The other day I showed how to check your data cardinality by using a simple SAS program. I also promised to provide a custom task that makes the process even easier within SAS Enterprise Guide. Today I'm delivering on that promise. I've just added the custom task to the support.sas.com
We are in the final countdown to the Analytics 2013 Conference to be held next week, October 21-22 at the Hyatt Regency Orlando. There is a power-packed agenda for the conference, featuring four very strong keynote presentations from Dr. Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS; Ed Gaffin, Walt Disney World; Will Hakes,
This article is about rotating matrices. No, I don't mean "rotation matrices," I mean rotating matrices. As in turning a matrix 90 degrees in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. I was reading a program written in MATLAB in which the programmer used a MATLAB function called ROT90, which rotates a
Although the NSA and news media have given metadata a bad name in the popular press, the fact remains that information about the nature of your data is extremely valuable. For example, I posted an article yesterday about data cardinality. Cardinality measures the uniqueness of values in a variable. Cardinality
As you've probably guessed, I'm a "visual" person - I like to see things (in a chart/graph/map) rather than just reading about them (in a data table and summary statistic). Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of statistics and analytics -- but I'm an even bigger fan of
If you have been reading the articles in this blog, you already know that the Graph Template Language (GTL) forms the underlying foundation for all graphs produced automatically from SAS analytical procedures and custom graphs created with the SG Procedures and the ODS Graphics Designer. SG procedures and Designer provide
"Do I really need a detailed technical architecture before I start my SAS Deployment?" My team gets asked these questions all the time: Do we really need to spend the time for the above exercise? Why can’t we just start doing the deployment of SAS and fix issues if they come
Data cardinality is an important topic for for data analysis. In mathematical terms, cardinality is simply the number of elements in a set. But in data applications, cardinality signifies the number of unique values for a given field of data. Related terms include number of levels (thank you, PROC FREQ
On Kaiser Fung's Junk Charts blog, he showed a bar chart that was "published by Teach for America, touting its diversity." Kaiser objected to the chart because the bar lengths did not accurately depict the proportions of the Teach for America corps members. The chart bothers me for another reason:
The Inside SAS Global Forum video series has been officially launched for 2014. Yes, the conference is still several months away, but it is not too soon to plan! Your first item of business: submit your proposal for content. Then next: register for the conference. Anna Brown and I provide
Don't ask me how it happened, but in my quest for even more SAS fame, I managed to muscle my way onto the set for Inside SAS Global Forum, the video series that focuses on everything that you need to know about SAS Global Forum 2014. After a brief cooling
Yesterday I read a Christina's blog article on the winners of the Best Presentations honor at MWSUG 2013. Two papers caught my (graphical) eye, both by Perry Watts. Perry has done a marvelous job describing how creatively use GTL to make graphs that may not be obvious at first glance.
If you know what this means, you’ll love our news! SAS Global Forum 2013 was the official “Year of the Poster”, and conference chair Rick Mitchell and his team more than tripled the number of poster submissions. Posters are indispensable for visual content. Poster presentations are also a huge asset
Should you ever guess on the SAT® or PSAT standardized tests? My son is getting ready to take the preliminary SAT (PSAT), which is a practice test for the SAT. A teacher gave his class this advice regarding guessing: For a multiple-choice questions, if you can eliminate one or two
My aunt Susanne is an elderly lady, who lives at the countryside and looks forward to celebrating her 80th birthday soon. Since the 1960's she has had a telephone connection with her fixed line provider. At that time, and for many years later, in the country where my aunt lives,
Congratulations to Best Paper Winners from MidWest SAS Users Group conference! You'll want to read these, and check the MWSUG 2013 proceedings for other useful papers from the recent conference. Start planning now for MWSUG 2014 in Chicago.
In my last blog post I described how to implement a "runs test" in the SAS/IML language. The runs test determines whether a sequence of two values (for example, heads and tails) is likely to have been generated by random chance. This article describes two applications of the runs test.
Recently I delivered a SAS Talks session: SAS 9.4: What’s New for SAS® Administrators . We had a large group attend and subsequently had a wonderful flood of questions that we couldn’t always keep up with. So I wanted to follow up with some of the popular questions:
The herbs and spices we use to flavor our foods can have powerful health benefits. Along with cinnamon and ginger, one of the most potent spices we have in our kitchen is turmeric. Turmeric is a bright yellow spice commonly found in curry powder (typically a mixture of coriander, cumin, fennel, mustard
While walking in the woods, a statistician named Goldilocks wanders into a cottage and discovers three bears. The bears, being hungry, threaten to eat the young lady, but Goldilocks begs them to give her a chance to win her freedom. The bears agree. While Mama Bear and Papa Bear block
Traditionally, SAS users like their processes to behave like Ron Popeil's famous rotisserie: they want to set it and forget it. That's the definition of a batch process. You work like heck to get it ready to run, then you push the button (or schedule it) and walk away. But
This year, SAS users are flocking to the Western Users of SAS Software’s (WUSS) annual conference. I had a chance to catch up with Operations Chair MaryAnne DePesquo, and she shared her excitement about this year’s conference. This is the first year that WUSS will be hosted in Las Vegas
Energetic. Content Rich. Powerful. That's how I describe the upcoming conference. We have a great presentation lineup and new opportunities for you to take advantage of. Register now and reserve your seat today! Here are a few of our confirmed speakers: A two-time winner of the USA Memory Championship, Nelson
What is the best way to share SAS/IML functions with your colleagues? Give them the source code? Create a function library that they can use? This article describes three techniques that make your SAS/IML functions accessible to others. As background, remember that you can define new functions and subroutines in
San Antonio plays host to this year’s South Central SAS Users Group (SCSUG) Educational Forum. Instead of the usual Sunday to Tuesday schedule, this year’s forum is being held on a Thursday (Oct. 31) and Friday (Nov. 1). But don’t worry – Halloween costumes aren’t being encouraged – the focus
"It slices, it dices ... it helps test laboratory mices!" In a joking way, this is a perfect description of SAS software, don't you think!?! :) And to prove it, this blog contains a collection of 32 examples, showing a variety of ways SAS can be used to graph data
Do your SAS programs read extra-large volumes of data? Do they run multiple DATA steps and procedures one after the other for hours at a time? Two papers from MWSUG 2013 show how you can speed up those long-running SAS jobs. Although their approaches and environments differed, both authors made
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are all the rage today. Some people see free online courses as a convenient way to introduce statistical concepts to tens of thousands of students who would not otherwise have an opportunity to learn about data analysis. Whereas 2013 is the International Year of Statistics,
Some of you may have already noticed the small graphical icon on the lower right side of the blog article labeled "Graphically Speaking Index". Yes, it is a link to a visual index for all articles published in this blog. Well, eventually it will have all the articles. So far, I
Has this ever happened to you? You have a SAS program with statements that you wrote, then you make use of a macro function or %include file supplied by a helpful colleague, and when your SAS code resumes, you find that all of your SAS titles have been changed out
