Recent posts

I have Retired, the Sun is Shining, and the World has not Ended!! 10 Ways to Get the Most SAS Value from my Retirement…

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To me retirement only means not earning a salary from my SAS programming, which will, from now on, become a pure hobby. I will also be concentrating on programming using Altair Analytics Workbench and Altair SLC, rather than using SAS Software.

However, there are still ways for everyone to get SAS Value from my 40+ years of SAS programming:

No.1 = 1/2 day SAS training, including digital training materials, for GBP 1,800

No.2 = 1 month of confidential online support with unlimited questions for GBP 720

No.3 = 1 hour of 1-to-1 SAS video discussion for GBP 100

  • Book your hour of SAS video discussion.
  • Video discussions use Jitsi Meet, which is limited to 100 participants.
  • Topics include:
    • Base SAS syntax
    • Base SAS functions
    • Base SAS formats and informats
    • Base SAS procedures
    • Data step merging
    • PROC SQL syntax
    • PROC SQL merging
    • PROC SQL updating
    • Macro introduction
    • Macro syntax
    • Macro variables
    • ODS Graphics introduction
    • ODS Graphics procedures
    • Altair Analytics Workbench and Altair SLC introduction

No.4 = 1 confidential remote question for GBP 72

No.5 = 1 ebook copy of course notes to one of my SAS courses from around GBP 11

  • My SAS course notes are published as ebooks on Lulu.com, who, unlike Amazon, etc., do not take massive commissions, so I receive most of the published price.
  • See my Book Table for more details.

No.6 = 1 ebook copy of one of my SAS books directly from my blog site for around GBP 12.50

  • “Saving Time and Money using SAS” is no longer sold in softback, but you can download the ebook directly from my blog site.
  • See my Book Table for details of this and other ebooks.
  • More ebooks about Altair SLC are currently being developed.

No.8 = 3 months of subscription to the SAS Programming Forum, including access to my online SAS course collection, for 3 x GBP 5

  • Details of what the SAS Programming Forum is can be found here.
  • See how to subscribe to the SAS Programming Forum, including my online SAS course collection, here.

No.8 = 1 copy of one of my SAS paperback books from around GBP 10.25 or SAS ebooks from around GBP 4.75 from Lulu.com

  • See my Book Table for more details.
  • More books and ebooks about Altair SLC are currently being developed.

No.9 = 1 copy of one of my SAS softback books from a reseller from around GBP 25

  • Although these options appear to be lower in the list than expected, I receive very little from softback books sold, because I received an advance when they were published.
  • See my Book Table for more details.
  • More books about Altair SLC are currently being developed.

No.10 = 1 copy of one of my SAS ebooks from a reseller from around GBP 3

  • Although these options appear to be lower in the list than expected, I receive very little from ebooks sold by resellers, because I received an advance when they were published.
  • See my Book Table for more details.

New advice when registering as a blog member

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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: Join Now Button

2nd Edition paperbacks now have 30% discounts on Lulu.com in “odd” months

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The original editions only included details of the 2024 versions of Altair SLC, but with the release of 2025 versions of Altair SLC, it seemed right to revise my SAS Programming Experiences and Altair SLC paperbacks and ebooks to include the new features of Altair SLC 2025.

Some of the windows in Altair Analytics Workbench have changed significantly between 2024 and 2025, but the major difference you will see is that the 2nd Editions will be available shortly on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Ingram, etc.

However, please do not buy these editions there, as the resellers inflate their prices, but wait for discounted prices for the paperbacks on Lulu.com starting on 01Jul2025 (which should be in every “odd” month: Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep and Nov, from 1st to 30th each month), or download the equivalent ebooks instead from the Book Table, which is where the lowest prices for paperbacks and ebooks can always be found.

You may ask why I am discounting the book prices. I consider the discounted paperbacks on Lulu.com and discounted downloads on this site to be a win-win: you pay a much lower price and I get a higher royalty payment!!

Please support your independent authors and publishers! Thank you.

VIEWS News 79 (2025Q2) has been published!

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VIEWS News issue 79 has now been published.

