Monday, August 22, 2016

Notes on Notebooks, Data, DB2, and Bluemix

Weather Graph in Jupyter Notebook
Some time ago I shared with you how I used open data like weather data and CeBIT statistics to have some fun with Jupyter Notebooks. Notebooks are an old, but now - in the age of Cloud Computing - trendy way of collaborative data exploration (see this article for some background reading). Notebooks consist of so-called cells, places to put code, instructions, text and more. Cells can hold Markdown-formatted text, code written in Python, Scala and other languages. It is possible to fetch data from DB2, dashDB and other database systems and process it in the notebook, creating stunning graphics. And with extensions such as RISE (reveal.js IPython Slideshow Extension) those notebooks replace Powerpoint & Co as source for great data-driven presentations. How to use notebooks and DB2 is what I plan to present at the IDUG EMEA 2016 Conference in Brussels later this year.

If you can't wait until then I recommend to take a look at these recent blog posts on how to get started with Notebooks and data on Bluemix:
In case you have trouble programming your notebooks, head over to Stack Overflow and search for "ipython-notebook" or "jupyter-notebook".

That's it for today with my notes on notebooks.