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Archive for the ‘excel’ Category

Excel as a document-oriented NoSQL database

Posted in ETL, Python, SQLite, VBA, data, excel, xLite, tagged , , on March 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I’ve been a long time fan of CouchDB, one of the many NoSQL databases to appear in the last few years. CouchDB is a document-oriented database, which with solid B-tree indexing and easy replication, topped off by a MapReduce style view mechanism, puts it up there as a best-of-breed noSQL datastore.
Now it may seem strange that [...]

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Excel 2010 Application.Caller Bug

Posted in ETL, SQLite, VBA, excel, xLite, tagged , , on February 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I’ve just released another xLite “introduction”, this time the xLiteWorkbookFunction function. I’ve had most of the now released functionality working (and in use) for quite a while but had delayed publishing until I’d installed Excel 2010 as I’d wished to test against a modern Excel version.
I’d not bothered with Excel 2007, as I couldn’t see the [...]

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xLite Beta Updated – adds Python as an Excel Scripting Language

Posted in BI, ETL, Python, excel, xLite on February 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I’ve updated the xLite Beta with bug fixes and added a new page introducing xLite’s Excel/VBA and Python extensions to SQLite.
See http://www.gobansaor.com/xlite
The u() function allows any VBA UDF (user defined functions) to be called from SQLite.
The x() function allows an inbuilt function or indeed most any formula (but not a UDF, use u() instead) to be [...]

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Excel as the iPod of Downloaded Data

Posted in excel, tagged on October 25, 2009 | 6 Comments »

In a previous post SQLite as the MP3 of Data I explained why I like and use SQLite. Well, if SQLite is the MP3, then Excel is the iPod. Like the iPod, Excel is proprietary, relative inexpensive, loved by its users and much like Apple uses the iPod to achieve and hold dominance in the digital music arena, Microsoft [...]

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TAG Cubes – SQLite Star Query Part III

Posted in ETL, Palo, SQLite, VBA, excel, olap, xLite, tagged , , on September 29, 2009 | 9 Comments »

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of SQLite and Excel, particularly when used in combination. I also greatly admire the open source BI engines, Palo and Mondrian. Mondrian appeals because of its “ROLAP with a cache” architecture and its implementation of MS’s excellent MDX language. When I say MDX is excellent I’m talking with my [...]

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Project Gemini – XXL, Excel on Steroids

Posted in BI, ETL, SQLite, excel, tagged , , , on April 1, 2009 | 9 Comments »

In my last post about why I use SQLite in combination with Excel for datasmithing tasks, I listed the more traditional backends (Excel itself, MS Access, RDBMs & MOLAP cubes) that one would expect to “compete” with such an idea.   But I suspect that if that same post appeared  two years or so into [...]

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SQLite as the MP3 of data

Posted in BI, ETL, Palo, SQLite, VBA, excel, olap, tagged on March 14, 2009 | 18 Comments »

… and Excel as its “mixing desk”.
When I tell people that I use SQLite in combination with Excel (via xLite) as my datasmithing platform, many ask why SQLite? (Many others ask why Excel?  but “sin scéal eile”, that’s another discussion – Excel as the iPod of Downloaded Data.) Those that question my use of SQLite [...]

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Talend ETL Excel report generator

Posted in ETL, Talend, excel on February 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Hugo, who you may remember from his OLAP Cube as a Mind Map project, has struck again. This time something really useful, a component for the Talend ETL platform that generates Excel reports using templates and a JSP style TAG language to control the output.
I’ve in the past used the excellent Xlsgen to [...]

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SQL – does exactly what it says on the tin

Posted in AmazonAWS, ETL, SQLite, data, excel, tagged , , on December 18, 2008 | 10 Comments »

SQL how unloved it must feel sometimes, constantly being maligned, accused of being on the wrong side of the object-relational impedance mismatch,  lacking the glamour of OO programming languages that claim the moral high ground. Yet at the same time hewing and hauling most of the world’s structured data on its old but well fashioned [...]

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Spending time on Excel-SQLite, C, VBA Callbacks & Twitter

Posted in BI, ETL, Palo, SQLite, VBA, Web2.0, excel, xLite, tagged , on November 20, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Haven’t posted here in a while as my spare time has been soaked up programing, well actually refactoring would be more exact.  My xLite “SQLite empowered Excel” codebase has grown over the years and required a serious makeover to get rid of stuff I no longer use and to generally make it more robust.  I [...]

