The most excellent Strange Maps blog has just published an article about The Guardian's fondly remembered 1977 April Fool supplement on the island of San Serriffe.

(Well, I say fondly remembered, though I do not personally remember the, fondly or otherwise, seeing as I was only rising one at the time. Over the years I became aware of it, though, by way of the 1999 reboot of the spoof, and also in much the same osmotic way as I know about the Tomorrow's World piece on spaghetti trees.)

Talking of fake-stories-as-Grauniad-news, I am reminded of the (and correct me if I am wrong) 1976 piece the paper published in which a reporter related the story of his chance encounter with a member of the SAS on a train.

The journalist - a sceptic of the British military strategy in Northern Ireland - had recently been writing about the deployment of SAS troops to the province, and in none too complimentary terms. IIRC he suggested they were swaggering cowboys who offered little to the peaceful resolution of the Troubles.

And lo, by complete serendipity he happened to meet one such soldier (in civvies) on an InterCity, who, during the course of a spontaneously-struck up conversation, turned out to be articulate, erudite, and anything but macho. His opinions on British policy in Ulster shifted slightly, and he wrote up the story for the paper.

Then many years later it transpired that the whole 'chance encounter' had been a psyops fabrication; the journalist had been picked out as a possible target and a well-briefed and affable serviceman been placed on a train he was known to be travelling on in order to casually strike up a conversation with a view to modifying his opinions.

I've no idea whether that is a true story, as I can't remember where I read it. Perhaps I imagined it? But it sounds like it might be a Colin Wallace one. I know the original story exists, as I read it in one of those Guardian Yearbook thingummies which they used to publish.

Can anyone fill in the details? The source of this tale swimming round my rapidly-shrinking brain? The journalist it seems to be about? The year, even?

Scoring new observations without changing the cluster assignment rules can be achieved by using a SEED dataset in PROC FASTCLUS.

/*original clustering */

%let indsn = input;  *your input dataset;
%let nclus = maxclus; *number of clusters to request;
%let indvars = varlist; *independent variables to run proc fastclus on;
%let valid = val_data; *validation dataset to score;

proc fastclus data=&indsn maxclusters = &nclus outseed= clusterSeeds;
var &indvars;
run;

/*scoring new observations using the seed dataset */
proc fastclus data=&valid  out=&valid._scored seed = clusterSeeds maxclusters = &nclus maxiter = 0;
var &indvars;
run;

Reference:
"Data Preparation for Analytics Using SAS" By Gerhard Svolba, Gerhard Svolba, Ph.D.

Dünyada üzerine kuvvet tanınmayacak Türk ordusunun deniz kuvvetlerine ait bazı fotoğraflar gördüm. İnsanın tüylerini diken diken eden, boğazımıza birşeylerin düğümlenmesine neden olan ve çoğumuzun gururlanmasına neden olan fotoğraflar bunlar.

Omurgasını SAT ve SAS komandolarının oluşturduğu Türk Deniz Kuvvetleri’nde komando olarak görev yapan askerlerimizin tatbikat sırasında verdiği pozları konu edinen bu fotoğraflar eşsiz bir haz verdi bana. Vatanımız böylesine güçlü kuvvetlere emanet olduktan sonra gözümüzün arkada kalmasına hiç ama hiç gerek yok…

Resimlerin tamamını görmek için şuraya bakabilirsiniz.

Kudos to Editor-in-Chief Carol Wilson, marketing chief Kim Brower, all the editors including Rich Karpinski, Kevin Fitchard, Sarah Reedy, Ed Gubbins and the entire cast of Telephony magazine for doing a stupendous job on what I believe is the second time for this conference. Congratulations Carol and team !! Great job and I look forward to more of these in the future.

First on the panel I participated in :

I was in the panel "Service Gets Personal" along with some other distinguished telecom execs - Nancy Kaplan from SECOR Consulting, Ken King from SAS and David Allred from SezMi, a stellar team of telecom experts from blue chip firms. The panel was moderated by the Chief Editor of Telephony magazine Carol Wilson.

