Kirk Lafler and his book PROC SQL: Beyond the Basics Using SAS are the source of this week's tip. PROC SQL was the very first book that I promoted when joining SAS. Kirk was the perfect first SAS Press author to work with and he remains a favorite. And his book continues to appeal to users--whether they're online or at conferences.
Back in 2009, I announced that SAS was developing a version of its business analytics platform for use on the Nintendo Wii. I think I gave our legal department a heart attack with this news, until they realized that I had posted it on April 1. At SAS Global Forum
In a previous blog, I showed how to use SAS/IML subscript reduction operators to compute the location of the maximum values for each row of a matrix. The subscript reduction operators are useful for computing simple statistics for each row (or column) of a numerical matrix. If x is a
SAS Dress Code In addition to providing great software for forecasting (and business analytics in general), SAS is also renowned as a great place to work. (See #1, #1, and #3 rankings the past three years in the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For.) Part of this greatness is due
Sales figures are in for our bestselling books at SAS Global Forum. Books on a variety of topics made the list. New titles were (not surprisingly) very popular with users, as well as books written by authors presenting at the conference. If you didn’t get a chance to browse our bookstore
On the SAS-L mailing list, a participant posed this question (paraphrased): How can I tell which date format my Windows session is using: European format (with day first) versus USA format (with month first)? I'm reading in output from a Windows file listing, and need to know how to interpret
The other day I encountered an article in the SAS Knowledge Base that shows how to write a macro that "returns the variable name that contains the maximum or minimum value across an observation." Some people might say that the macro is "clever." I say it is complicated. This is
It's Friday, and on SAS Voices they are posting fun stuff about dogs who work at SAS. I'm posting about PROC SQL and MySQL. You tell me - which of us knows how to ring in the weekend with style? I've been working with MySQL data sources lately, and SAS/ACCESS
This week's tip comes from SAS powerhouse Art Carpenter and his book Carpenter's Complete Guide to the SAS REPORT Procedure. SAS user Kim LeBouton called this book "the single best resource for PROC REPORT." And in his review, SAS user Charles Patridge said "This is a must-have book if you are a SAS
This past January, I wrote, “As we wrapped up 2011 and began preparing for 2012," we were notified by the Society for Technical Communication, Carolina Chapter, that three SAS Press books received awards in the 2011-2012 competition. . . . Entries receiving a Distinguished or Excellence award from the local
I've been a fan of statistical simulation and other kinds of computer experimentation for many years. For me, simulation is a good way to understand how the world of statistics works, and to formulate and test conjectures. Last week, while investigating the efficiency of the power method for finding dominant
SAS users, by definition, do not embrace the mysterious. That's one of the main reasons that they use SAS: to demystify some data or process. And so, when you (as a SAS user) have gone to the trouble of designing a process flow in SAS Enterprise Guide, you like to
SAS Publications participates in a number of conferences, from SAS events to solution and industry-focused conferences. We know our customers are looking to make the most of their conference experience, and we want to make your visit to the Exhibit Hall as helpful as possible. We want to know your
First: A Report from the 67th Pine Tree Festival and Southeast Timber Expo Back in March The BFD investigated the topic of Google-ing yourself (aka egosurfing). I reported on finding a namesake in show business, a self-described "Magic Mike Gilliland" and his sidekick Lollipop the Clown. I attempted to disparage
One of the first skills that a beginning SAS/IML programmer learns is how to read data from a SAS data set into SAS/IML vectors. (Alternatively, you can read data into a matrix). The beginner is sometimes confused about the syntax of the READ statement: do you specify the names of
Remarkably, this week's tip was initially inspired by the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. In his new book Statistical Analysis for Business Using JMP, Professor Willbann Terpening provides lots of useful information - including the origin and usage of the Student t-distribution. If you'd like to get to know Willbann and
In the previous episode, we built our own custom SAS function - a masterful trick indeed. Gordon Keener, a developer here at SAS, responded exuberantly "You think that's cool? - try THIS!" and proceeded to demonstrate prodigious powers with the SAS by using a custom function in a custom informat
Have you ever turned the wrong way onto a one-way street? I was driving in downtown Raleigh last weekend and did just that. How embarrassing. Based on my driving directions, I knew there was a one-way street ahead. Truthfully, I was talking and laughing with my sister and wasn’t paying
What tiny looking operator packs a mighty punch with large datasets? Your queries are big. Your reports span multiple columns. To top it all you have to summarize data in multiple ways. Are you tempted to throw in the towel? Do you feel like saying a firm “Can’t be done”
Would you like to get to know others who share a common interest in SAS books and documentation? We’ve made it easy for you. Besides reading this blog, here are 3 places to discuss our publications and get real-time announcements. Fans of SAS Books on LinkedIn SAS Publishing on Twitter SAS Publishing’s Facebook
In a previous post I showed how you can use Windows PowerShell (with the SAS Local Data Provider) to create a SAS data set viewer. This approach doesn't require that you have SAS installed, and allows you to read or export the records within a SAS data set file. In
When I was at SAS Global Forum last week, a SAS user asked my advice regarding a SAS/IML program that he wrote. One step of the program was taking too long to run and he wondered if I could suggest a way to speed it up. The long-running step was
Pet lovers do the most incredible things. My friend Grace told me she trained her pet rabbit to walk on a leash. I said, "That's amazing Grace -- I never heard of such a thing!!! I thought rabbits could only hop." Rest assured there are no dogs (cats or rabbits
Please don’t tell me that you do not have the time to write a book for SAS Press. I already know that. You have a lot of things to attend to: a demanding job, family responsibilities, housework, yard work, shopping, cooking, eating, reading, favorite TV shows, commuting, sports to play,
With the rapid changes in our education systems regarding new standards, assessments, accountability and evaluation, teachers are rightfully feeling the pressure of being underprepared. The majority of teachers were not trained or certified with these rigorous systems in place. Recognizing that higher education institutions need to play an active role
In statistical programming, I often test a program by running it on a problem for which I know the correct answer. I often use a single expression to compute the maximum value of the absolute difference between the vectors: maxDiff = max( abs( z-correct ) ); /* largest absolute difference
This week's SAS author's tip comes from Carol Matthews and Brian Shilling and their book Validating Clinical Trial Data Reporting with SAS. SAS users have raved about this guide. In her review, Susan Fehrer said "Carol and Brian's book provides a good overview, practical hands-on tips, and many examples of how to perform
Have you seen this week's news item on "tanning mom" Patricia Krentcil, the New Jersey mother accused of sunburning her young daughter in a tanning booth? Now I'm as big a fan of diversity as the next guy, and lovingly embrace people of every visible color (although I do find House Speaker John Boehner's orange a
A reader asked: I want to create a vector as follows. Suppose there are two given vectors x=[A B C] and f=[1 2 3]. Here f indicates the frequency vector. I hope to generate a vector c=[A B B C C C]. I am trying to use the REPEAT function
Can you explain the "random error" in your forecasts? This question was posed two weeks ago by Sam Iosevich, Managing Principal at Prognos, during his presentation at the INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics and Operations Research. Sam stated that if your planners have knowledge that helps explain the "random error" in
