage this type of human behaviour, it is very easy to say what you want to say to a screen using a keyboard, and to say nasty not nice comments to me is indicative that the person definitely is not a gladiator and not someone I want to interact with.  The gladiators in the arena are more likely to reach out and get in touch in a positive way.  The choice of not allowing commenting is in no indicative of a lack of engagement.  So how to get in touch email me.  Tweet me.  I can moderate both of those mediums quite easily and enjoy those interactions immensely.

As an aside I have done the Pros and Cons of Commenting as how I see them.  The Cons far out weigh the Pros as you can see.

Pros of Commenting

  • Interactivity
  • Conversational Style

Cons of Commenting

  • Comments need to be moderated, this seems an unnecessary waste of time and resources. We can thank the internet trolls for this.
  • So for the trolls, it allows a soapbox that has no positive function. To be clear negative feedback is perfectly acceptable so that is not what I am discussing here.

On that note please get in touch via social media.  @naoimigillis on twitter and lets have a real interaction.

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