Carol, Nancy, Ken and David - It was a pleasure and I appreciate the opportunity. I whole-heartedly enjoyed the spirited discussion and felt enriched by the keen insights offered.

The topic concerned the implications and importance of service personalization in telecom and mobile offerings. Pretty much all panel members agreed that with brutal competition in telecom industry and commoditization of the old bread and butter voice revenue, service personalization is all but inevitable.

Broadly, service personalization means taking customer demographics, customer's location, customer's permission, customer control etc into account while disbursing relevant services and / or rendering marketing messaging to the customer base. Service personalization allows providers to create new revenue streams, retain existing customers and keep their offerings differentiated and innovative in midst of what is a highly competitive and fast-moving communication services market. The various techniques used to achieve personalization include :

- location - to render location-sensitive mobile advertising, in-proximity marketing or media

- customer demographics from social networks or customer profiles

- customer opt-in permissioning ( as opposed to spamming )

- reviewing customer's past usage history or buying patterns such as used by telco operators to determine what new services should be offered

Interestingly iPhone, the new game-changing mobile phone has shown that mobile web can get 10 times the adoption with the right ecosystem and device support. This has created a race to capitalize on this new channel from all members in the ecosystem. Amid this application, device and media frenzy triggered by mobile web as on an iPhone, personalized services promise to get the customer's attention, thereby creating new revenue streams and brand new players like Apple, Google, Loopt, in the mobile ecosystem.

Business Intelligence firms like SAS are sitting on prime customer intelligence data which can be mined for detecting customer patterns and offering more personalized services. SezMi has a breakthrough internet TV product soon to be launched which promises to bring internet style control to the TV experience. Consulting firms like SECOR and CellStrat stand ready to help CIOs, CTOs and CMOs sort through the service jungle and create viable and compelling solution offerings.

Challenges to service personalization are many, eg privacy concerns including location and data privacy, risk of spam, regulatory hurdles (eg FCC penalizing Comcast on Deep Packet Inspection), device and technology fragmentation (too many devices and standards).

On Telephony Live Conference :

The conference had some great keynote speakers, viz Daniel Kelly (Exec VP, Tellabs), Hardik Bhatt (CIO, City of Chicago), Andrew Lippman (Fellow, MIT Media Lab), Jeong Kim (President of Bell Labs). All offered immense insight into the future of communications and the role of communications industry in modern society. Hardik Bhatt presented some interesting use cases from the way the City of Chicago is using communication services and technology to enhance the lives of city dwellers. Andrew Lippman offered some really insightful advice on how it is about "We, not Me" anymore. Essentially he sought to convey that one must always think of social aspect rather than individualistic service (I don't believe this conflicts with service personalization before as some might suggest, we are on two different planes here). Jeong Kim discussed innovation and its role in modern world and how innovation has a slightly different perspective in research and industry circles.

There were many other panel discussions with some excellent industry thought leaders and executives. All in all, a great and enriching experience for all and me in particular.

Carol and team - Awesome job. Look forward to other events like this from the Telephony team.

"considerable gameplay improvements, the most significant of which sounds like "increased responsiveness" from passing, dribbling and the physical pushing and shoving that occurs in a game. Goalkeepers can reach behind their bodies if they misjudge a shot on goal.".

For those who read any details regarding Fifa before release, you'd no doubt have read that EA were making vast improvements to the Computer AI, especially goalies. At first this sounded very exciting - Who wouldn't want a more realistic version of Fifa? Everyone would.. Everyone but EA Sports that is.

You see, Fifa 09 is not realstic in regards to goalkeeping, and the claim that they are far more intelligent is an understatement. Fifa 09 goalies are more than just goalies, they are Cyborgs; they have IQ's higher than that of god and have been trained by the SAS in not only the art of war, but also the art of 'Bernard's Watch'. Yes, not only do they posses the power to be complete annoying cocks, but also to stop time. It's a bit like Neo off the Matrix; they have all the powers that Neo has (the most obvious: stopping time) as well as ones that Neo doesn't posses: the ability of having a dress sense. Now I'm not taking the piss out of Neo's attire, it's just that Goalkeepers who look like they are squatting on the toilet whilst having a shit in shorts look better than his gay leathery trousers and coat. I mean come on, what was he thinking? To me, Neo gives off the 'wrong vibes' and it doesn't exactly help with the theory of him 'being so far in the closet, he's practically in Narnia'.

