In a world where write access to a folder or directory is controlled by permission settings at the operating system level, a ready answer for when you get the above message in your log when creating a SAS data set would be to check your access. However, if you are working in Windows and your access seems fine, then SAS’ generation of an access error message seems all the more perplexing. However, unlike the more black and white world of UNIX and Linux, Windows has other ways to change access that could throw things off from the straight and narrow. One of them, it would appear, is to right click on the file listing pane in Windows Explorer and select "Customize this folder…" to change how it appears. The strange upshot of this that a perpetual read-only flag is set for the folder in question and that flag triggers SAS authorisation errors; it’s all very strange and unexpected when you find it and deleting the folder and creating a new one, of course saving anything that you want to retain, is the quickest and easiest solution. In fact, it begs the question as why Microsoft are re-appropriating a flag used for access purposes to be used to determine whether the HTML components of a folder display have been changed or not. This is very strange stuff and does not look like good software design at all. With all the other problems the Microsoft create for themselves, I am not holding my breath until it’s fixed either. There seem to other things like this waiting to catch you out when using Windows SAS and good place to start is with SAS’ own description of the problem that I have just shared.

Windows system error codes can be indecipherable so it’s useful to have a list. Microsoft has one on its MSDN website that may help. However, the decodes may not as explicit as I would like but they’re better than nothing when you don’t get anything other than the number.

When you buy a piece of software and get accustomed to its ways of working, it is natural to want to continue using it. That applied to a number of applications when I moved over to Linux in the latter half of last year and one of these was Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 5.0, a purchase made earlier in the year. My way forward was to hang on to Windows by way of VMware. However, Elements fails to edit or save files in the Linux file system accessed through VMware’s shared folders feature. I have yet to work out what’s happening but the idea of using a more conventional networking arrangement has come to mind.

Another idea that intrigued me was the idea of using WINE, the Windows API emulator for Linux. You can get it in the Ubuntu and openSUSE software repositories but the WINE website has more to say on the subject. That’s only the first stage though as you might see from WINE’s Wiki page on Photoshop and its kind. However, their advice is a spot incomplete so I’ll make it more explicit here. You need to run Winetricks from its online home as follows:

wget kegel.com/wine/winetricks; sh winetricks fakeie6

wget kegel.com/wine/winetricks; sh winetricks mdac28

wget kegel.com/wine/winetricks; sh winetricks jet40

The first line flicks a switch to fool Microsoft components to install thinking that they are installing into a Windows system with IE on board. Without this, the rest will not happen. The second installs Microsoft’s native ODBC drivers; Elements will not function at all without these if my experience is any guide. The last step is to add JET support so that Elements’ Organiser can get going. With all of these in place, having a working Photoshop Elements instance under Linux should be a goer. Apart from the odd crash, things seem to be working OK on Ubuntu and openSUSE seems hospitable too. Further experimentation may reveal more.

Update: The WINE Wiki has now been updated (and links back here!). As per dank’s comment, the above lines can be condensed into what you see below:

wget kegel.com/wine/winetricks; sh winetricks fakeie6 mdac28 jet40

After what feels like an age, Adobe has finally seen fit to allow you to download tryouts of CS3 components and editions from their website. Bizarrely, they are offering to send you a demo DVD of one of the CS3 Web Premium and Design Premium editions on payment of $9.99; I assumed that this is U.S. only. I am not sure that I have heard of anyone charging for tryouts before, though I do remember Microsoft talking about levying a modest charge for downloading beta versions of the likes of Windows Vista and Office 2007.

If you have been here before, you may have noticed my posting frequency has gone down recently. Part of the reason for this is my taking on two big Vista-related issues that have attracted a lot of attention and wading through the various articles on the web has taken a lot of time. Finding out as much as possible about Vista licensing was certainly a challenge, thanks in no small part to Microsoft’s legalese, but it has been the DRM/HDCP issue that has really swallowed time on me; a passion-stirring topic that raises tempers is almost guaranteed to generate much discussion. Add to this the need to take care when considering such an impassioned subject and time really does fly by…

Addressing contentious issues that attract comments taking each which view has got me thinking about my blogging habits, particularly given that blogging is a hobby of mine and I have plenty of other things to be doing. As result, the post rate slowed down. If I wanted to continue like that, I could post more detailed entries once or twice a week and leave it at that. Or I could keep things short and frequent, say one post per day. Another idea is to have one long entry per week and shorter ones one per day for other days in the week. Now, that sounds like a good way to go.

A BBC report logs his impressions of Vista over a 24 hour period. A frequent Mac user, he comes away impressed.

