Note: This blog post is cross-posted from the Key Happenings blog. Going forward, posts about changes to support.sas.com will appear here, in the SAS User’s blog. Enjoy! 5 — SAS 9.4 M3 and 14.1 are available 4 — Communities will go to read-only status from August 31 – September 7 […]
Five things a SAS user should know this week was published on SAS Users.
This post is the second in a series that illustrates three different solutions to “flattening” hierarchical data. Solution 1, from my previous post, created one observation per header record, summarizing the detail data with a COUNT variable, like this: Summary Approach: One observation per header record Obs Family Count […]
The post Reading hierarchical data – Part 2 appeared first on The SAS Training Post.
A family and its members represent a simple hierarchy. For example, the Jones family has four members: A text file might represent this hierarchy with family records followed by family members’ records, like this: The PROC FORMAT step below defines the codes in Column 1: proc format; value $type […]
The post Reading hierarchical data – Part 1 appeared first on The SAS Training Post.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about active listening, and I mentioned that I find that note-taking helps me understand (and remember) what I am being told. The downside of this approach is the pile of age-old notebooks that I don’t want to throw away “just in case I need them”. I think I recently found a solution to my problem…
Back in June I bought a Livescribe 3 digital pen. This is a conventional ink-based pen that writes notes in books, but its party trick is that it has a miniature infra-red camera built-in that observes my jottings and stores an electronic copy. The copy is stored inside the pen, but a Bluetooth link with my Android phone (or Apple iPhone) sees the digital images transferred to my phone (either in real-time, or next time I connect the pen and phone). The Livescribe+ app on my phone allows me to view the pages and books of all of my writings since I bought the pen in June. I can throw away the books I’ve used since June!
The Livescribe 3 is the latest in a series of smart pens from Livescribe. Like its predecessors, the Livescribe 3 needs the company’s proprietary micro-dotted paper for it to do its magic, but the books are reasonably priced and widely available – or you can print your own micro-dotted paper if you wish (if your printer can manage 600dpi+). In addition, the pen uses Livescribe’s proprietary ink refills (67mm length and 2.35 diameter).
Truth be told, the pen is a bit chunky, but I soon got used to its shape and I no longer notice it. This may, in no small part, be due to its light weight. All-in-all it feels very comfortable in my hand.
I’ve found the digitised images to be very accurate and readable facsimiles of my analogue scribbles. And the Livescribe+ app does a decent job of optical character recognition (OCR) of my words too – making the digital pages searchable.
If you’re worried that your notes are a little vulnerable if they are only stored on your phone, fear not because the iOS version of the Livescribe+ app allows automatic synchronisation to Evernote and IBM OneNote. Apparently this feature will be added to the Android app soon.
All-in-all I’m smitten with my new pen. It accurately digitises and stores my scribble & writings, and it is nice and easy to use.
The Neo N2, which grew out of a Kickstarter campaign, is a direct competitor and gets good reviews. I honestly can’t recall why I chose the Livescribe over the Neo. I think they’re pretty similar in features and price.
Did I forget to mention the price of the Livescribe 3? Ah, this is its only major drawback. Expect to pay about £130.
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In my high school Performance Art class, our teacher, Mr. Kennedy, was constantly reminding us that when you have characters on stage the focus must remain on the central action. If you have non-speaking role then you cannot draw attention to yourself. For instance, you wouldn’t tap your foot, play with your hair or wave to the audience members. This concept can translate into a data …
Post SAS VA: Is Location just a Distracting Character in Your Dataviz? appeared first on BI Notes for SAS® Users. Go to BI Notes for SAS® Users to subscribe.
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Do you use an array of tools to perform predictive analytics on your data? Is your current tool not flexible enough to accommodate some of your requirements? SAS Enterprise Miner may be your solution. With growing number of data mining applications, having a tool which can do variety of analysis […]
The post Flexibility of SAS Enterprise Miner appeared first on The SAS Training Post.