I love you Fifa, I'm just not 'in love' with you.

proc gam

Note sur d'autres sources d'informations : Sachez, par ailleurs, qu'il existe d'autres moyens que la bibliothèque DICTIONARY pour accéder aux métadonnées.

• Reconstituées les data sets de référence avec des VIEWS : Les données peuvent être reconstituées à partir de vues (VIEWS) stockées dans la bibliothèque SASHELP. La procédure SQL ainsi que le data step peuvent s'en servir.
• Passer par une procédure : la procédure PROC DATASETS dispose de l'instruction CONTENTS syntaxe plus récente que le PROC CONTENTS.

La documentation SAS sur le sujet fait partie de Concepts : SQL Procedure.

1. Le dictionnaire décrivant les data sets : DICTIONARY.TABLES

Le dictionnaire TABLES contient une ligne par data set. Parmi les informations caractérisant un data set, celles qui me servent le plus souvent sont :

• La variable LIBNAME : le nom de la bibliothèque (library) sauvegardé dans la variable LIBNAME (library name)
• La variable MEMNAME : le nom du data set sauvegardé dans la variable MEMNAME. Entendez par là member name.

et de temps en temps

• La variable MEMTYPE : le type de fichier dans les dictionnaires TABLES et COLUMNS est soit DATA ou VIEW. DATA reste le type de fichier le plus fréquemment utilisé.
• La variable NOBS : le nombre d'observations dans le data set est sauvegardé dans la variable NOBS.

Liste de toutes les variables avec leur label :

• Library Name (libname)
• Member Name (memname)
• Member Type (memtype)
• Dataset Label (memlabel)
• Dataset Type (typemem)
• Date Created (crdate)
• Date Modified (modate)
• Number of Observations (nobs)
• Observation Length (obslen)
• Number of Variables (nvar)
• Password Protection (protected)
• Compression Routing (compress)
• Encryption (encrypt)
• Number of Pages (npage)
• Percent Compression (pcompress)
• Reuse Space (reuse)
• Bufsize (bufsize)
• Deleted Observations (delobs)
• Type of Indexes (indxtype)
• Data Representation (datarep)
• Requirements Vector (reqvector)

2. Le dictionnaire décrivant les variables : DICTIONARY.COLUMNS

Le dictionnaire COLUMNS contient une ligne par variable.

Les informations sur le fichier source : Comme précédemment, le nom du data set (MEMNAME) contenant la variable et sa bibliothèque (LIBNAME) sont des informations très importantes. Le MEMTYPE dest aussi fourni.

Le nom de la variable (NAME) : Le nom de la variable est sauvegardé dans la variable NAME. Les valeurs sont soient en minuscule, soit en majuscule, soit un mélange des deux.

Cela dépend de la manière dont le nom a été saisi la première fois lors de la création de la variable.

Les détails les plus usuels : je consulte le plus souvent le type de la variable : pour les variables texte, la variable TYPE prend la valeur "char" et pour les variables numériques, elle prend la valeur "num". C'est différent de la sortie d'un PROC CONTENTS qui prend des valeurs numériques.

Les détails occasionnels : Après viennent par exemple :

• la longueur de la variable (LENGTH)
• le format de la variable (FORMAT)
• le label de la variable (LABEL)
• le numéro de la variable dans le data set (VARNUM)

Liste de toutes les variables dans DICTIONARY.COLUMNS avec leur label :

• Library Name (libname)
• Member Name (memname)
• Member Type (memtype)
• Column Name (name)
• Column Type (type)
• Column Length (length)
• Column Position (npos)
• Column Number in Table (varnum)
• Column Label (label)
• Column Format (format)
• Column Informat (informat)
• Column Index Twpe (idxusage)

3. Majuscule ou minuscule

Dans le dictionaire DICTIONARY.TABLES et dans le dictionnaire DICTIONARY.COLUMNS, le nom de la bibliothèque (LIBNAME) et le nom du data set (MEMNAME) sont sauvegardés en majuscule.