This newsletter is the home of Foundation SAS and brings you information about making the most of SAS 9 and Altair SLC. This issue is another one that has been delayed, but this time due to software issues on my blog server, which have now been resolved. This newsletter issue includes an updated InfoGeographic map from LeRoy Bessler, and I have discovered a database of pirated books and papers and written an open letter to Meta, who used it to train its AI assistant. I have also published a 2nd Edition of my “SAS Programming Experiences” and “Altair SLC” paperbacks and ebooks, which include the updates found in Altair SLC 2025, and have explained how to get copies at the best available prices. 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, to re-visit and improve an existing article, or just discuss the possibility of doing so, please feel free to send an email to me at view-uk@hollandnumerics.org.uk or phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk. Publication deadlines are the 14th day of February, May, August and November each year.

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

2nd Edition paperback books of “SAS Programming Experiences” and “Altair SLC” have been published today

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2nd Edition paperback book versions of my 2024 books, “SAS Programming Experiences” and “Altair SLC”, have been published today on Lulu.com. They will also be available shortly for global distribution (including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.).

The Second Edition of each book now includes information about both the 2024 and 2025 releases of Altair SLC, and have been reviewed by Altair specialists.

Follow the links below for more details:

Please note that the paperback book prices are now 100% higher than for the 1st Editions, because Amazon and other resellers charge much higher distribution fees. Prices of the ebooks are unchanged for the 2nd Editions. However, I will endeavour to apply discounted prices regularly on Lulu.com and this blog, which will be advertised on the Book Table web page.

Have you noticed that this blog site is unavailable at the same time each day?

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Every day the server has downtime for a backup, and I have found that, if the blog server is closed for that period, it is more stable during the rest of the day.

This is the schedule during British Summer Time in the UK (from the end of March to the end of October), compared to an approximate time in other time zones:

BST
(UK)		CEST
(Paris France)		IST (India)CST
(China)		AEST
(Sydney Australia)		PDT
(Seattle USA)		EDT
(Toronto Canada)
0215-02450315-03450645-07150915-09451115-11451815-18452115-2145

This is the schedule during Greenwich Mean Time in the UK (from the end of October to the end of March), compared to an approximate time in other time zones:

GMT
(UK)		CET
(Paris France)		IST
(India)		CST
(China)		AEDT
(Sydney Australia)		PST
(Seattle USA)		EST
(Toronto Canada)
0215-02450315-03450745-08151015-10451315-13451815-18452115-2145

Apologies for the downtime, but I bought a bigger, better server for my blog site! What could possibly go wrong?

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My previous server was a Gen8 ProLiant server from HP, and I had been running my blog on it since October 2015. I found a Gen10+ ProLiant server with the same configuration of drives, but with processing power x2 and memory x4, at a very reasonable price. I considered the upgrade to be just plug-and-play, but I had forgotten that, even though all the drives would be from the old server, the BIOS was different!!

I am currently running Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS, which works on ProLiant servers, but requires specific BIOS settings:

  • Ubuntu Server 20.04 prefers to have a Legacy BIOS.
  • HP’s Intelligent Provisioning is incompatible with Ubuntu Server, so has to be disabled.
  • My fiddling with the UEFI BIOS and Intelligent Provisioning reordered the drives, so my SDA became SDE for /boot, SDB became SDA for / and /home, SDC became SDB for /mnt and /mnt/home, SDD became SDC for /var1 and /opt1, and SDE became SDB for /mnt/var1 and /mnt/opt1. However, there were also many other variations until the server finally booted with all of the drives visible.

Anyway, barring some brief outages for teething problems, my blog server should now be quicker and more stable.

In the next few weeks look out for the following:

  • Second editions of my recent books can be downloaded at discounted prices until 31May2025 from the Book Table.
  • Issue 79 of VIEWS News is scheduled for publication around the end of May 2025. Issue 78 was published earlier this month.
  • The GA release of Altair SLC 2025 was published earlier this month.

