Technoleros

BaseCamp is software to view and organize your maps, waypoints, routes, and tracks and send them to your Garmin device.  It works very similar to MapSource.  BaseCamp displays topographic map data in 2-D or 3-D on your computer screen, including elevation profiles. Then you can view and rotate the maps from any angle.

Features:

• View 24K or 100K topographic maps and other topographic data.
• Displays maps in 2-D or 3-D, including elevation profiles.
• View and rotate maps at any angle.
• Create waypoints and routes on your computer and transfer maps, waypoints, routes, tracks and geotagged photos between your computer and device.
• Transfers satellite images to your device (with the purchase of BirdsEye Satellite Imagery subscription).
• Shows animated playback of routes and tracks over time.
• Supports geotagged photos.
• Easily organize data into folders.
• Prints full-page, color maps.
• Exports user data for viewing in Google Earth.
• Includes advanced geocaching support; can import data from geocaching.com.

Changes made from version 3.0.1 to 3.0.2:

• Eliminated error messages at startup with blank SD cards.
• Fixed several printing related issues.
• Fixed issue when hovering over the 3D view after turning off lines or areas.
• Fixed issue when importing a KML file that didn’t contain any visible ground overlays.
• Fixed issue with track and route join.
• Fixed issue with track and route insert.
• Fixed issue with geotagged photos on devices not being read.

System Requirements

• BaseCamp requires an IBM-compatible PC running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later operating system or any Intel-based or PowerPC G4 or later Mac OS.
• Microsoft.NET framework 2.0 SP1 is required. A current version of .NET will be installed if needed.
• A video card that supports OpenGL version 1.3 or later is needed to view 3-D terrain.
• If you experience problems when interacting with the map views, please make sure that you have installed current video card drivers.

A strong point of SAS Enterprise Guide is that it interacts seamlessly with many data types using the Microsoft Jet Engine (Excel .xls, Access .mdb, dBase .dbf, Lotus.wk?, Paradox .db, and text files .txt .csv etc).  To provide even more flexibility, there are also a few different ways in Enterprise Guide to output data to Excel.  A user can export their data to Excel, export to Excel as a step in a project, or they can right-click on a data set and select Send To –> Microsoft Excel.  The latter is a convenient feature that many users are comfortable with, but in Enterprise Guide 4.1, your results might not be what you expect.

One data set that we were working with included a date variable which was stored as a DATE9. format.  A user complained that every time she exported the data it ended up in DATETIME format, and all of the zeroes from the time complicated her project.  I tried to replicate her problem many times by exporting the same data set into Excel and I ended up with DATE9. every time.  I finally asked her to send screen shots of what she was doing, and noticed what she called “export” was actually using “Send To –> Microsoft Excel”.  I explained that to get the results she wanted, she needed to use the “real” export technique.  After I solved this problem, I browsed to support.sas.com and sure enough, SAS had already identified this issue in Microsoft Excel might not maintain date formats in SAS Enterprise Guide.  Apparently this issue is fixed in Enterprise Guide 4.2 but I have not tested it yet.

I was one of the unfortunate ones who was unable to attend the SAS Global Forum in Seattle last week.  Thanks to discussion forums, blogs, and Twitter, I was able to keep up with a lot that was going on.  I was particularly interested in some of the new features that will be available in the next version (4.3) of Enterprise Guide, which is scheduled to be available this summer.  Below are some of the features that were mentioned:

• context sensitive keyword completion (syntax suggestion)
• relative file addressing
• code reverse engineering (see what old code is doing)
• an autoexec process flow for projects (runs automatically when project is opened)
• code analyzer (reads a program and turns it into a process flow)

I also had the opportunity to preview some of the new features in the upcoming version of Web Report Studio (4.3).  SAS is expanding drag and drop capabilities, which makes creation of report even easier.  The biggest news though is the ability to use more than one data source in a report section!