Le nom des variables varie dans un dictionnaire selon la première saisie faite du nom lors de sa création.

Pour éviter des erreurs, il est donc plus simple de faire des comparaisons après avoir mis les valeurs contenues dans les dictionnaires dans la même style : tout majuscule ou tout minuscule ou seul la première lettre en majuscule. Vous pouvez consulter l'article "Majuscule ou minuscule sous SAS".

4. Deux exemples

Dans ce premier exemple tous les data sets SAS de la bibliothèque SASHELP sont listés.

proc sql;
   select libname, memname
   from dictionary.tables
   where upcase(libname)='SASHELP' and
         upcase(memtype)='DATA';
quit;

Dans ce second exemple, toutes les variables caractères du data set CLASS stocké dans la bibliothèque SASHELP sont affichées avec leur position.

proc sql;
   select name, varnum
   from dictionary.columns
   where upcase(libname)='SASHELP' and
         upcase(memname)='CLASS' and
         upcase(type)='CHAR';
quit;

5. Lister toutes les variables

Lister toutes les variables grâce au symbole étoile : La liste des variables contenues dans les dictionnaires TABLES and COLUMNS ici n'est pas exhaustive. Vous pouvez remplacer le nom des variables à garder par une étoile (*) afin de les voir toutes.

Afficher le nom des variables et non les labels en changeant l'option globale : Par défaut, le nom des variables n'apparaît pas dans l'OUTPUT mais le nom de leur label. Pour afficher le nom de la variable, il suffira de remplacer l'option globale label.

Afficher sur une ligne : Enfin, le nombre de variables contenues dans un dictionnaire peut ne pas s'afficher sur une seule ligne.

• Changer le nombre de caractères imprimables sur la page. Ce nombre varie entre 64 et 256 (SAS Online Doc. : LINESIZE= System Option).
• Donner une largueur d'affichage identique pour toutes les variables. L'option FLOW= de l'instruction PROC SQL limite le nombre de caractères disponibles pour l'affichage des variables (SAS Online Doc. : PROC SQL Statement).  

options nolabel ls=255;

proc sql flow=10;
...
quit;

options label;

Pense-bête à télécharger : Il existe d'autres dictionnaires. Ils sont répertoriés dans le pense-bête de CodeCrafters Inc. : "Summary of SAS Dictionary Tables and Views". Vous y trouverez également la liste des VIEWS.

These gowns, at SAS, designed by Sascha of course, easily belong at a gala or in a palace, at an important opening or even a State event. They gleam and flatter, but do so in a way that sets your face off as the diamond in a setting rather than distracting from it.

Londres is designed feigning multiple silken body wraps over lace.  It is delicate and oh so feminine.

SAS, gown Londres, grey
(CS) Vogue, skin, Cashmere, peach-light
Tami McCoy, hair,  Cascade, midnight
JD Designs, jewelry, Silver Heart set
Adorned, Exoticwoods Tiara, white pearl
JD Designs, shoes, Silver Comet

Belle Epoque is like a dream come true: flowing, shimmering, begging to be touched.  The bodice evokes the image of shells and the fall of the silks is indeed like the waves that lift them.

SAS, gown, Belle Epoque
Peau, skin, Martine
Tami McCoy, hair, Princess, midnight
JD Designs, jewelry, Parker's Love Sonnet
JD Designs, shoes, Silver Comet

Delilah is rich, lush and oh it looks so silky.  The soft fur stola is purchased separately. Sasha has stola in a variety of colors so that you can match other gowns in the shop as well.

