This blog site will be closed for scheduled maintenance from 20:30 to around 21:30 (GMT) on 02Jan2021:
A number of software packages will be updated for stability and security.
Thank you for your understanding!
Remember to use your full personal name, not a business name (unless you’ve asked me first), and a full last name is expected and required to complete registration, not “X Y” where your user information is considered to be hiding your identity. If you supply a name like “X Y” then your profile will be set to Pending, which will be deleted automatically after 1 month if not corrected.
NEW: An activation email will be sent to your registered email address to confirm that it is valid. If you do not receive it within a few minutes, then please contact Philip Holland at phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk, as your email address may not have been accepted, but can be corrected.
It is also recommended that you do not use an email address as, or include your company name in, your user name, because user names cannot be changed, but your email address or company might change in the future!
You can register for Free blog membership here: 
Looking for a SAS-related job?
There are a number of SAS-related jobs in the SAS Jobs Listing this month in India, and the links are open to all site visitors:
Please use the links in the SAS Jobs Listing to apply for these positions.
Recruiters looking for candidates
I’m always looking for new recruiters to post SAS-related jobs on this site covering India, UK, the Americas, Europe and the Rest of the World. In particular, I would like to include jobs in the UK, the Americas and Europe, where nearly 60% of the registered blog members are located, but currently these areas have no active recruiters for them.
If you have a regular supply of jobs, then there is a free trial which is open to all recruiters, but with 2 simple rules:
The current regional breakdown of registered blog members is as follows, but note that the SAS Jobs Listing is open to all site visitors:
My company’s internet service provider has now been changed from Plusnet to XLN, and I did get the expected disruption, but not quite in the ways I expected:
So, as promised, after several days of head scratching, discussions with network engineers, network testing and updates, the blog server is open for normal business again!
I’m now looking forward to writing some SAS-related blog posts.
Thank you for your patience…………Phil
Our internet service provider is scheduled to change on 03Dec2020 (from Plusnet to XLN), so we’re expecting some disruption. We may be very lucky and the outage during the changeover is very short, but, as we can’t say when during the day it will be, it would be foolish to predict anything in advance. All we can say is that the site will be back after the changeover.
Thank you in advance for your patience…………Phil
VIEWS News issue 62 has now been published.
This newsletter issue contains an article from LeRoy Bessler about SparkLine alternatives, a statistics article about rounding from Anders Sköllermo, and I have added an article on code indenting specifically to encourage discussion. As usual I have publicised some SAS‑related events for the next few months, and I have also added some more SAS formats, options and functions that you may or may not have come across before, but you might find interesting, and even useful.
If you would like to contribute an article on any SAS topic, or a SAS-related event date from March 2021 onward, to the next issue in February 2021 then please send an email with a description/attachment of your contribution to view-uk@hollandnumerics.org.uk or phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk.
To be able to read this and all previous issues you will need to follow these steps:
Enjoy!……………..Phil
VIEWS News issue 62 (2020Q4) is scheduled for publication at the end on November 2020.
Recommended approach to accessing VIEWS News issues from #1, if you have already registered for free blog membership and requested access to the VIEWS UK forum:
I hope this makes your searching easier……………Phil
I know everyone is offering Black Friday discounts, but I live in the UK and traditionally we had Boxing Day (the day after Christmas Day) sales. This year is not, of course, a normal year, so instead I’m offering free access to my Educational Games membership from now until Christmas New Year for the first 20 all applicants.
It is not really free, of course, as I’d like feedback about any of the 7 different educational web app games included in the package, but I’ll be happy to extend the free period for everyone that sends me constructive comments about the games. See my blog post “A little more to help the children learn – no SAS involved!” for more details.
Note that Programming and Recruiter memberships are not compatible with the Educational Games membership, so if you have these membership levels, then I would strongly recommend that you create a new blog profile for this offer, and I will make sure that no marketing emails are sent to the new profiles from the blog site too.
Applications for free access until Christmas New Year should be emailed to phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk from your blog profile email address.
Merry Christmas (in advance)!
Apologies for the blog outage due to Plusnet and BT OpenReach that shut my blog site down for nearly 2 days from 17Nov2020 until 19Nov2020. I created this blog site back in October 2016 and have had Plusnet as my broadband internet provider since then, but my broadband connection ceased at 1540 on 17Nov2020 due a “major local outage”. I contacted Plusnet immediately and they assured me that the problem was likely to be resolved overnight. The following morning the outage was still there, and Plusnet passed the problem over to the faults team at BT OpenReach, as Plusnet is owned by BT, and BT OpenReach maintains their broadband network. That was the last time I heard anything from Plusnet, and I’m still waiting to hear from BT OpenReach. I’m now looking for a replacement broadband internet provider, so that I can reliably:
Stop Press: As you can now see, my broadband connection has just been restored after being disconnected for 42 hours, but I’m still investigating replacements!
