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Apologies for the blog #outage due to #Plusnet and #BT #OpenReach

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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:

  • work with my clients.
  • reconnect my blog site.
  • start using my “free” WiFi, instead of my mobile data allocation.

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:

  • Vodafone – they disconnected my mobile phone while I was discussing my phone contract with them on a landline, and you can wait for hours on their support lines.
  • Plusnet – while they will tell you that their customer service is wonderful, their broadband service depends heavily on BT OpenReach.
  • BT OpenReach – don’t use any company that relies on them, because they have one of the worst customer services in the UK!

A little more to help the children learn – no SAS involved!

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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 to 5 = 625 possible numbers
— 1 to 6 = 1,296 possible numbers

(1) The computer sets the numbers, you guess and the computer scores.
(2) You set the numbers, the computer guesses and you score.
(3) Can you guess the numbers quicker than the computer?

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.

Seeking active recruiters globally! SAS-related Jobs from Recruiters in India in November 2020

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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:

  • India: Pharmaceutical permanent positions from wikiCDM.

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:

  1. The free trial will be extended by an additional calendar month only when a job is posted, and will expire automatically if no job has been posted in a calendar month.
  2. The posted jobs must be in some way SAS-related.

The current regional breakdown of registered blog members is as follows, but note that the SAS Jobs Listing is open to all site visitors:

  1. Indian sub-continent: 34.0% (252)
  2. The Americas: 23.9% (177)
  3. UK: 20.8% (154)
  4. Europe: 14.7% (109)
  5. Rest of the World: 6.7% (50)

Something to help the children learn – no SAS involved!

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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.

Seeking active recruiters globally! SAS-related Jobs from Recruiters in India in October 2020

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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:

  • India: Pharmaceutical permanent positions from wikiCDM.

These are the first SAS jobs in India to be posted on this site!! Thank you wikiCDM.

Please use the links in the SAS Jobs Listing to apply for these positions.

Recruiters

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:

  1. The free trial will be extended by an additional calendar month only when a job is posted, and will expire automatically if no job has been posted in a calendar month.
  2. The posted jobs must be in some way SAS-related.

The current regional breakdown of registered blog members is as follows, but note that the SAS Jobs Listing is open to all site visitors:

  1. Indian sub-continent: 34.0% (250)
  2. The Americas: 23.9% (176)
  3. UK: 20.8% (153)
  4. Europe: 14.8% (109)
  5. Rest of the World: 6.5% (48)

SAS-related blog server report: Outage due to swap space failure

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Please accept my apologies for the outage on my SAS-related blog server. Although I’ve not yet determined the exact cause, the outage itself affected the server’s swap space, which effectively prevented anyone, including myself, from accessing the blog site.

I’ve taken the opportunity, over the last few hours, to make a number of system updates, which I’m hoping will prevent a future occurrence of this problem.

Thank you for your patience and support!

VIEWS News 61 (2020Q3) has been published!

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VIEWS News issue 61 has now been published.

This newsletter issue welcomes 2 new VIEWS Consultants: Jonas Bilenas and Norman Williams. It also contains an article from LeRoy Bessler about Donut Charts, an ODS article from Jonas Bilenas, a solution to including program documentation from Norman Williams, and I have added a review of the SAS Analytics Explorers communities. 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 December 2020 onward, to the next issue in November 2020 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:

  1. If you have not already registered on this blog site, go to blog.hollandnumerics.org.uk and register for free membership.
  2. Once successfully registered, click the menu item [Subscriptions for Forums and Features] > [Request access to the VIEWS UK forum] to request free access to the VIEWS UK forum, then add your name and email address to the form before clicking [Send].
  3. On receipt of a request for an existing blog member I will register them for free access to the VIEWS UK forum, and then send them an email to confirm this.
  4. The next time they log onto the blog site they will see VIEWS UK in the forum list, where you will find the latest issue of VIEWS News, forum topics to find the backissues, functions and formats in every published issue, and a tag cloud covering every forum on the site to which you have access, including VIEWS UK and the VIEWS News issues.
  5. They will also be automatically informed of any VIEWS UK updates.

