From the "how far can we take this metaphor?" department... Want to whet your Thankgiving appetite? Read this blog post from R. L. Burns. The "meat and gravy" section is near the bottom of the post. (Personally, I consider myself the giblets.)
In addition to writing code, SAS R&D developers are very accustomed to writing poems. I don't mean rhyming poetry like sonnets (though we do hear the occasional randy limerick). When a developer wants to make a code change in a SAS product, he or she is required to complete a
I saw an article this morning about the "world's most stupid bug" found in the firmware of a G1 phone. This flaw makes the phone interpret certain keywords in your text messages as system commands (among them: "reboot" to cause a system reboot). It reminds me of that quirky villian
Have you ever glanced through the obituaries and felt stunned to recognize an old friend? That's how it felt when I saw this announcement about Windows 3.11. One of my first assignments when I joined SAS in 1993 was to write Changes and Enhancements to the SAS System Release 6.10:
I see some donors looking at me. At least, that's how I read the last paragraph of this piece about SAS in the local Raleigh newspaper today: WWF, a global conservation group, uses SAS software to determine which potential donors to contact, and how frequently. One recent campaign boosted WWF's
My family and I attended the North Carolina State Fair on Tuesday (weather was beautiful), and noticed two differences from previous years: Everything was more expensive -- getting in, riding the rides, and especially the food. It was easier to get around, because it wasn't so crowded. We didn't have
Recently our support site has raised awareness that SAS Enterprise Guide 2.0 (and related releases 2.05 and 2.1) will "expire" at the end of this year. If we wanted to learn how many customers are still using this release of software, this was an effective way to do it. We've
Like millions of Americans, I watched the vice presidential debate on television last night. I also watched it on Twitter -- which is to say that while watching the debate, I watched the real-time responses of hundreds of Twitter users. Twitter users, as you may know, have up to 140
Despite my evangelization efforts, this is still one of the best kept secrets about SAS Enterprise Guide: you can create your own tasks. (These also work within the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office.) So I'm taking the evangelization to a new level: I've been writing a book on the topic.
I know it's difficult to keep track of all of the lists that feature Jim Goodnight. But I thought it was especially interesting when I saw him on someone's "bucket list". I'm not sure if the list in priority order. Dr. Goodnight falls just below Thomas Friedman, but ahead of
For the past couple of school terms I've had the privilege to speak to high school students about SAS. I first blogged about this back in March of 2007. The title of my presentation is "The Many Applications of SAS", where "applications" is an overloaded word. We talk about the
The SAS support site has a new example of how to create a Top N report using SAS. The Top N report is pervasive in our society. From the Billboard Top 100 to the New York Times Best Sellers list to the Forbes list of the 100 Richest Americans, the
Yesterday I posted an entry about SAS nerds, but some experts have put it another way: that SAS users are "fanatical" about SAS Business Intelligence solutions. Any way you say it, we've got folks who are passionate about SAS.
Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know. - Sarah Vowell I recently read A Short Illustrated History of the Nerd and it got me thinking: am I a SAS nerd? Consider:
40 years ago, my mother was a Computer. No, she was not an ENIAC or UNIVAC or any such room-sized piece of hardware. (Although some of my friends might think that this explains a lot about my personality.) This is my mother we're talking about here! Instead, she assisted aerospace
In this article about next-generation BI, a Forrester analyst cites a few of SAS' strengths and mentions SAS Enterprise Guide specifically: If SAS needs to work on anything, he continues, it's in reducing its dependence on the SAS programming language, which is a requirement to use some advanced features. "With
There are some interesting conversations going on in the SAS discussion forums. Don't be left out: go have your say, today! Prairie dogs are red-green colorblind. They can't tell the difference between ERRORs and WARNINGs in their SAS logs. But this SAS user can. Read: WARNINGS, NOTES...Why the heck did
I read TammiKay's blog post too quickly, and thought for a moment that she was giving away copies of European Vacation, Darwin Awards, and Burning Down the House. It turns out that her blog is not as lowbrow as mine, and she's actually giving away valuable business-related books (the titles
Here at SAS, we eat our own dogfood*. Actually, that's an understatement -- it's better to say that we feast on it. I've been using SAS 9.2 (released earlier this year) and SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2 (not yet released) for many months (years, actually) to accomplish several tasks, including to
In my 15 years working for SAS, the company image has evolved quite a bit. I no longer have to explain so much to friends and family when they say "you work for who?" SAS is now well-known as a supplier of business intelligence and analytical solutions, as well as
Having an unusual name can be a blessing and a curse. Fortunately, the "curse" part is mostly behind me now because I'm not in high school ("Hem-Ding! Dinger! Heme-lemma-ding-dong!" ). To borrow from Tigger, the most wonderful thing about "Chris Hemedinger"s is that I'm the only one. (Ha! I'm sure
Since last year, Facebook has opened up the "user profile" to advertisers so that companies can target you with ads that are based on information that you share. One example I've seen of this: a sidebar ad with the headline "Calling all CS majors" -- an ad for some IT
Now that we have support for Vista in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1, this question has bubbled up to the most frequently asked: "Can I use SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1 with my new SAS 9.2?" The answer is Yes. You can use SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1 with SAS 9.2 for Windows,
You've been asking for it, and now it's here. We have just released a revision to SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1 that supports Microsoft Vista. We released SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1 originally in March 2006. Microsoft Vista was on the horizon then, but was not available to the general public until
At SAS Global Forum last week, a customer approached me with a very specific request. The conversation went something like this: Customer: My client demands a bar chart that uses a bar for one response, and a symbol for other responses, all on the same chart. We know it's possible
Alan and Brendan (of Inside SAS Global Forum fame) weren't the only folks with a camera in San Antonio. Featured scenes include: out and about in San Antonio, the technical opening session, the demo room, the Inside SAS Global Forum crew, the kickback party, and student ambassador video blogging.
With the release of SAS 9.2, the SAS documentation that accompanies the software has never been more accessible. See for yourself: check out the product documentation for SAS 9.2. Type in a few keywords in the search pane. I just tried "filename http" -- the top link, describing the FILENAME
Even though it's not a military site these days, apparently the Alamo still sees some action. A colleague and I noticed the helicopters hovering overhead during our lunch break yesterday. Advice to conference attendees: don't leave your pleather conference satchel unattended in a public place, lest the local authorities detonate
Tell an experienced SUGI/SAS Global Forum presenter that you are presenting at SAS Global Forum. One of the first questions he or she will ask you is: "What time is your talk?" Because scheduling matters. Certain time slots have a notoriety of their own. For example, "10:30 Monday" means you
I’ve never found a great user guide, not to say that one doesn’t exist. You should be able to schedule any type of executable/job like a batch file from using the Platform LSF client tools (packaged with the server tools). You can also use command line executables like bsub and