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I’ll give up Excel Pivot Tables when you take ‘em from my cold, dead hands

Posted in BI, Palo, excel, olap, tagged , , , , on October 10, 2008 | 19 Comments »

Jedox, the company behind the open source MOLAP server Palo, has just announced an MDX driver. This means that it’s now possible to access Palo cubes using Excel Pivot Tables or indeed any tool that supports ODBO.  This is excellent news, as MOLAP to most Excel users IS a Pivot Table, and somewhat like the NRA, [...]

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Why Larry hates the cloud, and my data trinity.

Posted in AmazonAWS, ETL, Palo, SQLite, cloud, excel, olap, tagged , on October 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Last week Oracle certified Amazon EC2 as a supported platform, that same week Larry Elison attacked the concept of cloud computing as pure hype. Obviously, Larry is not happy with this whole cloud thing, and I think it’s not just the threat it poses to the software industry’s traditional licensing model that worries him, rather, as Robert X. Cringely [...]

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Cloudy skies, cloudy apps…

Posted in BI, ETL, Ireland, Palo, Web2.0, cloud, data, excel, news, olap, tagged , , , on August 28, 2008 | 4 Comments »

Just back from a break in Clifden, Connemara, summer is nearly over, the kids return to school today, back to work.
Counties Galway and Mayo were like the rest of the country last week, a tad wet, but unlike the developed east of the island, flooding was not a problem; a problematic drainage area is called [...]

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Talend + SQLite + Groovy the new Oracle …

Posted in BI, EC2, ETL, Groovy, Palo, SQLite, Talend, data, excel, olap, tagged , on August 2, 2008 | 5 Comments »

… well, at least for me.  Let me explain.
For most of my datasmithing career, I’ve had access to corporate Oracle databases and now with the availability of  Oracle10g  Express I can even run my own Oracle instances at home or on EC2.  The combination of a powerful SQL engine, expressive scripting language (PL/SQL) ,OS independence, [...]

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OLAP Cube as a Mind Map

Posted in BI, Palo, excel, olap, tagged , , on July 30, 2008 | 3 Comments »

If you’ve worked with OLAP technologies for any length of time you’ll undoubtedly have been in the situation where you’ve had to explain the concept of an OLAP Cube to a “newbie”.  If the person in question has come across Excel pivot-tables, then you can probably short-circuit the conversation some what, explaining that a pivot [...]

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Regular Expressions as an end-user programming tool?

Posted in ETL, Talend, excel, kettle, tagged , on July 1, 2008 | 2 Comments »

“What? Have you completely lost the plot, Gleeson?”, I hear you scream.  Jamie Zawinski’s famous quote is intoned once more ..
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think
“I know, I’ll use regular expressions.”   Now they have two problems.
Of course the above quote could be (and probably has been) changed to…
Most business people, when confronted with [...]

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Palo OLAP and sparse dimensions.

Posted in BI, ETL, Palo, excel, tagged , , , , , , , on May 26, 2008 | 9 Comments »

Last week I tried out both the latest Palo 2.5 release and its sister product, ETL-Server.  Although I’ve not done any proper benchmarks, 2.5 does appear to be faster than the previous release and the Excel add-in also behaves better when co-habiting with other add-ins and macros (the previous release’s use of, and response to, [...]

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Python to replace VB6 …

Posted in ETL, Python, VBA, excel, xLite, tagged , , on May 5, 2008 | 2 Comments »

… well at least for me. As I discussed previously I’ve been seriously investigating using Python as my primary datasmithing scripting language, in effect a new VBA. I also currently use VBA’s compiled cousin, VB6, for certain tasks such as building Excel RTD servers. The problem with VB6 is it depends on [...]

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Palo ETL Server – Not for me …

Posted in BI, ETL, Palo, SQLite, excel, tagged , on May 1, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Jedox have just released V1.0 of their Palo-centric ETL Server. I had been looking forward to this, not so much for its ETL ability (which is somewhat limited when compared to the likes of Pentaho PDI or Talend) but for the drill-through capability it would add to Palo. Alas, there’s a catch, you [...]

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SQLite – the ultimate data-smithing tool!

Posted in AmazonAWS, ETL, SQLite, Talend, data, excel, kettle, tagged , on April 26, 2008 | 8 Comments »

Image via Wikipedia
Although my data-smithing tool box is full to the brim with powerful tools such as Talend, Kettle PDI, Picalo and Excel, all backed by the cloud infrastructure of Amazon’s S3, SImpleDB and EC2, there’s one simple yet powerful tool that I always seem to gravitate back to, that tool is SQLite.
Now obviously being [...]

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