SAS recently released Hotfix 41EG14 for Enterprise Guide 4.1.  The hotfix resolves issues identified in:

• Problem Note 39149: The SAS Enterprise Guide editor’s width of caret position panel within the status bar does not accommodate for large row and column number schemes
• Problem Note 38003: Unable to edit existing parameter in SAS® Enterprise Guide®

Enterprise Guide 4.1 Hot Fix 41EG14 (183)

I have had to add Group Content Administrators to my SAS 9.2 Intelligence Platform a few times now, and it didn’t work as smoothly the last time due to my inability to read ALL of the steps and accompanying notes.  The process of configuring a Group Content Administrator in the Information Delivery Portal is well documented in the SAS 9.2 Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration Guide, Third Edition and Angela Hall blogged about the process here, so I should have had enough information to correctly make this happen, right?  Well, there is a handy tip that I want to point out.  I had some developers who have read/write access to much of the metadata in our system.  I added some of these users to be Group Content Creators of the Public group following Steps 1-10 below.  Since these developers had inherited Read/Write Metadata permissions from higher up the tree in metadata, they already had implicit WriteMetadata ability.  When they attempted to add new portal pages for the Public group, Public not not available to share the page to.  Why?  Well, after Step 9 there is an important note titled “Important Note” that I somehow missed.  The note states to ensure the WriteMetadata permission is explicit.  To change this permission from implicit to explicit, an administrator merely needs to click the check the WriteMetadata checkbox one more time (it is already checked, but needs to be checked again).  In my defense, I was originally working from the First Edition of the Web Application Administration Guide, where “Important” was not in front of the word note and it was also not in bold text!

from support.sas.com:

Configure a Group Content Administrator

A group content administrator is a user who has WriteMetadata permission for the respective group, and the group’s Portal permission tree. A group content administrator can share personal content with the group, and can edit or remove content that has been shared with the group. (The SAS administrator and the SAS Trusted User has WriteMetadata permission for all group permission trees that are defined in metadata.)

Prerequisites: Before you can assign a content administrator for a group, all of the following must be true:

• The person who will be a content administrator must have a user identity that is defined in SAS metadata.
• This user identity must be a member of the group that the person will administer.
• A group permission tree folder must exist in metadata for the group. To verify that a permission tree folder exists, or to create one, see Overview of Permission Tree Folders.

To configure a group content administrator for the Portal Application Permissions tree, follow these steps:

1. Log on to SAS Management Console as the SAS Administrator (sasadm).
2. On the Plug-ins tab in SAS Management Console, navigate to Environment Management –> Authorization Manager –> Resource Management –> By Type –> Tree.
3. Right-click on the permissions tree for the group and select Properties.
4. In the permissions tree properties dialog box, select the Authorization tab.
5. Select the Add button to display the Add Users and Groups dialog box.
6. In the Add Users and Groups dialog box, select and move the group content administrator under Available Identities to Selected Identities. Note that the group content administrator must be a person, and not a group.
7. Click OK to exit the dialog box.
8. When you return to the Authorization tab, make sure the appropriate user is selected in the Users and Groups list box.
9. To modify the permissions for the selected user, in the permissions list row for the WriteMetadata permission, select Grant.
   Important Note: Ensure that the permission is explicit. The check box for a permission that comes from a directly assigned access control entry (ACE) has no added background color. If the check box for a permission has a background color, to remove the background color and designate the permission as a directly assigned permission, click the check box again.
10. In the properties dialog box, click OK to save your changes.

The user that was configured as a group content administrator can now log on to the portal and share personal content with that group.

WordPress is a great blogging tool and does an adequate job handling comments, but if you want to provide enhanced discussion capability among your sites users, you must install additional software.  The WordPress developers have created bbPress to fill this purpose, and in doing so also added the ability to integrate the two tools on one web site.  The key components that are integrated include users, cookies, and the back-end database.

Integration the two products was amazing easy – except for three items needed by bbPress installation.  bbPress asked for WordPress "auth" cookie salt (AUTH_KEY), WordPress "secure auth" cookie salt (SECURE_AUTH_KEY), and WordPress "logged in" cookie salt (LOGGED_IN_KEY).  The scant documentation insisted that these values were located in my wp-config.php file located in the root of my WordPress installation directory.  Since my initial WordPress installation was at version 2.6 or so and has been upgraded many times to version 2.91, these values were never added to my wp-config.php file.

My bbPress installation was halted essentially because these values were required to proceed.  Fortunately, I found a tool at wordpress.org that generates these values for you: https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/.  Just use this link, copy the four lines of keys, and paste them into your wp-config.php.  Save your updated wp-config.php file, then go back to your bbPress installation page and paste the keys into the appropriate text boxes and the remaining portion of the installation should go smoothly.