SAS, gown, Delilah, gold
SAS, stole, Fur Stola, peachy cream (sold separately)
(CS) Vogue,  skin, Cashmere, peach-light
Tami McCoy, hair,  Tender, sunkissed
JD Designs, jewelry, Mother of Pearl on Silver
JD Designs, shoes, Gold Comet

rsubmit;

filename source '/sourcefolder/myfile.pdf';
filename dest '/destinationfolder/myfile.pdf';

proc download infile=source outfile=dest binary; run;

endrsubmit;
signoff;

The BINARY option transfers files without any character translation (for example EBCDIC to ASCII) or insertion of record delimiters.

The simiar proc is PROC UPLOAD.

More information on this can be found from SAS site.

Merge statement in a data step approach is simple, but it requires you to sort the data first. For a large data set, it may be very time consuming. For example, I have a data set with 33mm records. It took me almost one hour to only sort the data on the server. Using PROC SQL, it only took 25 minutes to finish the whole merge process.

In this post, I am going to summarize the PROC SQL way to achieve the nodupkey option in data step.

proc sql;
create table comb as
select distinct a.*, b.id
from one a right join two b
on a.id= b.id
quit;

If you try above code, you won't get distinct match from dataset a as you use the nodupkey in the data step. The reason is that distinct option in proc sql is not the same as nodupkey but as nodup. In order to get the same results as nodupkey, we need to use an unknown function "monotonic()". Here's how:

proc sql;
create table comb as
select a.*,  b.response, b.id, monotonic() as rowid
from one a right join two b
on a.id = b.id
group by b.id
having rowid=min(rowid);
quit;

What the above code does is to find all the matches from table a for each id in table b and then group them by id. Using function monotonic(), we create a field rowid and then take only the first record ("having rowid = min(rowid)"). This works great when you merge large datasets.

Råkade ut för ett problem i Oslo, blev på hotellet av med mitt kredittkort, som det heter i västlandet. Utan kredittkort är jag lite naken. Tack och lov har jag en bra leverantör av kredittkort som gör att jag snabbt kan få ersättningskort eller ersättningspengar. Tack för det! Vägrar länka till dem eftersom vi tidigare haft en konflikt... Men nu var jag glad för dem. Företaget heter något som rimmar på American Sypress.

Bodde som jag ofta gör på Radisson Sas, det är alltid bra. Rekommenderas! Nu väntar dusch och sängen. Hemma! Skönt.

2 dl lätt-crème fraiche, 75 g färskost naturell, 45 g riven pepparrot (burk), salt, peppar

Gör så här:

Blanda samman såsen och smaka eventuellt av med salt och peppar.

SAS resumes seasonal flights

Scandinavian Airlines is expanding alternatives for travel to Europe this winter with the return of its Bangkok-Stockholm and Dubai - Copenhagen flights. A new route Delhi - Copenhagen is also added.

SAS - the biggest airline company in Scandinavia - offers cheap international flight tickets to Delhi with connection or departing from Copenhagen. Delhi is a new SAS destination and start operation on 27 October 2008. Our city guide will help you to find out what's up and what the best tips are from SAS crew and passengers. Delhi is a thoroughly inscrutable onion of a city, every layer you peel off reveals a still deeper layer of history. Rebuilt eight times by its many conquerors, it has been the seat of the Hindu, Muslim and British Empires.
What's up in Delhi
Humayun’s Tomb This incredible UNESCO-listed tomb, built by Haji Begum, wife of the second Mughal emperor Humayun, is an early example of the xquisite Islamic style that reached its ulmination in the most famous tomb on Earth, the Taj Mahal.	Shalom A trendy New Delhi wine bar that styles itself as a ‘Med lounge bar’ – big comfy sofas, Mediterranean cuisines and funky visuals.	Old Fort (purana Qila) This massive fortress with three gateways stands on the site of the ancient city of Indraprastha, mentioned in the Mahabharata Hindu text, and is the oldest part of Delhi. The fort was completed by the ruler Sher Shah in the mid-16th century.

Referent: Information lead from Travel Weekly News and Fly SAS website.

Redirect to SAS website available by click at SAS logo on top page.

