What is cloud computing?

You must have heard of cloud computing. Otherwise, how did you get here?

Kidding aside, I just want to briefly talk about the topic and clear it out as we will be using it often in the upcoming posts. Actually, I have been talking about some of its implementations when I talked about Google Drive.

Wikipedia defines "cloud computing" as a "paradigm of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet." For me, it is just a way of computing (or doing your work with your computer) with your data or your applications--or both--on the Internet.

To provide a clearer example, look at Google Docs or Zoho. Also, previously, when one conceives of a website, you use either your Notepad or Microsoft Frontpage. Now, you can do so with Google Sites, which reduces your need to learn HTML or similar languages. Also, Google Sites allows collaboration, multiple types of access, and easy addition of content. Imagine if you will have to write all these in code, and you are not a computer science graduate.

Why "cloud compute?" As Eric Knorr and Galen Gruman say, it "comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software."

The previous paragraph summarizes the benefits. What are the costs? As I see it, it is minimal. Access to the Internet and necessary software for connecting to the internet (which can be free, considering open source solutions), which are all being used anyway. However, privacy advocates would warn you that you volunteering your information is the cost (In relation, you may want to read this). That is why there are now private versions of cloud computing.

I will stop here. But I hope this short post stimulates your creativity--focusing on your own interest while expanding your capability at minimal if no cost.

This post is updated from the original at http://castechbytes.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-is-cloud-computing.html

Use Google Calendar for Shared Schedules

Google Calendar is (obviously) Google's take on calendar and task management. As far as I can remember, Yahoo! also has calendar in their Yahoo! Mail, but it was not integrated with their other products, and it did not have a lot of collaborative functionalities (why does Google say that 'functionalities' is incorrectly spelled?) that Google Calendar introduced.

Google Calendar is a simple take and presentation on how we see dates vis-a-vis tasks, activities, sharing and communication. If you have a Gmail account, just look up, at the gray ribbon of Google services available, and you will see Calendar on the right-middle part. Click it, and that's almost it. (You will probably need to agree to the terms of services.)

There are a number of features in Google Calendar that I like, such as:

• Sharing of Calendar - By sharing calendar, this means you share one of your calendars. As people, we have different aspects of our lives. For example, we live as an employee, a part of a circle of friends, and member of a volunteer organization. For each of these circles, we can have a calendar, which we can share. And there are many ways of sharing: Allow certain people to see your calendar, edit existing appointments, create new ones, or manage the calendar, which means they can re-share your calendar to those who need access to your schedule. Of course, there is also the option of making your calendar public. When another user adds an appointment in your shared calendar, you get notified (via email or SMS, to be discussed next).
• Mobile Notifications - For me, I configured my Google Calendar to send me SMS to remind of in advance of my schedules  (many times for each event/schedule). This is, of course, in addition to notifications via the email and reminders with your smartphone. As discussed in the previous number, you also get be notified if a shared calendar is changed (someone requested an appointment or added a schedule, or edited an existing appointment, among others)
• Integration with other Google services - If you use Google Sites, for example, for managing a project or a team dashboard, you can (and I did) integrate the Google Calendar gadget so that it displays your calendar there. If your Google Sites is login-based, it would display your own Google Calendar.

Google Calendar is a very useful productivity tool that I hope you would use to increase productivity (of course) and enhance collaboration in shared activities.

For more information on how to do the things I listed here, you can go to the Google Calendar Help site https://support.google.com/calendar/?hl=en

No, I am not a Google advertiser or stockholder. Just a Google Fan. :D

I may update this as soon as I have the time and realize its other exciting features.

This was originally posted here: http://distinctshadow.blogspot.com/2013/09/google-calendar-users-introduction.html

Android Remote Control App for Presentations

In a previous post, I talked about using Extended Desktop in Windows and Presenter View to avoid showing your audience the content of your computer before or in-between presentations. I also introduced there the app which allows you to use your smartphone to control your presentation software.

