I have reported that the VIEWS web site had been closed down, and although the newsletter archive is still available on sasCommunity.org, that site is now read-only prior to being decommissioned. However, I have stored all 55 of the original VIEWS News PDF files on my blog site, which can be accessed via the VIEWS UK forum. This forum is available on request to all registered blog members, and those with access will be notified of any new content. The issues include the following features:
Ask the Expert
Did You Know?
Formats, Options & Functions
SAS News, Events and Reports
Some of the new content will include previously unpublished indexes I used to help me write the Formats, Options & Functions articles in the newsletters, which allowed me to see in a single view which features had already been described and when. I will also be including an authors list soon. All features that could help you find information that is difficult to find using standard searches. You also need to know that I intend to publish some new issues of VIEWS News too, but only if 100+ members request access to the VIEWS UK forum.
You might be thinking that, as I had emailed VIEWS members in the past, I could use that email list to include them automatically again. However, this new VIEWS environment has been built on an existing blog site, and, although theoretically I could register all the previous VIEWS members using their email addresses, I don’t know all of their real names and would, therefore, have to guess their new user names, so I don’t think forcing anyone to register on my blog site is at all appropriate. This is the reason I’m asking everyone interested to register themselves instead.
So, whether you have been a VIEWS member in the past, or not, here is how you can join the new VIEWS UK forum:
If you are not already registered on my blog site, then join via the registration page.
I will manually update your blog profile to give you the required configuration and reply to your registered email address as soon as you have access to the new forum. You will then see VIEWS UK in the forum list when you next log into the blog site.
Note that, as I write this post, a total of 69 members now have access to the forum. If you’ve not yet requested access, then only 31 more members are required to give me the impetus to publish more VIEWS News issues!
I’m an Invited Speaker at SAS Global Forum in Denver in April, but I’m probably not presenting at SASGF19. I probably presented my last PhUSE paper at the PhUSE Single Day Event in Beerse, Belgium. So what is happening?
I’m getting older, as are we all, but I’m approaching retirement and looking for new experiences while I’m still able, so in 2019 I’m planning to be at PharmaSUG conferences for the first time, rather than at SASGF and PhUSE.
Could you persuade me to change my mind? Well I live in the UK and travelling costs money, so I might be persuaded to present at a conference if my travel and accommodation expenses were paid for me. However, the best way to get me to attend a conference is to allow me to run a training course there.
With so many SUGUKI events in the calendar, it’s worth putting them all in one place!
SUGUKI is an independent SAS User Group, staffed by volunteers – and we are in continuous need of speakers, venues, sponsorship, and general support. Our web site can be found at https://www.meetup.com/SUGUKI. We’d love to hear from you. We also now have a community on SAS Communities!!
Our events are always 6-8pm on a Thursday, with two SAS presentations and drinks. Sign up below!
With so many SUGUKI events in the calendar, it’s worth putting them all in one place!
SUGUKI is an independent SAS User Group, staffed by volunteers – and we are in continuous need of speakers, venues, sponsorship, and general support. We’d love to hear from you.
Our events are always 6-8pm on a Thursday, with two SAS presentations and drinks. Sign up below!
08MAR2018 – London SUGUKI meetup @ The Shard – https://goo.gl/cPG6NU
22MAR2018 – Dublin SUGUKI meetup – https://goo.gl/6hUSij
05APR2018 – London SUGUKI meetup – https://goo.gl/6sBN4K – I’ll be presenting “Something for Nothing! Converting Plots from SAS/GRAPH to ODS Graphics” and offering a copy of my latest book in a free prize draw for attendees!
19APR2018 – Edinburgh SUGUKI meetup – https://goo.gl/21U2dk
24MAY2018 – Manchester SUGUKI meetup – https://goo.gl/HZs6su
For those available during the day (9-3pm) the following Analytical Lifecyle User Groups are also available from SAS Institute (https://goo.gl/PH6Lyc):
13MAR2018 @ Leeds (One Park Lane)
All these events are free, but you must register for security and capacity reasons.
All the PDF course notes for my courses have been moved to Lulu.com. You can still find links to them on the SAS books page in the Holland Numerics Product Shop, but the links will now send you to my Lulu.com Store, where you can buy the PDF eBooks.
I realise that some blog site visitors do not wish to register on this site, so moving the eBooks to a distributor should make the purchasing a little easier for everyone.
All future PDF course notes will be published directly on Lulu.com.