• Agar siswa dapat melihat data nilai dengan mudah, dan terjamin privacynya baik nilai ulangan harian maupun nilai raport
• Agar siswa dapat mengetahui tagihan iuran sekolah mana saja yang belum dilunasi
• Melihat dan mendownload materi pelajaran yang diupload oleh guru baik dalam bentuk document,spreadsheet,Presentation,video maupun flash animation
• Melakukan ujian secara online , dan melihat hasilnya seketika itu juga setelah selesai melakukan tes
• Fitur tambahan seperti mengirim pesan ke teman maupun guru, melihat atau membuat pengumuman sekolah

untuk prototype dari aplikasi ini dapat dilihat di http://www.smkn26jakarta.sch.id/student. setelah lebaran ini insyaallah akan diteruskan dengan development untuk aplikasi guru.

Consider an experiment that examines beetle damage on cucumbers. The experiment is replicated at five farms and on four fields at each farm. There are two varieties of cucumbers, and beetle damage is assessed on each of 50 plants at the end of the season. The researcher is interested in comparing differences in how much damage the two varieties sustain. The experiment then has the following factors: VARIETY, FARM, and FIELD.

Fixed factors can be thought of in terms of differences. The effect of a categorical fixed factor is defined by differences from the overall mean and the effect of a continuous fixed factor is defined by its slope--how the mean of the dependent variable differs with alternate values of the factor. The output for fixed factors provides estimates for mean-differences or slopes. Conclusions regarding fixed factors are particular to the values of these factors. For example, if one variety of cucumber is found to suffer significantly less damage than the other, this says nothing about cucumber varieties that were not tested.

Random factors, on the other hand, are defined by a distribution and not by differences. The values of a random factor are assumed to be chosen from a population with a normal distribution with a certain variance. The output for a random factor is an estimate of this variance and not a set of differences from a mean. Conclusions regarding random factors should be expressed in terms of variance. For example, we may find that the variability among fields makes up a certain percentage of the overall variability in beetle damage.

Situations that indicate fixed factors:

1. The factor is the primary treatment that the researcher wants to compare. In our example, VARIETY is definitely fixed as the researcher wants to compare the mean beetle damage on the two varieties.
2. The factor is a secondary covariate that might be confounded with the treatment, and the researcher wants to control for differences in this covariate. If these farms were specifically chosen for some feature they had, such as specific soil types or topographies that may affect beetle damage, and if the researcher would like to compare the farms as representatives of those soil types, then FARM should be fixed.
3. The factor has only two values. Even if everything else indicates that a factor should be random, if it has only two values, the variance cannot be calculated, and it should be fixed.

Situations that indicate random factors:

1. The researcher is interested in quantifying how much of the overall variation to attribute to this factor. If the researcher was interested in how much of the variation in beetle damage was attributable to the farm at which the damage took place, FARM would be random.
2. The researcher is not interested in knowing which means differ, but wants to account for the variation in this factor. If the farms were chosen at random, not for a specific feature, but because the researcher suspected that there is some variation in their soil types, which is representative of the variation across all farms, FARM should be random.
3. The researcher would like to generalize the conclusions about this factor to the whole population. There is nothing about comparing these specific fields that is of interest to the researcher. Rather, the researcher wants to generalize the results of this experiment to all fields, so FIELD is random.
4. Any interaction with a random factor is also random.

How the factors of a model are specified can have great influence on the results of the analysis and on the conclusions drawn.

Sås: 2 dl hönsbuljong (av tärning eller fond), 1 hackad gul lök, 2 msk chilisås, 1/2 msk soja, 2 tsk dijonsenap, 1 msk rosépeppar (1/2 msk krossad och 1/2 msk hel), 1 dl matlagningsgrädde 15 %, 1 msk vetemjöl, salt, nymalen svartpeppar, 1 pressad vitlök

Tillbehör: 700 g potatis, 300 g blomkål, 300 g haricots verts

Gör så här:

Putsa filén och skär den i 2 cm tjocka bitar. Trä eventuellt upp bitarna på fyra korta grillspett. Stek köttet i fettet, ca 2 minuter på varje sida. Håll köttet varmt. Koka upp buljongen och tillsätt lök, chilisås, soja, senap och krossad rosépeppar. Rör samman grädde och mjöl och vispa ner redningen i såsen. Låt såsen koka några minuter. Smaka av med salt och peppar och blanda i hela pepparkorn. Servera med kokt potatis, lättkokt blomkål och haricots verts.