If anyone asks me for a recommendation for internet and mobile phone contract providers, I can give them a growing list of “do not contact” companies:
Since becoming a parent many years ago, I have had access to computers and written educational software for my children, and now for my grandchildren..
 One of my original spelling programs now has a family nickname of “GIFAFFE”, due to a check I had failed to do while compiling the list of animals to spell! This program has been re-written (with completely correct spellings!) as a web app called SpiderWord, where a word must be correctly guessed to let the Bug escape from the Spider slowly descending on a thread with every incorrect letter. The currently available word lists now cover biology (Dinosaurs and Reptiles), spelling (Long Words (Things) and Long Words (Describing)), literature (Thomas the Tank Engine Character Names), geography (Countries) and sport (1-Word English Football Clubs).
If you would like me to include new word lists in this game, then please send them to me using the Contact Us link in the menu. Priority will be given to requests from Educational Games members. |
 Another of my interests is in mental arithmetic, and I have re-written some of my Chrome apps as browser-independent web apps covering multiplying (from x2 to x20), arithmetic (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and combinations using parentheses), decimal arithmetic (like the arithmetic app, but using decimals), detective (find the missing number in 13 different types of sequences) and fraction arithmetic (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing).
Note that all of the web apps have time limits that can be changed to specific times per question between “No limit” and a probably impossible limit of “5 seconds”. Also, only the local storage in your browser is used to store the past results, so the statistics are never shared, and can be cleared by you at any time! |
 I have recently added a logic-based game called Number Logic.
You can choose how many numbers can be used: — 1 to 4 = 256 possible numbers (1) The computer sets the numbers, you guess and the computer scores. |
All of these web apps, and more as I develop further programs, can be accessed via a menu link called “Educational Games”, which will be seen after you have subscribed to this blog’s Educational Games membership, which is currently priced at GBP 5.00 for 3 months access.
Note that, if you already have Programming or Recruiter membership, then changing to the Educational Games membership will remove all of your current privileges, as they are not compatible!! I would, therefore, recommend creating a new blog profile for Educational Games membership, as it will then not be sent any of the SAS-related emails from the site, and will have exclusive access to the web apps.
Looking for a SAS-related job?
There are a number of SAS-related jobs in the SAS Jobs Listing this month in India, and the links are open to all site visitors:
Please use the links in the SAS Jobs Listing to apply for these positions.
Recruiters looking for candidates
I’m always looking for new recruiters to post SAS-related jobs on this site covering India, UK, the Americas, Europe and the Rest of the World. In particular, I would like to include jobs in the UK, the Americas and Europe, where nearly 60% of the registered blog members are located, but currently these areas have no active recruiters for them.
If you have a regular supply of jobs, then there is a free trial which is open to all recruiters, but with 2 simple rules:
The current regional breakdown of registered blog members is as follows, but note that the SAS Jobs Listing is open to all site visitors:
This weekend marks to start of the half-term school holidays in most parts of the United Kingdom, although some schools have been encouraging learning-from-home since the beginning of the pandemic. Since becoming a parent many years ago, I have had access to computers and written educational software for my children.
| One of my original spelling programs now has a family nickname of “GIFAFFE”, due to a check I had failed to do while compiling the list of animals to spell! This program has been re-written (with completely correct spellings!) as a web app called SpiderWord, where a word must be correctly guessed to let the Bug escape from the Spider slowly descending on a thread with every incorrect letter. The currently available word lists now cover biology (Dinosaurs and Reptiles), spelling (Long Words), literature (Thomas the Tank Engine Character Names), geography (Countries) and sport (1-Word English Football Clubs).
If you would like me to include new word lists in this game, then please send them to me using the Contact Us link in the menu. Priority will be given to requests from Educational Games members. |
| Another of my interests is in mental arithmetic, and I have re-written some of my Chrome apps as browser-independent web apps covering multiplying (from x2 to x20), arithmetic (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and combinations using parentheses), decimal arithmetic (like the arithmetic app, but using decimals), and fraction arithmetic (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing).
Note that all of the web apps have time limits that can be changed to specific times per question between “No limit” and a probably impossible limit of “5 seconds”. |
All of these web apps, and more as I develop further programs, can be accessed via a menu link called “Educational Games”, which will be seen after you have subscribed to this blog’s Educational Games membership, which is currently priced at GBP 5.00 for 3 months access.
Note that, if you already have Programming or Recruiter membership, then changing to the Educational Games membership will remove all of your current privileges, as they are not compatible!! I would, therefore, recommend creating a new blog profile for Educational Games membership, as it will then not be sent any of the SAS-related emails from the site, and will have exclusive access to the web apps.
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