Laptop Thread 2015-2016

[Levi McClenny]

I'm no longer a student. I like my MacBook Air, but I recommend getting your hands on Win7 + Office somehow, for Excel, as a practical matter, as it's widely used. Fortunately, Windows is unnecessary at my current job.

Lots of programs use and teach the solver program in Excel. You'll likely need it for any optimization class you take.

 

[pingu]

Lots of programs use and teach the solver program in Excel. You'll likely need it for any optimization class you take.

is this real? WTF!!

 

[Levi McClenny]

is this real? WTF!!

Not sure what you mean. I know that UW MS-CFRM teaches how to apply it in their program, but I don't know if its completely necessary for all of them. I figured most would talk about it at least.

 

[pingu]

Not sure what you mean. I know that UW MS-CFRM teaches how to apply it in their program, but I don't know if its completely necessary for all of them. I figured most would talk about it at least.

I expected these programs to show you something better than solver. Solver doesn't need to be taught.

 

[Bid Shader]

I expected these programs to show you something better than solver. Solver doesn't need to be taught.

I took an optimization methods course at UW CFRM and solver was mentioned as a way to set up toy models in a pinch, but in general the course covered more polished LP/QP and DE solvers that would be used in an institutional framework, in addition to the underlying methods of various solver algorithms. I don't recall any UW course seriously using Excel's Solver.

 

[Levi McClenny]

I expected these programs to show you something better than solver. Solver doesn't need to be taught.

I've seen it used to confirm calculations and analysis performed by hand. It wasn't really "taught' per se. Perhaps the way I said that was incorrect. Sorry about that.

 

[amraj]

I'm no longer a student. I like my MacBook Air, but I recommend getting your hands on Win7 + Office somehow, for Excel, as a practical matter, as it's widely used. Fortunately, Windows is unnecessary at my current job.

Thanks. Im thinking to move over to windows. I remember those with a mac in my undergrad had alot of trouble using C, so i think ill avoid having to go through any of that.

 

[amraj]

Nope... you will end up using Windows on Macbook all the time like I did. You already start seeing long discussion around what to run on Mac which was a big headache for me. Try getting a Windows ultrabook from like Asus, Samsung or Lenovo.

I used a 13" lenovo thinkpad for my internshi and its very user - unfriendly, so i wont be going for that. Ive also heard samsung dont do the best laptops. Any views on that? Itll probably be asus and maybe lenovo then, or a standard HP?

 

[pingu]

I used a 13" lenovo thinkpad for my internshi and its very user - unfriendly, so i wont be going for that. Ive also heard samsung dont do the best laptops. Any views on that? Itll probably be asus and maybe lenovo then, or a standard HP?

how can a computer by itself be user unfriendly? that doesn't make any sense.

please... stay away from HP

 

[amraj]

how can a computer by itself be user unfriendly? that doesn't make any sense.

please... stay away from HP

It may not be the case for everyone, but i found it very difficult to use. The track pad scroll was terrible, and the click is also hard to use imo. Many interns said the same but i guess it depends who you ask. It was much better wit external display mouse and keyboard but that defeats the purpose of a laptop.

 

[Gnasher]

MacOS is great, but tinkering with WINE and .NET is not a good use of my time. On the other hand, risking the loss of today's work or the task of restoring Windows is no better.

It might be a clunky fix, but I have a bare-bones MS workhorse desktop (simple to backup and reformat-ready), a MacBook Air (to complement modern life), and a remote desktop connection to marry the two.

please... stay away from HP

I bought a HP Stream 14" (this was Plan B when I didn't have time to fix the desktop and I refused to dual-boot my MacBook Air). The low-cost HP is not as slick as my MacBook Air, but now that the urgent need for a Windows box has passed (the urgent need was an optimisation class using @Risk - an Excel plugin), either laptop will display the remote desktop without throwing up battery concerns. The screen and keyboard are good, the trackpad is good enough

Saw MacBook Air "clones" on eBay. These are low spec Windows XP machines in a replica Air case for $100-$200. I've no time to explore the battery question, but they might be a little known gem for my way of working.

Btw, what is wrong with using the Solver in MS Excel for Mac?

 

[Steve Murray]

I took an optimization methods course at UW CFRM and solver was mentioned as a way to set up toy models in a pinch, but in general the course covered more polished LP/QP and DE solvers that would be used in an institutional framework, in addition to the underlying methods of various solver algorithms. I don't recall any UW course seriously using Excel's Solver.

As the instructor for UW CFRM 555 Optimization Methods in Finance course, I am providing the following information about the course and our use of the Solver in Excel.

The Solver bundled with Excel is a very useful tool, but within the context of Excel can only address models of a limited size. The familiarity that most students have with spreadsheet based computations makes it a very useful starting place for introduction of optimization software, but it is not typically appropriate for full scale models. The Excel Solver is "taught" in the sense that we work through example problems and review the sensitivity analysis and other optional reports that are available within the tool. I generally find that many students already have some experience using the solver, but few if any are familiar with the range of available output.

The CFRM555 course introduces students to other optimization software including (among others) the glpk and quadprog packages in R (a platform with which most UW students are familiar) and commercial solvers accessible through a course license to CPLEX provided by the IBM Academic Initiative and the AMPL modeling language provided by the AMPL for Courses program. The AMPL language provides a convenient interface to a number of extremely robust solvers either bundled with AMPL or available through NEOS (NEOS Server: State-of-the-Art Solvers for Numerical Optimization at www.neos-server.org). Based on submissions to the NEOS website, AMPL is the most common tool for specifying optimization models and submitting them for solution.

There are a number of other fine products that could be incorporated into a course such as CFRM555 including Matlab, Mathematica and TK Solver, but within the limits of the course setting it is difficult to cover all the possibilities.

Primary goals of the course include not just familiarity with current optimization tools, but more critically the ability to identify real world problems as appropriate applications for optimization techniques and the ability to translate these real world situations into mathematical models to which appropriate solution software can be applied. CFRM555 includes exposure to the theory behind optimization approaches including an in depth review of duality, definitions of efficiency for algorithms, use of linear approximations and decomposition as well as a review of heuristic approaches for problems that don't lend themselves to more theoretically elegant solutions.

--Steve Murray
Steven Murray | Computational Finance & Risk Management

 

[Bid Shader]

As the instructor for UW CFRM 555 Optimization Methods in Finance course, I am providing the following information about the course and our use of the Solver in Excel.

The Solver ...

--Steve Murray
Steven Murray | Computational Finance & Risk Management

Yeah, I took this class (in addition to others that used optimization software/solvers), and my original post was just to say "no, the UW program doesn't rely on Excel's solver as the primary tool". I wasn't speaking only about 555, but also about other classes as well.

Prof Murray's account of the class exactly matches my experience when I took it, obviously - Excel solver used for intuition of model building and examining output - but the course covered much more, as he described.

 

[pingu]

Mr. Murray,

very good explanation. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[amraj]

Nope... you will end up using Windows on Macbook all the time like I did. You already start seeing long discussion around what to run on Mac which was a big headache for me. Try getting a Windows ultrabook from like Asus, Samsung or Lenovo.

Hey, I've been doing some research and found this: Macbook 13" retina was the best laptop to run windows on. So is it worth going for it? I don't play games on my PC, and I can just use the windows version of VS and MS Excel? This way I get the best of both worlds? If not, what would you say is bad about this approach from your own experience?

Thanks