Enjoy!……………..Phil

Seeking active recruiters for US, India and Europe! SAS-related Jobs from Recruiters in UK in September 2020

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Looking for a SAS-related job?

There are a number of SAS-related jobs in the SAS Jobs Listing this month in the UK, and the links are open to all site visitors:

  • UK: Pharmaceutical contract positions from CK Clinical.
  • UK: Pharmaceutical permanent positions from SQN Recruitment.

Please use the links in the SAS Jobs Listing to apply for these positions.

Recruiters

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 US, India and Europe, where nearly 3/4 of the registered blog members are located, but currently there are 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:

  1. The free trial will be extended by an additional calendar month only when a job is posted, and will expire automatically if no job has been posted in a calendar month.
  2. The posted jobs must be in some way SAS-related.

The current regional breakdown of registered blog members is as follows, but note that the SAS Jobs Listing is open to all site visitors:

  1. Indian sub-continent: 33.7% (246)
  2. The Americas: 24.0% (175)
  3. UK: 20.9% (152)
  4. Europe: 15.0% (109)
  5. Rest of the World: 6.4% (47)

Last call for articles for VIEWS News 61: Become a VIEWS Consultant this month!

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Last call for articles for VIEWS News 61: Become a VIEWS Consultant this month! I’m planning to publish VIEWS News issue 61 at the end of August 2020, which means that I need you to send me your short SAS-related articles by 17Aug2020 to views-uk@hollandnumerics.org.uk.

Topics include:

  • Annoying SAS Programming Styles: I wrote Part 1 in issue 60 about indenting of SAS code. Do you have your own example of an annoying programming style, and how to fix it?
  • Event previews and reports.
  • Short articles on any SAS-related topics.

All the above examples will entitle the author to refer to themselves as a VIEWS Consultant!

There is also In Brief and Diary sections in each issue containing:

  • Links to interesting SAS-related web sites.
  • Announcements of SAS-related events occurring from mid-September onwards.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon…………..Phil

 

This blog site will be closed for scheduled maintenance between 21:00 and 22:00 (British Summer Time) on 07Aug2020

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This blog site will be closed for scheduled maintenance from 21:00 to around 22:00 (British Summer Time) on 07Aug2020:

  • 06:00 to around 07:00 (Melbourne)
  • 05:00 to around 06:00 (Tokyo)
  • 01:30 to around 02:30 (India)
  • 22:00 to around 23:00 (Western Europe)
  • 16:00 to around 17:00 (East Coast USA)
  • 13:00 to around 14:00 (West Coast USA)

The software “stack” that includes WordPress, PHP and mySQL needs to be upgraded to improve stability and security.

Thank you for your understanding!

Seeking recruiters for India or Europe! SAS-related Jobs from Recruiters in UK and US in August 2020

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Looking for a SAS-related job?

There are a number of SAS-related jobs in the SAS Jobs Listing this month in Europe, the UK and US, and the links are open to all site visitors:

  • UK: Pharmaceutical contract positions from CK Clinical.
  • UK: Pharmaceutical permanent positions from SQN Recruitment.
  • US: Pharmaceutical contract-to-hire positions from Advanced Clinical.

Please use the links in the SAS Jobs Listing to apply for these positions.

Recruiters

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 India and Europe, where nearly half of the registered blog members are located, but currently there are 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:

  1. The free trial will be extended by an additional calendar month only when a job is posted, and will expire automatically if no job has been posted in a calendar month.
  2. The posted jobs must be in some way SAS-related.

The current regional breakdown of registered blog members is as follows, but note that the SAS Jobs Listing is open to all site visitors:

  1. Indian sub-continent: 33.9% (241)
  2. The Americas: 23.9% (170)
  3. UK: 20.6% (146)
  4. Europe: 15.1% (107)
  5. Rest of the World: 6.5% (46)