I ran into some trouble with creating new templates and styles while running a SAS job in batch mode. The cause was the user of the RSASUSER switch on the SAS command. This sets the SASUSER library to be read-only and that is what is used to store new templates and styles by default. The fix is to switch these to another library to which there is write access, WORK, for example. Here’s the line of code that achieves the manoeuvre:

ODS PATH work.templat(update) sasuser.templat(read) sashelp.tmplmst(read);

Apparently, the same change might be needed for stored processes too so it’s one to keep in mind.

Here’s a trick that might have its uses: using a local WordPress instance to update your online blog (yes, there are plenty of applications that promise to edit your online blog but these need file permissions to the likes of xmlrpc.php to be opened up). Along with the right database access credentials and the ability to log in remotely, adding the following two lines to wp-config.php does the trick:

define(’WP_SITEURL’, ‘http://localhost/blog’);

define(’WP_HOME’, ‘http://localhost/blog’);

These two constants override what is in the database and allow to update the online database from your own PC using WordPress running on a local web server (Apache or otherwise). One thing to remember here is that both online and offline directory structures are similar. For example, if your online WordPress files are in blog in the root of the online web server file system (typically htdocs for Linux), then they need to be contained in the same directory in the root of the offline server too. Otherwise, things could get confusing and perhaps messy. Another thing to consider is that you are modifying your online blog so the usual rules about care and attention apply, particularly with respect to using the same version of WordPress both locally and remotely. This is especially a concern if you, like me, run development versions of WordPress to see if there are any upheavals ahead of us like the overhaul that is coming in with WordPress 2.7.

An alternative use of this same trick is to keep a local copy of your online database in case of any problems while using a local WordPress instance to work with it. I used to have to edit the database backup directly (on my main Ubuntu system), first with GEdit but then using a sed command like the following:

sed -e s/www\.onlinewebsite\.com/localhost/g backup.sql > backup_l.sql

The -e switch uses regular expression substitution that follows it to edit the input with the output being directed to a new file. It’s slicker than the interactive GEdit route but has been made redundant by defining constants for a local WordPress installation as described above.

Ubuntu development is so gradual these days that there’s almost no point getting too excited about new versions. Its being a mature Linux distribution means that updates aren’t that much of an upheaval and I must admit to liking it than way. Taking a look at the first alpha release of Ubuntu 9.04, otherwise known as “Jaunty Jackalope”, it seems that there isn’t a change to that gradual, some may call it glacial, approach. The biggest change that I noted was the addition of an encrypted private area to your home user area. In the times in which we live, I can certainly see that coming in useful though it may not set pulses racing in some quarters. OpenOffice is still at 2.4 and things don’t appear very different on the surface at all. Of course, things like kernel changes and such like could be going on under the bonnet without many of us noticing it.Saying that, it played well with VirtualBox and I seem to remember virtual machine trouble with early builds of 8.10 so that can be taken as a plus point. I suppose that it is a case of wait and see before there is anything more obviously defining about 9.04. Anyway, they’ve got until April next year…

It was just over a year ago that I gave Linux a go after Windows XP gave me a torrid time of it. Since then, I have been able to work more than happily with it and have picked a few new and useful tricks along the way too. All in all, it has been a good experience and I have been able to resolve most of the issues that I have seen. The various Ubuntu upgrades along the way have been taken in their stride too. Version 7.04 was the first one with 7.10 following on immediately afterwards. 8.04 went in equally seamlessly as did 8.10. Some may decry what they might perceive as the glacial nature of any changes but the flip-side is that change can cause disruption so my vote is for the more gradual approach, whatever others might think. In line with this, I haven’t noticed too many changes in Ubuntu’s latest release and any that I have seen have been of the pleasant kind. Saying that, it’s so much better than the contortions surrounding Windows upgrades. All in all, Linux is being kind to me and I hope that it stays that way.

In recent days, I have been playing around with Photoshop Elements 7, doing the same sort of things that I have been doing with Elements 5. Reassuringly, I can still find my way around, even if the screen furniture has been moved about a little. My Pentax K10D is recognised and I am able to set white balance to get sensible results. On the images that I was testing, things started to look too warm in the Cloudy and Shade settings but that’s all part and parcel of processing photos taken in early November. The results of my exertions look decent enough and you can see them in a post on my hillwalking blog.

I realise that Adobe has been promoting the ability to easily airbrush unwanted objects from images and enhance blue skies but there’s no point having all of that if functionality available in previous versions does not work as expected. Thankfully, this is largely the case but there are a few niggles. I have working the new Elements on a Windows XP SP3 virtual machine running in VirtualBox 2.04 on Ubuntu 8.10 so I don’t know if that contributed in any way to what I encountered. One gigabyte of memory is allocated to the VM. The files were stored in the Ubuntu file system and accessed using VirtualBox’s functionality for connecting through to the host file system. File access was fine but I was unable to directly open a file for full editing from the Organiser, something that I have doing very happily with Elements 5. I also noted a certain instability in the application and using the hand tool to get to the top left hand corner of an image sent the thing into a loop, again something that Elements 5 never does. Otherwise, things work as they should but what I saw points to the need for an update to correct any glitches like these and I hope that there is one. For now, I will persevere and see if I can make use of any additional functionality along the way.

There is already a post on here devoted to version 1.0 of this plugin and that very much tells you what it does. The new version will work with the forthcoming WordPress 2.7 (itself a release that’s had a development cycle with such upheavals that it would make you want to watch from the relative safety of the sidelines) and has been made to be a little more user friendly in its actions; in fact, it behaves more like any other plugin now.

Download Remove Revisions 2.2