Programming

How to restart SAS server

More detailed instructions can be found here, but below are the steps I use. Note – All instructions assume the SAS is installed on a linux box, in /usr/local/, since that’s where it was installed on my machine. Stop all JBoss server instances /usr/local/jboss-5.1.0.GA/bin/SASServer1.sh stop Stop SAS processes /usr/local/config/Lev1/sas.servers stop Start SAS processes /usr/local/config/Lev1/sas.servers start (wait a couple of minutes) Start JBoss server instances /usr/local/jboss-5.1.0.GA/bin/SASServer1.sh start (wait about 5, 10… Read More »How to restart SAS server

Creating SAS Web Reports from an Oracle data source

Here’s a sparse set of instructions for the steps you need to take to configure SAS to access data from an Oracle data store and surface it through SAS Web Report Studio (as an example). Note that once it’s in a SAS format this can be used in any SAS product, and therefore means you can do all sorts of analytics on it. Hence the VA screenshot. Caveats – Please… Read More »Creating SAS Web Reports from an Oracle data source

Recursively list all files in Windows

  You’re probably familiar with dir, the windows command which lists all files in a certain directory. If you ever find the need (as I have) to recursively list every file in a directory, as well as all its sub-directories, you can do this by setting a couple of parameters on the dir command. dir /s /b Warning: This will output a lot of stuff, so I’d recommend piping the… Read More »Recursively list all files in Windows

Showing command history in UNIX with timestamps

A handy little command for checking the history of all commands executed through the UNIX command prompt for that user. history This will return you a numbered list of commands, oldest first. Note that by default, “history” will NOT show you timestamps, which can be very handy if investigating activity on a certain machine. To show history with timestamps, you’ll need to set up an evironment variable to store the… Read More »Showing command history in UNIX with timestamps

How to fix Oracle TNS Listener Issues

 A few times over the course of working with Oracle, I’ve come across environments which had issues making connections to databases set up across a network. These were failing with the error “ORA-12514: No TNS Listener”. I eventually found that to fix this, you need to follow the steps below: Install the Oracle Data Access Components (ODAC) on the machine attempting to make the connection Navigate to C:\app\<username>\product\<oracle_version>\client_1\Network\Admin\Sample (note that this… Read More »How to fix Oracle TNS Listener Issues

Search file contents in UNIX

I found myself having to search through the contents of a bunch of files in Unix the other day, and wanted to find a command to do it for me. Cue some Googling, and I found exactly what I was looking for here. find . -name “*” -exec grep -l “somestring” {} \;

Badly Formed Maven Project Error

I recently had an error loading a Java project in Netbeans – whenever I selected it, I’d get this: How to fix After some Googling, the fix appears to be commenting out the <parent> tag from the project’s pom.xml file. <!–<parent> <groupId>foo</groupId> <artifactId>bar</artifactId> <version>1.0.0</version> </parent>–> File this under “I have no idea how, but it fixes the problem”.

Click it Twice, Shame On You

We recently had an interesting discussion at work about our UI paradigms. Let’s assume we have an information management system which allows you to create, manipulate and link objects which represent, say, Persons and Dogs. Now assume that through a wizard, we allow a user to link a Person to a Dog as an “Owner”. Lastly, let’s imagine a scenario in which the Person is already linked to a Dog,… Read More »Click it Twice, Shame On You

But would they be neighbours like this?

The “Doors to Heaven and Hell” riddle. It’s an oldie and a goodie. I’m sure everyone’s pretty familiar with it, but in case you’re not here’s a quick recap: Bad news, you’ve just died. You find yourself in a nondescript hallway with two identical doors, each guarded by a man. You realise you’re holding a scrap of paper. It reads: 1. One of these doors leads to Heaven, one leads… Read More »But would they be neighbours like this?