Registration is now open for the 2008 NESUG Annual Conference and Educational Forum - September 14 - 17 in Pittsburgh, PA. No matter what your experience level with SAS, this educational forum will help improve your programming skills and get the most out of your SAS applications.

Conference sections include:

Expert SAS users will be on hand to help you solve programming problems, demonstrate software features and gather information on your needs for future software releases. We'll also be offering optional in-depth learning opportunities at Pre- Conference Training Sessions and Sunday Workshops. And as always, there will be networking events for meeting, greeting and getting to know your SAS colleagues.

It's the ultimate SAS learning experience - and, at just $450 per person (early registration), the best value in SAS education! Register by July 23rd and SAVE $100.

Here are just a few of the presentations and workshops available at the 2008 NESUG Annual Conference and Educational Forum:

Best Practices in SAS Statistical Programming for Regulatory Submission: A comprehensive and intense course on effective methods for producing standard and custom summary tables for the validation process.

From Play-doh to Real Dough: Helping Students Develop Strong SAS Skills to Jump Start Their Careers in Analytics: From the Administration and Support section, where experts will share keys to enjoying a changing world.

A Tiptoe Through the Tagset Field: From the And Now Presenting... section, where you'll learn elegant and creative ways to gather and display data.

10 Things a Beginner Should Know Before Writing a SAS Program: One of the tutorial-style presentations from our Foundations and Fundamentals section.

The Plot Thickens from PLOT to GPLOT: One of many workshops where you can work along with the instructor on the compupter.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In the interests of saving paper and reducing costs, we will not mail the Registration Book this year. It is available as a PDF on the NESUG web site. It includes all the information about the conference including the list of papers, posters and workshops. You can download and print all of it, or only the portions you need.

The Hilton Pittsburgh, the conference hotel, is ideally located in downtown Pittsburgh and adjacent to Point State Park and Pittsburgh's famed Three Rivers. At the gateway to the Cultural District, the Hilton Pittsburgh hotel is close to fine dining, sporting events and a wide variety of entertainment. PNC Park, Heinz Field, theatres, museums, and shopping are within easy walking distance.

Outside of the downtown area you'll find sculpture gardens, the Warhol Museum, the Mattress Factory and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Outdoor activities include kayaking on the three rivers and bicycling on city bike trails.

The NESUG website has links to some of the most popular Pittsburgh attractions, as well as detailed information on the conference hotel.

Bruce has been a presenter at the NESUG Annual Conference for years and will be joining us again in September.

If your application changes the value of SAS options, good programming practice is to save the existing option values at the beginning of the application and restore them at the end. You can use the following procedures.

/* PROC OPTSAVE saves the current SAS system option settings in the SAS registry or a SAS data set. * PROC OPTLOAD reads SAS system option settings that are stored in the SAS registry or a SAS data set and puts them into effect.

This tip shows how to save the value of the LINESIZE option in a SAS data set, change the LINESIZE value, and restore the original value.*/

/* Print the current (default) linesize, which is platform and possibly version-specific, in the SAS log. Examples: 80 (Linux) or 96 (Windows). */

proc options option=ls; run;

/* Save current option values in a SAS data set */

proc optsave out=myoptions; run;

/* Display the data set with saved values. In Linux and Window SAS Version 9.1.3, this data set has 189 observations. This could differ in other releases or operating systems. It has two variables: OPTNAME and OPTVALUE. */

proc print data=myoptions; run;
proc contents data=myoptions; run;

/* Change option value */

options ls=120; run;

/* The current linesize, 120, is printed in the SAS log. */

proc options option=ls; run;

/* Restore old option values, including LINESIZE */

proc optload data=myoptions; run;

/* The current linesize, which is the value that was saved earlier, is printed in the SAS log. */

proc options option=ls;run;

/* Saved options can be selectively recalled, as in the following example. Care must be taken to spell the option name exactly as written (e.g., LINESIZE, not LS. UPCASE(optname) might be helpful to prevent case issues). */

/* Change option value, print it */

options ls=160; run;
proc options option=ls; run;

/* Restore stored value of option, print it */

proc optload data=myoptions (where = (optname="LINESIZE")); run;
proc options option=ls; run;

If you've never attended a NESUG Annual Conference, you're missing out on a great experience. It's a chance to meet some great people and gain a tremendous about of knowledge about SAS. You'll have a terrific time, and you'll be a better SAS programmer when it's over.

If you're a conference veteran, you already know what a valuable experience it is. Take your participation up a notch this year by volunteering. The conference is run entirely by volunteers, so we need lots of people willing to pitch in for a couple of hours. It's fun, and it's a great way to meet new people. Volunteer Coordinator Christianna Williams would love to have your help. Sign up today by e-mailing her at Christianna_Williams@ABTASSOC.COM.