I’ve added the final topic of the Data Steps course in the SAS course (in the SAS Programming Forum), and it describes some of the syntax used in Data Step processing.
I have added, for those who don’t want to follow the course but would prefer to read the course notes, a copy of course notes as a downloadable PDF ebook, and I have now published Android ebook apps with the same content on Google Play and Amazon Appstore.
As other SAS courses are finalised I will be publishing them as PDF ebooks and Android apps too.
I’ve created a SAS course pricing survey (just 5 questions, which should take only 3-5 minutes to complete), because I’m interested in pricing my SAS course to attract the maximum number of users, but not make it so cheap that it does not cover the effort required to create it. Please assist me by completing this survey, which will close as soon as there have been 100 responses. I would hope that every blog site member will help me by responding to this poll.
Currently my SAS course is included in the SAS Programming Forum, which costs £5 (approximately $7) per month, where SAS-related questions can be answered. At the moment my SAS course includes groups of topics on:
A new 1/4-day Introduction to ODS RTF course is now included, which should be considered as an add-on course, rather than to be booked on its own. Note that a 1/4-day course costs half of a 1/2-day course. However, any travelling and accommodation expenses will be the same, of course.
Finally a quick reminder that course notes for some of the courses can be purchased separately as PDF eBooks or Android apps. See the training page in the Product Shop for all the available course notes and also the latest Training Course List.
A while back I told you about how my SAS training courses were intended for companies and not for individuals. I can now announce that the course notes from those training courses can now be purchased as PDF eBooks. Some of the courses based on the SAS course can also be downloaded as Android apps. The following course notes can now be purchased here:
I’ve added the final topic of the PROC SQL course in the SAS course (in the SAS Programming Forum), and it describes some of the limitations and differences between the SQL language in PROC SQL and the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) guidelines for SQL.
I’ve been posting on sasCommunity.org every now and then for nearly 10 years, including hosting VIEWS News and my SAS Author pages there, but a decision has now been made by the sasCommunity Advisory Team to set the site to Read-Only from 01Jan2018. Chris Hemedinger has added a blog post on The SAS Dummy giving a little more information on where the sasCommunity.org content could be relocated.
Note that the VIEWS News issues can now be accessed on this blog site in the VIEWS UK forum, which is a free resource for all registered blog members, but an access request is required after you have registered.
The wiki site was the first to be SAS-related and user-maintained, so that every registered SAS user could add and update their own content. This was long before GitHub appeared, and when LinkedIn and the SAS Communities had barely started.
I think I will leave the last words to the sasCommunity Advisory Team, who posted this announcement on the sasCommunity.org site on 07Dec2017:
sasCommunity.org to be Decommissioned
December 7, 2017 Notice from the sasCommunity Advisory Team
Today, SAS practitioners have unprecedented access to expertise from their fellow SAS users around the world. Using modern community forums and code sharing platforms, SAS users are learning from each other more than ever before.
Although there is a demonstrated increased interest in SAS topics in general, we’ve seen the traffic and contributions on sasCommunity.org remain flat (and even decline) over the past few years. The team has taken the decision to help users to focus on the newer, well-supported platforms — and decommission this wiki-based site.
Before we cover some logistics, we want to recognize the important role that sasCommunity.org – and all of its volunteers and contributors – has served over the past 10 years. The site pioneered peer-to-peer collaboration around SAS during an era when there were fewer alternatives. We are grateful to those who devoted countless hours to building and nurturing the site. Thank you!
Now…on to the future. Our first step will be to put the site into ‘Read Only Mode’ on January 1, 2018. This will allow the relocation of important and popular content responsibly, while eliminating the overhead of accepting new pages. We plan to support, as best we can, the owners of existing content to make sure they can find a new home for content and articles they want to preserve before the final decommissioning (that date is TBD).
Examples of content that we know that probably should be relocated:
Author Pages
User Groups pages
Historical Conference Proceedings
sasCommunity.org Planet (blogs aggregator)
Several unique and very popular articles
Some of this content may be relocated to the SAS Support Communities (communities.sas.com) with the help of SAS Institute. Historical proceedings might find a home alongside the other proceedings we have for more recent SAS conferences. Code-based projects may be a better fit on GitHub, a site designed specifically for sharing code related to any technology. All ideas are under discussion, and we welcome your input.
Thanks for your valuable support over the years, and we look forward to continued collaboration!
