Once you start looking at your Google Analytics, it is thrilling to see that visitors are coming to your humble Web site and some even return. Your first inclination is to create fancy charts to show the traffic patterns, compare the patterns by day of week, segment into New and Returning visitors, soon your charts may even be trending on #StuffDataGeeksDo. In the past few weeks I have been leaning on you to adding more VA-Voom!!! (in the words of Dr. Suess) to your data using the SAS BI Dashboard. [More Google Analytics and SAS BI Dashboard articles] Why Have a Website? When I started this blog, the main purpose was to ensure SAS BI users were aware of my book, see my writing style, and determine if I knew enough to have written a reliable book. To this end, I had to measure was how many people followed the More Book Info link I had prepared. As a introverted data geek, this was a hard for me because I did not want to be the in-your-face, buy-this-now pushy sales lady! What I wanted was for SAS BI users to know that Angela and I had created an awesome resource that […]
Category: SAS
Example 9.20: visualizing Simpson’s paradox
Simpson’s paradox is always amazing to explain to students. What’s bad for one group, and bad for another group is good for everyone, if you just collapse over the grouping variable. Unlike many mathematical paradoxes, this arises in a number of real…
The best part of writing a book is learning something new
Many of the chapters in my new book Building Business Intelligence Using SAS: Content Development Examples were straightforward to write but one in particular was the beast. Neither Tricia nor I wanted to tackle the SAS BI Dashboard chapter. Just chalk…
NOTE: Code Kata #1 Follow-Up
A few weeks ago I published the first in an irregular series of code katas. In a previous post I had described code katas as a form of training for programmers.
I saw a lot of interest around the post.
Richard Koopman posted an elegant response on hi…
Do not waste tax money on litigation attract on HS2
Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear. This evening Mr. Chapman, for whom I have a lot of time, asked the Wendover Parish Council for £50,000 on behalf of the Wendover anti-HS2 group. The purpose is to support a legal challenge to the consultation that took place…
With SAS and Facebook, who needs Meetup?
In my previous blog post I talked about how to map your Outlook contacts and create a list of the 3 people nearest the zip code you were traveling to. That’s all fine and dandy, but my friends often don’t update me when they move and we just connec…
Accessing files via SFTP in SAS
Secure File Transfer Protocol has become the standard for transferring files outside our organization. However, it is not always the easiest thing to do in SAS. Here are a few code examples for you to steal. Importing a CSV file over SFTP: %let host=afhood.com; %let sftpOption=-o IdentityFile=/home/user/.ssh/id_rsa; %let filename=theFile.csv; %let sftpPath=/home/remoteuser/dir/; filename myfile sftp “&sftpPath.&filename.” […]
Peek Inside SAS BI Book: Building Business Intelligence with SAS
You may be aware by now, our new SAS BI book Building Business Intelligence with SAS:Content Development Examples launched last week on the SAS Press site. That’s right, SAS Press or Amazon will be delighted to bring a copy of this SAS BI book to your door. When Angela and I set out to write this book, one of the first things we discussed was how new users get access to the SAS BI toolset and have no idea of its astonishing capabilities. This book guides you through each one so you understand it. Intermediate and advanced users will also find this book as a valuable reference. Several times, Angela & I have both found ourselves pulling out the draft copy to reference an advanced technique. This book fulfills a unique spot in the marketplace; there is no other single book that leads you through each SAS BI component with step-by-step examples along with hundreds of tips and techniques to make you successful! SAS Institute offers over nine SAS BI courses to cover all the topics we have jammed packed into this book. Making this an excellent study guide for those planning to take the SAS BI Content Development Exam. Your SAS […]