Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Azure Jupyter Notebooks

notebooks.azure.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 160 posts

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#71

Post by chupapuma »

anc84 wrote: post #55
elsen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13104807 Click on the eye icon. You won't be able to run the notebook code, which would be a surprising thing to allow without some sort of authentication.

That's a shame, I was hoping to be able to use these for interactive learning. Requiring signup is a showstopper for me. :(

The signup you need is a Microsoft account. This is the same account you use for Xbox Live, hotmail/outlook, etc. We have found most people already have these accounts. It also works with organizational accounts so a good number of college email addresses work if your university has taken the time to set it up. Plenty of university professors have been trying out our platform with their classes. They have had little issues with the login barrier. The user that posted before me is correct that this is a calculated decision. Some of it is for security considerations but also just so we can return a user to their previous content and not have to field questions on 'where did my files go' when they weren't logged in before and so they didn't persist.

Thanks! Azure Notebooks Dev

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#72

Post by tedmiston »

This is an awesome offering from MS.

I'm not sure I understand this bit though — by "data" do they mean they'll delete a notebook not accesssed for 60 days?

> Storage: We reserve the right to remove your data from our storage after 60 days of inactivity to avoid storing unused/abandoned user data

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#73

Post by smortaz »

Hi folks - Thanks for taking a look at Azure notebooks. Here's some background info:

What is it?

It's an offshoot of Azure ML Studio which has Jupyter support. We asked the powers that be if we could also instantiate it also as a free service - "yes" was the answer.

Who is it aimed at?

Students, faculty, casual users, folks that want to give webinars, classrooms, etc & want to skip software install headaches.

What does it support?

Currently R, Py2, Py3, F#. Python is backed by the Anaconda distro. More kernels will be added based on user feedback. Environment runs on Linux/docker.

Is it free?

Yes.

I need an account?

Not to view content (a la nbviewer). To run, create notebooks, etc. you need a Microsoft account (xbox, outlook, hotmail, ...). Sample notebook to view (click on the eyeball):

https://notebooks.azure.com/library/LIGOOpenScienceCenter

I don't like the UI!

We are admittedly not UI people and are grateful to our summer intern for the current UI! Please send feedback to nbhelp@microsoft.com and we'll improve it!

[EDIT: additions:]

Can I get a bash prompt, install linux pkgs?

Yes! In Jupyter, you can click on Terminal & you are in bash (ubuntu).

Can I use pip, install.packages(), nuget, ... ?

In Python/R/F#, you can use each environment's pkg mgr to install pkgs. EG "!pip install pkg", install.packages("ggplot2"), etc. See Py examples here:

https://notebooks.azure.com/library/Intro_To_CNTK

Is my environments saved?

Currently, your notebooks are saved based on your login. Proper data, load github repo, etc. support is coming.

For a bit more info, please view the faq:

https://notebooks.azure.com/faq

Thanks! [msft]

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#74

Post by chupapuma »

sixhobbits wrote: post #5

This looks really nice. I've always hated how buggy the free hosted Jupyter notebook services are, and setting up a remote server yourself is definitely not a one-click experience. Surprised to see how unrestricted this is (for now anyway). They'll probably see some abuse of the resources soon and add more restrictions. The "etc" from the restrictions section of the faq is pretty broad. "Usage should be limited to le…

Thanks sixhobbits. Our goal isn't to restrict you if it isn't required. We do need to maintain the right to stop people from abusing this and make sure there is room on the service for multiple users. Aside from that you are basically free to party on :)

- Azure Notebooks Dev

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#75

Post by chupapuma »

cbHXBY1D wrote: post #38

The "Import from Dropbox" feature is currently broken. Shame because it would be useful for data scientists...

Thanks for the feedback cbHXBY1D. We discovered this having issues just a bit back. We have some devs looking at it now and hopefully can have it up and running soon.

If this is blocking you, there are libs to use dropbox throuhg python: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/dropbox

-Azure Notebooks Dev

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#76

Post by smortaz »

tedmiston wrote: post #72

This is an awesome offering from MS. I'm not sure I understand this bit though — by "data" do they mean they'll delete a notebook not accesssed for 60 days? > Storage: We reserve the right to remove your data from our storage after 60 days of inactivity to avoid storing unused/abandoned user data

[msft] Proper data support is coming. I believe it's meant as: if you upload a ton of data & seem to have abandoned it, it'll eventually go away. Admittedly vague, will be made more crisp in the faq. Thanks!

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#77

Post by chupapuma »

tedmiston wrote: post #72

This is an awesome offering from MS. I'm not sure I understand this bit though — by "data" do they mean they'll delete a notebook not accesssed for 60 days? > Storage: We reserve the right to remove your data from our storage after 60 days of inactivity to avoid storing unused/abandoned user data

If you don't access your account for 60 days we reserve the right to remove your data (currently Notebooks but eventually notebooks, csv files, etc). This is to avoid us wasting storage on users that aren't actually using the service.

As we are still new, we haven't started deleting files yet, but we wanted to be sure to have a policy for handling this upfront and not decide when there was a problem later and then start destroying content without any sort of notice.

Thanks! -Azure Notebooks Dev

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#78

Post by smortaz »

r3bl wrote: post #58
dandare wrote: post #53

I have not visited any Microsoft property for some time now and I have this strange feeling about the UX. Sadly I can not say if it is my deeply rooted aversion against everything Microsoft or if the UX is really odd.

It is very odd-looking. And it's really slow. It took me 55 seconds to load the page (42 of which went into downloading a 6 MB large GIF). 40+ requests. And it doesn't seem like a slow Internet problem at all.

[msft] Guilty as charged. The GIF will be gone soon. Though it loads in < 1 sec for me (~20Mbps). Thanks!

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#79

Post by smortaz »

gaius wrote: post #31
matt4077 wrote: post #3

The concept of Jupyer Notebooks is absolute fantastic. The product, unfortunately, fails at the basics of being a text editor. I'd wish the VSCode team could somehow integrate the concept. They seem to be excellent at execution. (Or, if they finish their work on "html zones" (block decorators in atom), I'll start doing it myself)

Right, this notebook or worksheet style interface isn't meant to be a text editor tho', or to develop software it's meant to interactively help you write a paper or a report. We had this in MathCAD in the '90s, where it used MS Word as it's "editor" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathcad

[msft] Yep. Check out Jupyter Lab which tries address other scenarios. A lightweight IDE with notebook, file, editor, windowing support:

https://github.com/jupyterlab/jupyterlab

Re: Azure Jupyter Notebooks

#80

Post by smortaz »

hatmatrix wrote: post #17

Is this just a hosting solution for Jupyter Notebooks? Or does it add something to the standard Jupyter Notebooks?

Hi hatmatrix - Currently it's primarily a hosted jupyter service - you can view with no login, or create/run if you login. It does not modify Jupyter itself in any significant way. We hope to add various features in the coming year. In its current form it can be used as a scratchpad, for classes, webinars, conferences, etc. where you have say 100+ ppl that quickly need to follow a tutorial without spending time on installation (it has Anaconda sitting underneath Python).
Post reply on HN