RStudio Write Up For Thailand Mapping Project

It’s a pretty big deal to get written up in a blog post!

RStudio, the company that publishes the tools to write software in the “R” computer language chose our little application to share with the “R” programming world.

The Thailand Mapping application worked very well and the Thai authorities were impressed – which was probably the most important part of the project.

“R” Language Software For Cord Ministries Donation Income Investigation

Check out why we wrote the software to investigate Cord Ministries donations.

Since a model is only as good as the data we chose to use the actual giving data for 2017 to investigate different methods for calculating the Cord Ministries administrative charges for our people and projects.

Looking at the actual 2017 giving data in multiple ways is important to help people that are not statisticians get a handle on the facts. Having lots of slider bars gives the investigator the ability to focus in on the data and models in an intuitive way. Continue reading ““R” Language Software For Cord Ministries Donation Income Investigation”

Cord Ministries Donation Income Investigation Tool

Cord Ministries International is a not-for-profit organization that handles the “back office” tasks for about 100 people and projects. These people and projects are located Czech Republic, Honduras, Israel, Africa, USA, and mostly in Thailand. One of our main jobs is to maximize the donation throughput to the people and projects we serve.

One of our main concerns is balancing the trade-offs between the many small donations and the few large donations that we process as we consider how to charge our administrative fee.

Number of Donations vs. Total Donation Amount by Account Number

If we charge a fixed cost against each donation, say simply the total expenses of providing our services divided by the total number of donations, then a huge percentage of each of these small gifts gets eaten by the administrative charges and the large gifts have only a tiny percent going for the administrative expenses. Small gifts subsidize large gifts – that doesn’t seem right. Continue reading “Cord Ministries Donation Income Investigation Tool”

Amazon Retail Arbitrage Heatmap

My nephew runs a medium-sized Amazon Retail Arbitrage business and asked me to put some Big Data analysis to some of his sales data.

He hypothesized that his internet business was reaching out to people who lived inconveniently far from a “Big Box Store” and if he could find a way to optimize his advertising to them he could increase his sales.

He asked me to Geo-Map his sales based on his Amazon sales report data so he could look at it to test his hypothesis.

There is more analysis that could be done – but he’d have to pay for that and the business isn’t that big yet. But, after looking at the map, he’s rejected his hypothesis and is working on a new theory.

Unfortunately, this “R” Language software is proprietary so all I can show is one of the output maps that zoomed out too far to be useful…

Thermoelectric Peltier Device Air Conditioning Equipment Simulator

Thermoelectric Peltier Device Air Conditioning Equipment Simulator

The Cell Phone Tower Machine Room Advanced Temperature Control Unit project requires a way to simulate a full-blown air conditioning system. This is obviously not possible in my home office setting – although Ron, my boss and partner in this endeavor, has a full test system in his shop!

My clever solution was to devise a Thermoelectric Peltier Device Air Conditioning Equipment Simulator! Continue reading “Thermoelectric Peltier Device Air Conditioning Equipment Simulator”

Cell Phone Tower Machine Room Advanced Temperature Control Unit

Cell Phone Tower Machine Room Advanced Temperature Control Unit Prototype

Cell phone towers are everywhere. At the base of each tower is a small “machine” room that houses all the telephone equipment needed for the site. Most of this equipment is electronic and it is important that it keeps running no matter what – we can’t stop playing our Pokémon Go…

Actually, cell-based telephone service is a robust service that is a world unto itself. The machine rooms are full of industrial-grade equipment meant to take a beating and provide service under extreme conditions. One of those conditions is loss of power. This means that each machine room has an extensive battery backup system in addition to all the communications and computer electronics. Continue reading “Cell Phone Tower Machine Room Advanced Temperature Control Unit”

Quick Analysis of Selected Project Reports to Determine Project Reporting “Quality”

Working as a Project Manager for multiple for-profit and not-for-profit organizations I have seen a lot, I mean a lot, of project reports. Some of the places I’ve had the opportunity to work for are really in to project reporting, some not so much.

Learning Big Data tools I’ve often had questions of my own that I’ve asked myself. One was, can I get a measure of project report “quality” without actually reading the report? Can I look at all the reports in the organization and find good project report writers? Can I find projects that consistently produce good project reports? Bad project reports? How do my own project reports stack up to others? How does the “quality” of the project reports change over time? Does project report “quality” have any relationship to project “quality”? Continue reading “Quick Analysis of Selected Project Reports to Determine Project Reporting “Quality””

Michigan Road Bike Points of Interest

Michigan Road Bike Points of Interest

We are back home for a while working from Northern Michigan. Our little town is Johannesburg which is a really fun international big city name for a quiet place in the country.

Riding in Michigan is great and this little “R” language application is a great example of what can easily be done integrating Google Sheets, mapping, and live data.

Click on a marked location to see a description and photo of that spot.

The data is sourced from a Google Sheet that anyone can view.

Thailand Road Bike Points of Interest

Thailand Road Bike Points of Interest

The WordPress server is supposed to be working and I have been able to upload a couple photos. That means I can post another simple mapping project to show off the great places to go on a road bike around Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Click on a marked location to see a description and photo of that spot.

The data is sourced from a Google Sheet that anyone can view.