Data Science toolkit for IT Consultants

Working as a Consultant in project management and business analysis, I help clients with solutions to their business challenges.

In recent years my work has significantly shifted from tech-infrastructure to data driven initiatives. That's when I started to learn Data Science. Did Moocs, read books, tutorials and tried a lot of open source software - basically got acquainted with quite a lot of theory, tools and languages.

This list is the crux of my effort. I've curated list of software that worked best for me in merging data analytics skillset with my consulting career.

If you're in IT, project management, telco or consulting like me, this list will hopefully help you too.

On my end, my learning isn't over - reckon I've just got myself addicted to machine learning (finished top 15% in my first Kaggle competition and just bought a GPU machine), I will be adding to this list all other stuff including training and books that worked best for me.

So stay tuned and meanwhile, if you feel something could be improved, please feel free to make any contribution. Just send me a pull request or simply connect on LinkedIn.

Table of Contents

• Data Science
  • Languages
  • Machine Learning libraries
  • Cloud platforms
  • Virtualisation
• Web programming
  • Frontend
  • Backend
  • Server engines
• Environments/Editors
  • IDE's
  • Editors
• Productivity at work
  • Microsoft suite
  • Mindmapping
• Statistical Analysis Techniques
• Interactive Web Designing
  • Wireframes & Mockups
  • Image Editing

Data Science

Languages

• Python 2.7, 3.x
• R
• Octave
• Matlab

Machine Learning libraries

What	Why
OpenCV	I've used cv2 (however cv3 is available) Real-time computer vision library
Keras	High-level library for fast experimentation with neural networks. Can run over Tensorflow or Theano as backend
Tensorflow	Tensorflow was released by Google as an open source library for machine intelligence
Scikit-learn	A comprehensive library for a wide range of applications in data science including machine learning - a must have in your arsenal of tools
Matplotlib	2D plotting library
Pandas	Library for data structures and data analysis
Jupyter Notebook	Create web notebooks that contain live code, equations, visualizations and explanatory text

Cloud platforms

• Google Cloud Platform (Machine Learning Services)
• AWS EC2 Instances

Virtualisation

• Anaconda
• Docker

Web programming

Frontend

• Apache, MySql, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript - the essential six
• JQuery
• Markdown
• Google Analytics (for dashboards)

Backend

• Java
• RegEx
• Sequential Query Language (SQL)
• Flast (app engine)

Server engines

• MAMP, WAMP, LAMP - local AMP server for web development (with bundled Apache, MySql and PHP components) and available for Mac (prefix M), Windows (prefix W) and Linux (prefix L) platforms.
• Mongoose - embedded web server
• Jeckyll (Github pages)
• WordPress

Environments/Editors

IDE's

• PyCharm Community Edition
• Eric
• Eclipse
• Aptana Studio
• PHPStorm

Editors

• Bluefish
• Emacs
• Sublime - packed with awesome add-on packages (e.g. Markdown, Jekyll, ...)
• Brackets
• TextWrangler
• TexMaker (Latex)

Productivity at work

Microsoft suite

• Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
• Microsoft Visio (for flowcharts and diagrams)
• Microsoft Office Excel, Word, Powerpoint, OneNote
• Microsoft Access DB
• Microsoft Power BI
• SharePoint

Mindmapping

• Freemind
• Mindmeister
• Mindmup
• XMind

Statistical Analysis Techniques

• ANOVA
• t-test

Interactive Web Designing

• InVision - interactive web and mobile prototypig

Wireframes & Mockups

• moqups.com - offers free trial for upto 300 objects
• wireframe.cc - offers free trial
• Pencil Project - free tool
• Material Design - for device sizing, resolutions, details

Image Editing

• Omnigraffle
• Adobe Photoshop