Sale price of downloaded ebooks has been reduced by GBP 1.00 today until 31May2025

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Today I set up new sale prices for downloading the 2nd editions of my latest ebooks (see ‘2nd Edition ebooks of “SAS Programming Experiences” and “Altair SLC” have been published today’).

From today until 31May2025 the sale prices for downloading these ebooks from my blog site will be GBP 1.00 less than usual:

Remember that this sale will end automatically on 31May2025 (UK time)!!

Enjoy………….Phil

2nd Edition ebooks of “SAS Programming Experiences” and “Altair SLC” have been published today

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2nd Edition ebook versions of my 2024 books, “SAS Programming Experiences” and “Altair SLC”, have been published today on Lulu.com and my blog site. Paperback versions will be published shortly on Lulu.com and for global distribution (including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.).

The Second Edition of each book now includes information about both the 2024 and 2025 releases of Altair SLC.

Follow the links below for more details:

Did you download the First Edition ebook from my blog site? If you did, then please find your confirmation email for that ebook, because the download link will now download the Second Edition at no extra cost!!

VIEWS News 78 (2025Q1) has been published!

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VIEWS News issue 78 has now been published.

This newsletter is the home of Foundation SAS and brings you information about making the most of SAS 9 and Altair SLC. This issue is another one that has been delayed, but this time due to software issues on my blog server, which have now been resolved. This newsletter issue includes an InfoGeographic map from LeRoy Bessler, and I have discovered an AI assistant that seems to write working SAS programs. 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, to re-visit and improve an existing article, or just discuss the possibility of doing so, please feel free to send an email to me at view-uk@hollandnumerics.org.uk or phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk. Publication deadlines are the 14th day of February, May, August and November each year.

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

Finally? My blog site is starting to behave itself again!

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I have been wondering whether my blog site issue posts should have had different subject lines:

  • “The Day after Tomorrow”
  • “Pride and Prejudice”
  • “The Abyss”
  • “The Temple of Doom”
  • and the final one: “The Great Escape”

I have fixed numerous problem along the way, all with no prior experience with Docker, but the main ones have been:

  • Obtaining a static IP address from my ISP.
  • Conversion of my server functions into separate Docker containers.
  • Building a user-specific Docker image with Apache2 and Perl for the “other” folders outside of WordPress.
  • Adding DNS server addresses to Docker.
  • Removing access restrictions to the /tmp areas of the databases.

I think I can say with more confidence that my blog site is becoming robust enough to be able to support my retirement next week! Yes, by the start of April 2025 I will have officially retired, but this site will still be up-and-running!

After a day without my blog, I value the time to remind you that I am retiring at the end of 31Mar2025

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Yes, I am retiring from paid contracts on 31Mar2025, and my company (Holland Numerics Ltd) will be closed in a few months time.

However, retiring will never be as stressful as the blog server downtime (now resolved!) I experienced this weekend! I have been trying to create a “low maintenance” environment for my blog and ancillary activities, and I want to leave my blog members and clients still able to:

Asking questions can be done in a number of ways:

All this will continue, but will be supported by just myself, and not my company, after my retirement.

My blog is now fully functional, but only thanks to my Docker experience over the last few weeks!

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Previously I stated that my blog site was back and running (My blog is back, but all of your saved links will need to be updated…), but it was not at that time fully functional, due to my ongoing learning about Docker functionality.

I can now state that my blog is up and running, because, while my Docker knowledge is still incomplete, my Docker knowledge is now sufficient to setup 3 separate containers for WordPress, ownCloud (which I use internally), and Apache2/Perl that is use to provide you with web games, web ebook apps, SAS help desk functionality and additional files related to my books.

I tried to add my games/apps/helpdesk to WordPress (which is accessed using https://), but, apparently, they are not compatible, so I had to create a new Docker container for them (which is accessed using http://). The helpdesk is still secure, even though there is no password, as I only send copy emails to the sender email address if it is registered, so anyone spoofing an email address will receive nothing.

I am hoping that blog members will now be able to visit my blog site, and prove to themselves that it works for them, and, if it does not work, then will use the Contact Us link on the blog site to let me know.