Mungkin istilah ini hanya dikenal di kalangan terbatas.. ya masih terbatas. Apa itu BCEP ? mahkluk kah..? makanankah..? barang..? ato hanya istilah saja?

BCEP adalah Binus Center Education Partner, sebuah bentuk program kerjasama antara Binus Center dengan sekolah-sekolah. Program kerjasama ini adalah berupa program pelatihan yang umumnya berbasiskan IT. Bermacam-macam program IT yang ditawarkan.. antara lain mulai dari Aplikasi Pengolah Kata (semacam MS. Word), Aplikasi Pengolah Angka (semacam MS. EXCEL), Aplikasi Pengolah Gambar, sampai berbagai macam program IT lainnya.

Program BCEP ini sudah lama berjalan, dan sekolah yang paling banyak menggunakan program kerjasama ini adalah sekolah-sekolah yang berdomisili di Medan dan Jakarta. Meski Binus Center sendiri berlokasi di Jakarta, namun program kerja sama ini lebih banyak peminatnya di daerah-daerah khususnya Medan.

Dikarenakan kurikulum sering berubah-ubah... yang sebelumnya boleh dibilang tidak ada sampai kemudian muncul KBK (kurikulum Berbasiskan Kompetensi) sampai dengan saat ini muncul kurikulum yang dinamai KTSP (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan).

Awalnya ada rasa pesimis bagi saya oqie (salah satu tim pembuatan modul) karena gembar-gembornya dikalangan tenaga pengajar bahwa KTPS itu adalah Kurikulum Tidak Siap Pakai. Istilah inilah yang lebih populer dibanding arti yang sebenarnya.

Inilah yang Ini menjadi tantangan tersendiri bagi Binus Center untuk memperbaharui modul-modul yang diajarkan di sekolah-sekolah yang menggunakan BCEP. Yang sebelumnya hanya berdasarkan kurikulum Binus Center tetapi harus beralih ke KTSP.

Akhirnya kami tim perumus kurikulum BCEP mancari data sebanyak-banyaknya tentang KTSP, apa itu KTSP, apa standar yang diharapkan dari kurikulum ini. Berbagai sumber kita gunakan, internet, buku, seminar, sampai pendapat dari instruktur BCEP itu sendiri, dll (instruktur adalah istilah untuk tenaga pengajar BCEP). Akhirnya dapat kita simpulkan goal yang diinginkan dari KTSP ini.

Namun permasalahan tidak hanya sampai di situ saja, ada satu lagi yang menjadi kendala yaitu SAS. Mahluk apa lagi SAS ini..? (nanti kita bahas di lain kesempatan). Kami tim pembuatan tak putus asa sial SAS ini. Setelah berkutat dengan berbagai sumber informasi akhirnya didapat kejelasan juga mengenai SAS (sekali lagi akan dibahas dilain kesempatan).

Saya (Oqie), Sari, Budi, Agus (chotai), dan Didin adalah tim pembuat modul BCEP versi KTSP. Kami dari Tim RnD Binus Center (RnD : Research and Developement, divisi di Binus Center yang khusus mengembangkan produk) mendapat tantangan untuk mengembangkan modul tersebut.

Setelah didata.. didapatlah sejumlah mata pelajaran yang akan dimasukkan ke dalam paket modul BCEP, daftarnya banyak sekali... ya.. banyak sekali. Pengerjaan sebanyak itu harus diselesaikan dalam waktu 3 bulan (kalo gak salah). Soalnya Tahun Ajaran baru akan segera dimulai.. jadi harus selesai beberapa bulan sebelum TA mulai. Satu lagi tantangannya.... modul ini dibuat untuk SMP dan SMA.. wow.. SMP dan SMA. Tak cukup disitu tantangannya... kami membuatnya sebanyak 4 variasi.