Bluetooth Remote PC is an Android app that allows you to control the keyboard, mouse and basic presentation application controls in a Windows computer using your smartphone (obviously, an Android smartphone). I like this app because it allows you to control the pace of your presentation and move around while you present. You do not need to rely on someone else to click next in your presentation, with hidden signals that fail a few (or more) times. You also don't get stuck near your laptop.

To use Bluetooth Remote PC, your Windows laptop must have bluetooth capability. To make the connection faster, I recommend that you pair the two devices (your laptop and your Android phone) before installing the software, so that the two already have bluetooth connection history.

If it checks out, you can install the app in your smartphone by clicking here from your Android smartphone:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.rozkovec.android

Just check the permissions required if they are okay with you.

After successfully installing the app in your phone, you can now download the server app in your Windows laptop. You can download it here:

http://www.androidremotepc.com/downloads/

After installing, open the application in your laptop, like below:

It should say that the server is now running in your laptop in the notification area, like below:

 Select bluetooth (your phone should look like the one below, minus the blue circle), and your phone will confirm that you want to turn on your bluetooth. Select yes.

It will then display a list of devices with bluetooth, select the one for your laptop. It should look like this:

Once connected, it will allow you four options: Presentations, Mouse, Multimedia, and Power.

You can now select Presentations, which will give you the following controls:

Clicking "Full Screen" will toggle the slide show. In order to toggle the presentation, however, your laptop must have the PowerPoint or Impress as the main window.

Feel free to comment your questions.

Automatic classification based on a table of relationships or typology

Last time, I talked about using VLOOKUP to automatically assign the grade equivalent of a raw score. This time, we will use VLOOKUP to classify non-numerical items.

Let's say that you have a table as follows:

Power Plant	Capacity (In MW)	Energy Resource	Fossil or Renewable?
APEC	50	Coal
Bacman	130	Geothermal
Bajada DPP	58.7	Oil Based
Bakun	70	Hydroelectric
Bangui Wind Power	33	Wind
Botocan	22.8	Hydroelectric
Calaca	600	Coal
Calibu DPP	30	Oil Based
Caliraya	35	Hydroelectric
Casa Bioenergy	15	Biomass
Casecnan (NIA)	165	Hydroelectric
CEDC Coal	246	Coal
CEMEX	66	Oil Based
Crystal Sugar	35.9	Biomass
DESCO Natural Gas	1	Natural Gas
First Farmers	21	Biomass

So you want the spreadsheet to enter in the fourth column if the power plant is renewable or fossil fueled. Assuming you know that  fossil means power plant using coal, oil-based or natural gas, and renewable uses everything else, you can create the following reference table (again, I recommend that you use a separate sheet within the same file):

Biomass	Renewable
Coal	Fossil
Geothermal	Renewable
Hydropower	Renewable
Natural Gas	Fossil
Oil	Fossil
Solar	Renewable
Wind	Renewable

You want to tell the program to do the following in your list of power plants:

1. Search for the type of energy resource in the list of power plants in the reference table, then
2. Enter the corresponding type of energy resource.

To do that, you type the following in the cell in the "Fossil or Renewable?" column:

=VLOOKUP(Cell_in_EnergyResourceRow, Range_of_ReferenceTable, Column_Number_of_Types_in_ReferenceTable)

Just do this in one column, change the references in the reference table to absolute, then copy the formula to the other cells in the "Fossil or Renewable?" column.

For reference, you can see this file.

Note: Your reference table may have multiple columns, because something may be classified in more than one way. For example, the power plant may be classified also based on if the energy resource if clean (all renewable energy plus natural gas) and traditional. To do this, just add the third column in the reference table, use VLOOKUP, and in the list, indicate the third column as the column number to be used.

Automatically assign grades based on raw scores

Teachers frequently use Excel to record performance of students. Using formulas, teachers calculate ratio (or percent) of each output to the overall grade, usually within the range of 0 to 100. These raw scores are usually converted into particular grading systems, such as into A to E or 1.00 to 4.00.