Update: I have seen a post somewhere that slates the BBC for being pro-Microsoft; personally, I don’t think that they are any more biased than anyone else out there in the media. Maybe the gripe comes from a Linux or Mac fan…

A few days ago, I mused over buying OEM Vista if/when the time came for me to do upgrade. Then, I came to the conclusion that OEM was a no-no unless you bought it installed on a system. In an article on the PC Magazine website, things seem not to be as cut and dried as that. Apparently, the perceived wisdom is that if you are building a system for yourself and you agree to provide all support as the system builder to yourself as the system user, then everything is OK under the licence. Also, there seems to be a trend among resellers that it is not them who are subject to the terms of the licence but the customers who purchase the OEM software. It is all just a little bit confusing. Draw your own conclusions…

2007-01-30 (next Tuesday) is given as the date for Windows Vista’s launch to the wider world. It’s an expensive beast so I think that I’ll wait for a while and take the plunge when all the hype has died down. When compared with retail prices, it seems that a TechNet Plus subscription would be a good move, particularly as it would be useful to have an awareness of up and coming Microsoft Technology for my work. However, what looks really tempting is the OEM option. There are caveats with this, especially since Microsoft changed the licensing arrangements so that OEM Windows should only be bought installed on a complete PC. This has always been the case with its server and office software but buying a component such as a CPU or hard drive once was sufficient for OEM Windows. I suppose that I’ll keep waiting then…

With its imminent launch and having had a quick at one of its beta releases, I decided to give Office 2007 a longer look after it reached its final guise. This is courtesy of the demonstration version that can be downloaded from Microsoft’s website; I snagged Office Standard which contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Very generously, the trial version that I am using gives me until the end of March to come to my final decision.

And what are my impressions? Outlook, the application from the suite that I most use, has changed dramatically since Outlook 2002, the version that I have been using. Unless you open up an email in full screen mode, the ribbon interface so prevalent in other members of the Office family doesn’t make much of an appearance here. The three-paned interface taken forward from Outlook 2003 is easy to get around. I especially like the ability to collapse/expand a list of emails from a particular sender: it really cuts down on clutter. The ZoneAlarm anti-spam plug-in on my system was accepted without any complaint as were all of my PST files. One thing that needed redoing was the IMAP connection to my FastMail webmail account but that was driven more by Outlook warning messages than by necessity from a user experience point of view. I have still to get my Hotmail account going but I lost that connection when still using Outlook 2002 and after I upgraded to IE7.

What do I make of the ribbon interface? As I have said above, Outlook is not pervaded by the new interface paradigm until you open up an email. Nevertheless, I have had a short encounter with Word 2007 and am convinced that the new interface works well. It didn’t take me long to find my way around at all. In fact, I think that they have made a great job of the new main menu triggered by the Office Button (as Microsoft call it) and got all sorts of things in there; the list includes Word options, expanded options for saving files (including the new docx file format, of course, but the doc format has not been discarded either) and a publishing capability that includes popular blogs (Wordpress.com, for instance) together with document management servers. Additionally, the new zoom control on the bottom right-hand corner is much nicer than the old drop down menu. As regards the “ribbon”, this is an extension of the tabbed interfaces seen in other applications like Adobe HomeSite and Adobe Dreamweaver, the difference being that the tabs are only place where any function is found because there is no menu back up. There is an Add-ins tab that captures plug-ins to things like Adobe Distiller for PDF creation. Macromedia in its pre-Adobe days offered FlashPaper for doing the same thing and this seems to function without a hitch in Word 2007. Right-clicking on any word in your document not only gives you suggested corrections to misspellings but also synonyms (no more Shift-F7 for the thesaurus, though it is still there is you need it) and enhanced on-the-spot formatting options. A miniature formatting menu even appears beside the expected context menu; I must admit that I found that a little annoying at the beginning but I suppose that I will learn to get used to it.

My use of Outlook and Word will continue, the latter’s blogging feature is very nice, but I haven’t had reason to look at Excel or PowerPoint in detail thus far. From what I have seen, the ribbon interface pervades in those applications too. Even so, my impressions the latest Office are very favourable. The interface overhaul may be radical but it does work. Their changing the file formats is a more subtle change but it does mean that users of previous Office versions will need the converter tool in order for document sharing to continue. Office 97 was the last time when we had to cope with that and it didn’t seem to cause the world to grind to a halt.

Will I upgrade? I have to say that it is very likely given what is available in Office Home and Student edition. That version misses out on having Outlook but the prices mean that even buying Outlook standalone to compliment what it offers remains a sensible financial option. Taking a look at the retail prices on dabs.com confirms the point:

Office Home and Student Edition: £94.61

Office Standard Edition: £285.50

Office Standard Edition Upgrade: £175.96

Outlook 2007: £77.98

Having full version software for the price of an upgrade sounds good to me and it is likely to be the route that I take, if I replace the Office XP Standard Edition installation that has been my mainstay over the last few years. Having been on a Windows 95 > Windows 98 > Windows 98 SE > Windows ME upgrade treadmill and endured the hell raised when reinstallation becomes unavoidable, the full product approach to getting the latest software appeals to me over the upgrade pathway. In fact, I bought Windows XP Professional as the full product in order to start afresh after moving on from Windows 9x.

I have a free subscription to Microsoft’s Technet but with the onset of Vista and the latest issue dangles a carrot in front of me: the idea of a Technet Plus subscription. Trouble is that it is £283 per annum in the UK, not cheap. Nevertheless, that does rather neatly compare to the price of Windows Vista and that comes as part of the package. I think that I’ll revisit the idea when upgrading time comes and that will be a while after the Vista launch date of 30/1/2007. Given the security changes in the latest Windows incarnation, I’ll wait to ensure that I will not be put out too much before making the jump.