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Chris Hemedinger 0
Scenes from SAS Global Forum 2008

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.

Chris Hemedinger 0
San Antonio is da bomb

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

Angela Hall 0
Teradata, Sybase & ODBC Access Performance

"I have been doing a lot of performance testing recently with the Teradata access engine vs the ODBC access engine on the same Teradata instance, and from the same server the ODBC access engine on Sybase IQ. Setup: This is all done from a SAS 9.1.3 SP4 installation, with the

Angela Hall 0
Migrating EG Projects through Dev-Test-Prod

I wanted to share a trick/technique with you all regarding making it easier to migrate EG projects from one environment to another. The issue is that there are often occasions where it is necessary to code file paths in an EG project (just like in any other SAS program) and

Angela Hall 0
MDX DRILLUPMEMBER Function for Rollup Measures

When trying to generate rollup measures for further statitical analysis from an OLAP cube, completing in MDX proved much more efficient then querying and running PROC MEANS steps. Included is an example of how to utilize the DRILLUPMEMBER() function in MDX code: http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/10894_3572621_2

Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization
Angela Hall 0
Grabbing the Data Creation Date

The data table creation date is sometimes necessary, say in the footnote of your stored process. Included below is a sample to retrieve this date from the file system. /*Open the dataset*/ %let dsid=%sysfunc(open(sashelp.shoes)); data _null_; /*grab the CRDTE function*/ ddate=%sysfunc(attrn(&dsid;,CRDTE )); /*Format in DDMONYY*/ call symput('ddate', put(ddate, dtdate9.)); run;

Angela Hall 0
Exporting OLAP Cubes

In SP4, you can export OLAP cubes into .xml files. Right click the Cube from SAS OLAP Cube Studio, select 'Export Cube'. This is an appropriate part of a migration strategy through dev-test-production, since they can then be imported through the 'Import Cube' button on the left menubar.

Angela Hall 0
SAS JMP Configurations for Business Intelligence

Three different setups for SAS JMP are listed below. Upwards compatibility (i.e. level 1 to 2) available, downwards less likely (like we know STPs are not). Level 1. SAS JMP and SAS Base installed and licensed on individual desktop/laptop. Level 2. SAS Integration Technologies installed on server, SAS JMP installed

Angela Hall 0
%OMABAKUP vs. Manually Backing up Repository Directory

Pausing and restarting the Metadata Server manually will allow you to take a full copy of the foundation file structure. However, the %OMABAKUP macro does this for you, which reduces the metadata server's downtime. (Yes, do not run a manual pause or stop of the metadata server when executing %OMABAKUP)

Programming Tips
Chris Hemedinger 0
The road to San Antonio

It's only January, and SAS Global Forum 2008 isn't until March, but folks around here have already been preparing for months. For my part, I'm on the hook for two papers: one "invited" (submitted and accepted by the SAS Global Forum committee) and one as a "SAS Presents" (topics that

Chris Hemedinger 0
The boss makes the list

Information Week released its list of 15 Innovators & Influencers Who Will Make A Difference In 2008. From the article: Meet 15 people who will help shape the business technology world in the coming year. They're not the usual suspects -- the names everyone knows. Several are industry and tech

Chris Hemedinger 0
An inside scoop of dummy-ness

Hot off the reel, the SAS for Dummies podcast is now available. Tune in now and hear the juicy tidbits of the story behind the book. Okay, it's no E! True Hollywood Story, but it's as exciting as I get without being on fire. P.S. Shelly Goodin from SAS Press

Chris Hemedinger 0
Lead an application to data: drink faster

In a recent Dr. Dobb's Journal piece, Jim Starkey (senior architect for MySQL ) acknowledges that it's time to embed the power of applications within databases, instead of the other way around. Jim says (italics added by me): I think we can agree that context switches or network round trips

Angela Hall 0
SASADM and EG Don't Particularly Like Each Other

Check this out:http://support.sas.com/techsup/unotes/SN/020/020072.html “IMPORTANT NOTE: You should NEVER use an Unrestricted User (the "unrestricted user" account; for example, the sasadm ID with a "*" prefix in the adminUsers.txt) to log on to any client application except SAS® Management Console. The "unrestricted user" account is intended to be used ONLY as

Angela Hall 0
Password Changes in BI

Included are some resources to help those of you who need to change SAS account passwords on your BI installation. (Notice: This is not for the faint of heart.) http://support.sas.com/rnd/papers/sugi31/securedeployment.pdf http://support.sas.com/documentation/configuration/bisecag.pdf (Chapter 5 & specifically pg98-102) http://support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts736.pdf Side Note: SAS Technical Support and R&D; have a utility in their 'toolpool'

Chris Hemedinger 0
What's my line?

Today was "career day" in my daughter's 3rd grade classroom. A few privileged parents were invited to attend and answer questions about their professions, press-conference style. Among those on a panel of nine parents, the panelists that saw the most action included the Dog Trainer, the Duke Life Flight Nurse,

Chris Hemedinger 0
Thanks for your support of our support

Congratulations to the support.sas.com team for a successful update to the SAS customer support center. I hope you'll agree with me that the new look is clean and attractive, and I think you'll find the site is easier to use now. I have the privilege of participating on the committee

Chris Hemedinger 0
Crunching our kids

During his bettermanagement.com seminar on Monday, Super Crunchers author Ian Ayres suggested that high school students would be better served by acquiring a modest knowledge of statistics rather than learning more abstract math topics, such as calculus. (Then again, if we don't favor calculus how will we ever arrive at

Chris Hemedinger 0
Thinking by numbers

I've recently read Super Crunchers, the book by Ian Ayres that I blogged about a few weeks ago. Even though no propers are paid to SAS (I mean, why should the world's largest privately held software company and a leader in analytics get a mention in a book about the