Dengan semangat '45 (hehehe), selesai atau ditunda setahun lagi...!! kami harus bekerja cepat.. bahkan extra cepat untuk mencapai target.

Pengerjaan dibagi berdasarkan spesialisasi kami masing-masing, antara lain :

• Sari - yang berbau Office merangkap project leader
• Oqie - yang berbau design dan website
• Budi - yang berbau programing
• Chotai - yang berbau IT / Networking
• Didin - muara dari semua modul yang kami hasilkan.

Dimulailah pembuatan modul... mulai dari Silabus dan SAP, kemudian baru masuk ke pembuatan Buku paket.

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Proses pembuatan modul sedang berjalan...

harap maklum...

semuanya lagi sibuk...

At the end.... semua berjalan lancar dan paket modul selesai tepat pada waktunya.

Di lain waktu kita akan berbincang-bincang ekslusif satu per satu dengan tim pengembang modul BCEP ini.

to be cont' to BCEP part 2..

As of now im almost done roughly modeling all the parts and accessories for my character.  All that remains is a tactical leg holster, pistol, and possibly something on the bottom right side of the vest to hold gernades because that area is looking kind of empty. Or i may put the pistol holster on the vest and add something to the right leg that would hold a couple of grenades, i haven't decided yet.

Problems

I've already started to play around with my model in Zbrush and the results have been horrendous. At this point i may consider not using Zbrush at all.

The crotch area of the pants is completely wrong it looks like hes wearing spandex and not lose fitting  cargo pants.

Solutions

If i cant figure out how to effectively use zbrush then i will have to rely on adding more accessories to the model to break up open spaces and also rely on textures, shadows, and a good pose to hide all the imperfections.

as for the crotch area, i'll have to rethink the geometry and try to use a pair of jeans as a reference.

Over and out.

O modo como o software SAP está concebido, parece-me totalmente adequado para que se consigam centralizar, todos os dados de gestão e contabilidade de todos os organismos. Isto deverá permitir que  o Tribunal de Contas aceda imediatamente aos dados de todos estes organismos e rapidamente possa elaborar comparações. (Por exemplo entre Câmaras Municipais, será interessante obter rapidamente, o peso dos ordenados no orçamento de cada uma e analisar. Uma forma de detectar outliers).

Nunca estive a trabalhar directamente num processo de implementação SAP, mas tenho conhecimento de duas ou três empresas que o fizeram e as coisas correram não correram bem, e todas demoraram mais de dois anos a implementar.

Se, numa empresa privada, com custos controlados, as coisas correm mal; no Estado já se sabe que mais sensível é.

Nos casos que falava aconteceram um conjunto de situações que atrasaram tudo, e que a culpa não se sabe bem de quem é. Para a empresa, a culpa é dos informáticos que estão a implementar, para estes a culpa é da empresa.

Eu tendo a concordar com a empresa. Reafirmo que me parece que o SAP é uma boa solução, mas os seus parceiros/implementadores, borram muitas vezes a pintura.

Um parceiro duma solução de gestão e contabilidade, não pode ser constituída apenas por informáticos, como por vezes acontece.

Um gestor duma empresa, quando compra uma solução a um destes parceiros, espera obviamente que esta seja implementada sem trabalho seu e sem ser ele a preocupar-se com os aspectos técnicos e legais. São os consultores SAP que têm de garantir as premissas base deste tipo de software - (Que cumpre as exigências da ASSOFT, que garante a integralidade dos dados, que cumpre as exigências fiscais, etc. etc.)

Para isso, as empresas que queiram implementar SAP, PHC, SAS, etc., devem ter nos seus quadros especialistas em contabilidade e auditoria. Se forem só Eng. Informáticos (sem a devida formação complementar) arriscam-se a fazer a figura que fez um outro dia, que perguntou a um empregado da empresa: "Então que dados é que quer que apareça na factura?"

Em suma, ou o Tribunal de Contas faz um plano bem feito e acompanha bem a implementação, e  a equipa que vai implementar é muito competente, ou parece-me que nem em 10 anos temos o SAP implementado na totalidade dos organismos públicos.