A FastPass to SAS knowledge
I'm about to give you the single-most valuable piece of advice for getting the most out of your experience at SAS Global Forum 2012.
Author
Chris HemedingerRSS
Director, SAS User Engagement
Director, SAS User Engagement
+Chris Hemedinger is the Director of SAS User Engagement, which includes our SAS Communities and SAS User Groups. Since 1993, Chris has worked for SAS as an author, a software developer, an R&D manager and a consultant. Inexplicably, Chris is still coasting on the limited fame he earned as an author of SAS For Dummies.
Pitfalls of the LAG function
In the immortal words of Britney Spears: Oops! I did it again. At least, I'm afraid that I did. I think I might have helped a SAS student with a homework assignment, or perhaps provided an answer in preparation for a SAS certification exam. Or maybe it was a legitimate
Traffic report: the most visited posts of 2011
Lots of the visitors to this blog arrive here by way of Google search (welcome!). Thanks to search engines and a few well placed keywords, the same older posts (let's call them "timeless topics") seem to attract the most traffic from year to year. I hope that the searchers find
A SAS options viewer for SAS Enterprise Guide
On the heels of the release of the popular SAS macro variable viewer from last month, I'm providing another custom task that I hope will prove just as useful. This one is a SAS options viewer, similar in concept to the OPTIONS window in SAS display manager. You can download
What's the difference between 0 and -0?
My daughter's math lessons this year have included the concept of negative numbers (that is, numbers that are less than zero, not numbers that have a bad attitude). She has used number lines such as this one to help her while she completes her homework: Notice that in this number
Too many pies can be hard to digest
On his SAS and R blog, Ken K. recently posted an example of a visualization technique called "small multiples". In this exercise, Ken shows the programming technique for replicating a particular series of pie charts in R as well as in SAS. It's a useful exercise to learn from, but
Computer Science is not just for basement dwellers
When I was a teenager in the 1980s I purchased my first computer: a TI-99/4A. (Wow, TI's version numbers are more confusing than ours!) I had several friends who had other brands of computers, including the TRS-80 (affectionately known as the "trash 80") and the Commodore 64. Despite our divisions
Just-in-time data prep in SAS Enterprise Guide
On this blog, I've delivered a few tips about using SAS formats to stratify your data values "in place" without having to actually change your data. The most recent example addressed date and datetime variables. My previous examples included simple SAS programs that you can run in SAS display manager
Take SAS program editor abbreviations to the next level
Rick posted a tip today about using abbreviations in the SAS program editor window (often referred to as the "enhanced editor"). Defining abbreviations is a great way to save keystrokes and re-use "templates" of code that you've squirreled away. (One of Rick's readers also picked up on the tip, and
Do you mind if we dance with your DATEs (or DATETIMEs)?
I've been working with date-time data on a recent project, and I've come across a few SAS programs that have "opportunity for improvement" when it comes time to create reports. (Or maybe I haven't, and I contrived this entire blog post so that I could reference one of my favorite
A sure-fire SAS Global Forum idea: yours for free
You can still get a paper proposal in for SAS Global Forum 2012. All you need is an idea. And probably some data. And also, some techniques for analyzing that data. Oh, and some conclusions would be helpful as well. I know: you are a busy person! You might not
SAS-L: 25 years old and still spry
The popular mailing list for the SAS user community hits a milestone this weekend by turning 25. 25 is often referred to as the "silver anniversary", but for a quarter century SAS users have found gold among the messages in this list, which feature everything from questions and answers about
Make a name for yourself at SAS Global Forum
Celebrity fame (I'm told) is overrated. Do you really want hordes of people to recognize you in the shopping mall or while you wait at a red light? Of course you don't. And that's why I advise you to never win the American Idol competition (nor should you lose with
Using Windows PowerShell to report on your SAS Enterprise Guide project files
This blog post is a "mashup" of a couple of my previous posts, combining the lessons to create something brand new that I hope you will find useful. First, let's review what we know: SAS Enterprise Guide supports a scriptable object model, which allows you to write scripts or programs
Poetry on our own terms
Within the SAS documentation there must be thousands of unique words. But ten words occur more than any others within the SAS documentation corpus: SAS, data, statement, option, set, value, variable, PROC, model, table. This is according to one of our staff terminologists, Vicki Leary, who helps to keep our use of these words consistent and
