Software - featuring Direct Optimizer for Microsoft Excel

Music - songs to listen to

Poetry - often the act of writing is more interesting than the result of writing...

Details - who is this Jorma Kuha person anyway?

For solving large and difficult problems with Microsoft Excel versions 97 and later.

Key features:

• Based on the Hooke-Jeeves nonlinear optimization algorithm. Implements also the Berserk-mode designed by Jorma Kuha.
• Has been applied even to problems with million variables.
• Supports simple bounds for the variables.
• Is completely free.

What does it actually do?

Screenshots

License statement

Download version 1.01 - after download, unzip the files to a directory of your choice. Then see Appendix B "Installation Guide" from Direct Optimizer Technical Reference (file do_techref.pdf).

For Excel 2007 you need to disable the multi-threaded calculation. Otherwise any user action which requires screen updating during optimization (such as moving the form to another position on the screen) distracts the computation in a non-desirable way. In the English-version of Excel, click the Microsoft Office Button, click Excel Options, and then click Advanced. Uncheck the Enable multi-threaded calculation option.

Microsoft Vista operating system does not support the help file format used in Direct Optimizer by default. You need to download the application WinHlp32.exe from Microsoft separately. Instuctions on how to do this are available on your language when you press the Help-button in Direct Optimizer.

Hank Williams, Nine Inch Nails, Randy Newman, Kari Peitsamo, Led Zeppelin, Conlon Nancarrow, Scott Walker, Arvo Pärt - if it is emotional and/or strange, it will probably catch my ear.

Here are some songs of mine for you to listen to in mp3-format. Copyright © 2005 Jorma Kuha. All rights reserved. Especially redistribution without permission is forbidden.

Selected highlights (more to come, stay tuned) (lyrics available via email on request):

Instrumental:

• Nameless étude for piano

Sung (in finnish):

• Lasten selkään
• Kädetön mies

If the download fails, try clearing the cache of your Internet browser (in IE 6: Tools - Internet Options - Temporary Internet files - Delete Files).

I write poetry and I'm planning to publish. Therefore I won't let you see the blood of my heart here yet. Isn't it much more exciting to follow what happens with this publishing-fixation of mine? Here is the story so far:

• September 2002: Extreme emotional pressure distilled into my first poem ever. I was actually trying to write lyrics for songs at first, but my need to express myself was greater than what I could fit into rhymes... so I slipped into poetry.
• December 2002: My first collection Minulla on parisuhde ready. Decided not to offer if for publication, but to consider it as a finger exercise instead. Looking now at it, that's what it was for the most part.
• December 2003: First draft of my second collection Suhteessa Jormaan ready. The text runs like a three-legged moose.
• February 2004: Suhteessa Jormaan rejected by a Finnish publishing company Teos with a standard rejection letter. I start collecting these rejection letters.
• May 2004: My third collection, Näin kirjasi Jorma rejected by Teos. They are fast. I continue to work with the text.
• May 2004: Surprisingly Otava rejects Suhteessa Jormaan as first from the big publishers. Not a standard rejection letter, but no encouragement either.
• June 2004: I need a context switch, so I start to focus to Direct Optimizer and forget poetry for a while.

I have more good questions than good answers.
I have more frustrations than good questions.
I'm ready.

My email address:

Sign my guestbook!