Too much CLASS for the MEANS procedure

Christina Harvey
Christina Harvey|November 21, 2012

Have you used the MEANS procedure to calculate frequencies: for several variables in the same step? without sorting the data first? without checking for missing values? using the TYPE statement and the CLASS statement together? At the recent SouthEastern SAS Users Group conference, Janet Willis shared what can go wrong [...]

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How to document your SAS environment

Christina Harvey
Christina Harvey|October 31, 2012

You’ve just started a new job as SAS administrator, and there’s no documentation. How do you know which SAS products are installed? Where they are deployed?  Where do the data and programs reside? Brian Varney tells us that SAS administrators often run into undocumented environments whenever they begin working in a new [...]

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Data mining 101: Ask the right questions

Christina Harvey
Christina Harvey|October 24, 2012

It’s hard to get away from data these days, especially Big Data. The news is full of stories about how fast it’s accumulating, about technologies for capturing and analyzing it, and about the creative ways organizations are using it. Pundits have even dubbed personal data the “new oil” that will [...]

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Big data in small bites

Waynette Tubbs
Waynette Tubbs|October 22, 2012

Sigurd Hermansen, from Westat, got his idea for breaking big data into small pieces after watching Jim Goodnight dissect a blade server to show the power high-performance analytics has processing for big data. Goodnight also demonstrated how Visual Analytics Explorer transfers the data from the servers to a workstation and [...]

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Why use Hadoop?

Waynette Tubbs
Waynette Tubbs|October 18, 2012

You may still believe that Hadoop is going to solve all of the world’s problems with big data. It won’t. Hadoop is a framework for storing large-scale data processing with both pros and cons for organizations.  Christopher Stevens, from Greenplum, explained that Hadoop is rapidly becoming the go-to for big [...]

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Encoding a password

Waynette Tubbs
Waynette Tubbs|October 18, 2012

Leanne Tang has learned a lot about encoding in her work of providing relevant user data and securing the database from accidental changes. There are hundreds of SAS users at the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Tang didn’t want to create thousands of accounts and passwords to allow those users to [...]

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Security: Purposeful database access

Waynette Tubbs
Waynette Tubbs|October 17, 2012

Leanne Tang had a problem. She has one giant database that houses data from all of the units at National Agricultural Statistics Service. She has hundreds of people who need access, but she wants individual users to have access only to the data that meets their needs.    In Tang’s [...]

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Let's play a game

Waynette Tubbs
Waynette Tubbs|October 16, 2012

Do you finish the Word Search in the Sunday paper? Several years ago, Robert Matthews decided to design a word search to help his kids in their school work. Matthews wanted to be able to put in the words of his choice and provide difficulty levels so that game users could [...]

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Macro headaches? Learn how to prevent them

Christina Harvey
Christina Harvey|October 16, 2012

The Macro facility is a powerful and flexible tool, but sloppy techniques can make macros one of your biggest headaches.  Poorly handled macros may run without error but leave your users with unexpected results and litter your system with unwanted files and variables.   tags: papers & presentations, SESUG, US Regional Conferences

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Thinking about SESUG 2012

Waynette Tubbs
Waynette Tubbs|October 11, 2012

Have you registered for the 20th annual  SouthEast SAS Users Group conference (SESUG) yet? NO? What are you waiting for? I’ve heard it going to be a real party, so come help us celebrate SESUG’s 20th birthday (hmm … SESUG isn’t even old enough to drink). The last time I went was [...]