10 tips for organizing your SAS Enterprise Guide projects
What is the best way to organize your SAS work in a SAS Enterprise Guide project? There are no project templates or enforced structure, really, but isn't there a best practice? I don't have a single prescription for the best project organization. I believe that it depends on the nature
Netflix streaming: Making every minute count
It turns out that I'm not receiving the maximum potential value from my Netflix streaming service. Perhaps it's because I place too much value on sleep. With my monthly subscription, I am permitted to view Netflix content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In my house I have
Ron Cody is giving me homework
On the SAS Dummy blog, I often receive questions that smack of homework assignments. After all, SAS programming is taught in universities (and even high schools) around the world. So I didn't consider it unusual when I received this question recently: Write a short DATA _NULL_ step to determine the
Jumping into Windows 7 Jump Lists
Filed under "Little changes that you probably didn't notice". When Microsoft introduced Windows 7 to the desktop, one of the many usability features that they added were "Jump Lists". Jump Lists serve as a sort of shortcut to not just open an application, but "jump right in" to a particular
The default settings are not good enough
Today, I came across this article that discusses how software users rarely change the settings in the applications that they use. Users assume that the software vendor sets the default values as they are for a reason, and who are they to set them otherwise? I'm a software developer (and
Next time, do your own homework
SAS programming is taught in schools all over the world, including in high schools. Occasionally, I receive questions via my blog such as this one: Can somebody help me on this? Write a short DATA _NULL_ step to determine the largest integer you can store on your computer in 3,
Measuring the value of my DVD-by-mail movie service
Like millions of other Americans, I recently was asked to make a decision of tremendous importance to my household -- a decision that would affect the welfare of everyone in my family. That decision, of course, was whether to continue to receive Netflix movies by mail, or opt for the
Calling Windows PowerShell from SAS: a simple example
As I mentioned in my introductory post about Windows PowerShell, you can use PowerShell commands as a simple and concise method to collect data from your Windows systems -- information that is ripe for analysis within SAS. In this example, I'll show a technique for using a SAS program to
What's our sign?
Rick Wicklin and I are engaged in an arms race of birthday-related blog posts. To recap: Rick analyzed national data about births in the USA and what time of year they are most likely to occur. I responded by analyzing the birthdays of my Facebook friends. Rick responded by analyzing
Running Windows PowerShell Scripts
Windows PowerShell is one of my favorite tools to use for gathering information from my PC and network, and also for automating processes. If you are familiar with UNIX shells (such as Korn shell or its variants), you will probably be very comfortable with Windows PowerShell. Just like its UNIX
Birthdays among friends
Earlier today, Rick posted interesting information about which time of year the most babies are born, at least in the USA. I don't have data nearly as extensive as what's available at the NCHS, but I do have a sample of birthday records to compare against Rick's findings. My sample
Google Reader bundles for SAS-related blogs
I use Google Reader to keep up with SAS-related conversations on the blogosphere. I thought it would be nice to share the lists of blogs that I follow as "shared bundles". If you also use Google Reader, it will be very easy for you to add these bundles to
The unlikely pedigree of sample data in SAS
We ship many sample data sets with SAS products. By using well-understood sample data sets, we can teach concepts or show off product features without distracting the audience/students with data collection or prep. At least, that's the way it's supposed to work. But occasionally the sample data can cause a
XCMD and SAS 9.3: working together again
It's been a well-known limitation for a long time. When you connect to a SAS session using SAS Enterprise Guide, shell commands (including X command, SYSTASK, and FILENAME PIPE) are off-limits because the default SAS invocation disables them. It does this by including -NOXCMD as a command-line option. This makes
A Google Fight is not a fair fight
At least, that's according to my colleague, Rick Wicklin. In a recent blog post, Rick points out that estimating popularity based on results of Google searches is a bad idea. Well, that just disqualified my claim that PROC REPORT is more popular than PROC TABULATE, as measured via a GoogleFight.