More information about this process can be found here.

It has been four months since Garmin has updated it MapSource Windows-based mapping software.  MapSource is included with the purchase of a Garmin map on DVD or CD. Features include:

• Back up important trip data separately from your Garmin device.
• Plan routes from the convenience of your computer instead of on your device.
• Create, view, and edit waypoints, routes, and tracks.
• Plan extensive or complicated routes, in which you travel to several locations in an order you specify.
• Transfer waypoints, routes and tracks between your computer and your device.
• Transfer selected map from your computer to your device.
• Find items, addresses and points of interest included in the map data.
• View your maps in detail on your computer screen.

You can even download a MapSource tutorial at http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/mapsourceTutorial.html.

Changes made from version 6.15.7 to 6.15.11:

• Improved performance for custom draw elements.
• Made sure waypoints of type ‘Geotagged Photo’ don’t crash MapSource.
• Allowed the import and export of unlock codes.
• Made sure unlocking changes get propagated without needing to restart the application.
• Phone numbers that were imported from gpx files were not written back out again. This is now fixed.
• Added support for enhanced map security.
• Fixed unlocking issue.
• Implemented Asian 6-level address search.
• Improved trimming performance for some Asian map products.

After a successful installation of SAS Enterprise BI Server on my Sun Servers, a certain amount of time is spent modifying configuration files and backup scripts, as well as browsing log files.  I use the vi editor to accomplish the editing.  I used used vi a lot back when all of my GIS work was performed in the UNIX environment, but once the Intel hardware matured and the GIS tools because available on Windows, I thought I would be able to forget all about the UNIX command line.  Wrong.  I’m back there again, but now I’m armed with a cheat sheet:

Working with files

Moving around in the file

Inserting and overwriting text

Deleting text

Undo and redo

There are obviously many more Vim commands out there.  Typically if I find myself in a situation where extensive modifications need to be made with a text editor, I will use Crimson Editor on Windows.

The list of commands above are a subset of The Vim commands cheat sheet – 1.2.

from support.sas.com…

The following considerations apply to SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2 customers who have used SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1 or earlier releases.

• Support for SAS Enterprise Guide repositories has been discontinued; all metadata must be stored in a SAS Metadata Repository.
• Servers are no longer administered through SAS Enterprise Guide Explorer, and must now be administered using SAS Management Console. For information about administering servers, see the online Help for SAS Management Console.
• Users and user groups are no longer administered through SAS Enterprise Guide Explorer, and must now be administered using SAS Management Console. For information about administering users, see the online Help for SAS Management Console.
• The project format has changed from earlier releases. To change the format, you must either open each project in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.2 or use the Migration Wizard for SAS Enterprise Guide and the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. You must also use the migration wizard to import the metadata changes that occurred during the BI migration from SAS 9.1.3 to SAS 9.2. For more information, see "Using the Migration Wizard" in Administering SAS Enterprise Guide.
• Tasks are no longer enabled or disabled for user groups, so any task assignments for SAS Enterprise Guide users are not maintained. Any restrictions on SAS Enterprise Guide tasks must be made through roles, and administered through SAS Management Console. For information about using roles in SAS Enterprise Guide, see "Administering Role-Based Settings" in Administering SAS Enterprise Guide and the online Help for SAS Management Console.

You probably have many SAS data sets that you regularly work with where numbers are stored as text for formatting purposes.  A great example is the social security number, and many other customer, product, or invoice numbers are formatted similarly.  They frequently utilize leading zeros in their storage and display.  You probably also frequently receive data from colleagues where the same variable is formatted as a numeric value missing the leading zeros.  The join that you were going to do with your data and the data received from the colleague just won’t work.  Here is a little SAS code that can turn your colleague’s data into a match for yours, and I’ll use social security number (SSN) in this example:

By creating a new Character variable of SSN, I can simply put the Numeric SSN with Z9. format into the variable.

The format Z9. states the variable should be 9-bytes, and for each byte less than 9, put a leading zero in front of the var.

No strip or trim is necessary either.

I used this in the past with a transaction number I was creating (numeric) and later wanted to display it in a title with leading zeros [Example:  had 123 as the value, put it with a Z10. and the display in the title was 0000000123].

Thanks to Paula for showing me this trick!