There is a function in most spreadsheet programs (e.g., Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, OpenOffice.Org Calc, or Google Sheets) that will automatically search the raw score's equivalent grade, meaning convert a 65 to, say, "E." This is VLOOKUP.

To use VLOOKUP, you must first create a table which the spreadsheet program will use as reference. VLOOKUP looks up a table vertically for values based on an item you told the computer to look for, and returns a corresponding value, based on the reference table. The value you tell the computer maybe an actual value (i.e., you enter the value manually within the cell) or a reference cell.

For example, you have a table of students with three columns. The first column is Name, the second column is raw grade (in number), and the third column is where you intend to enter the grade equivalent (e.g., A to E).

You enter the student records (Student Name and Raw Grade). Here's how it should look like:

Name	Raw Score	Grade
Student A	61
Student B	75
Student C	92
Student D	68
Student E	91

Then you create the reference table (preferably in another sheet, so that you can re-arrange your student record sheet without affecting the reference table). Your reference table should have three columns: 1) Minimum Grade; 2) Maximum Grade; and 3) Grade Equivalent.

You should arrange the grade ranges from lowest to highest going down. Here's an example:

Grade Minimum	Grade Maximum	Grade Equivalent
0	60	E
61	70	D
71	80	C
81	90	B
91	100	A

After you do this, you return to your student record sheet. In the third column (you do this in one cell only, then just copy the formula to the other rows), you use the VLOOKUP function to tell the computer to do the following (the formula will follow, don't worry):

1. Find the cell in the column Raw Grade in the reference table (which, again, is recommended placed in another sheet)
2. When found, return the Grade Equivalent in this cell.

To do this, you use this formula:

=VLOOKUP(Put_here_the_cellreference_of_the_raw_grade, Reference_table, Column_Number_of_the_Grade_Equivalent)

In most spreadsheet programs, you don't need to type the whole function manually. You can start with typing the function, then use the mouse to identify the references, particularly the reference table which is in another sheet.

Check that the formula you enter returns the correct grade equivalent. Once you verify that it is correct, you have to ensure that the reference for the reference table is absolute, meaning you use the $ sign for the reference key.

=vlookup(B2,'Grade Conversion Key'!A$2:C$6,3)

(The 'Grade Conversion Key' is the name of the second sheet. When you enter the variables of the function, you can use your mouse to point to the location of the cell or range you want.)

After you make sure the reference for the reference table is already absolute, you can now copy the formula to the rest of the rows in the Grade column, as follows:

Name	Raw Score	Grade
Student A	61	=vlookup(B2,'Grade Conversion Key'!A$2:C$6,3)
Student B	75	=vlookup(B3,'Grade Conversion Key'!A$2:C$6,3)
Student C	92	=vlookup(B4,'Grade Conversion Key'!A$2:C$6,3)
Student D	68	=vlookup(B5,'Grade Conversion Key'!A$2:C$6,3)
Student E	91	=vlookup(B6,'Grade Conversion Key'!A$2:C$6,3)

Notice here that while the reference for Raw Score cell changes, the reference for the reference table doesn't. Here's how it should look like:

Name	Raw Score	Grade
Student A	61	D
Student B	75	C
Student C	92	A
Student D	68	D
Student E	91	A

The formula works for Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, OpenOffice.Org Calc, and Google Sheets.

To see how it work in Google Sheets, click here.

ADDENDUM: If your Raw Score has more decimal places than those in your reference table (e.g., your reference table values have up to 2 decimal places but your raw scores in your cell references have 3 or 4 decimal places), you need to round off the values according to the number of decimal places in your reference table before using the VLOOKUP process. To do so, you need to use the ROUND function of your spreadsheet application. The formula would be like this, if you need to round off to 2 decimal places:

=vlookup(ROUND(B2,2),'Grade Conversion Key'!A$2:C$6,3)