========================= SSCC News, December, 1996 ========================= This is the SSCC News. This monthly electronic newsletter will keep you informed about recent changes on the SSCC computer networks. We hope this information will help improve communication between the SSCC computing staff and all of you computer users out there. Inside this issue... New Public Digital UNIX Machine Now Available Holiday Closings for Computer Room and Consulting Self-Paced Training Videos Available for PC Topics Software Upgrades Remote File Access available in SAS 6.11 on Digital UNIX New SSCC Publications Netscape Preferences - Cache and Printing Reporting System Problems to Consultant --------------------------------------------- New Public Digital UNIX Machine Now Available --------------------------------------------- A new Digital Alpha machine has been added to the UNIX network. This computer is called GUY and it is available to all members of the SSCC. Currently, GUY has more than twice the computing power of NORMAN, twice the amount of memory, and 50% more /tmp space (3 gb). It is also extendable, able to use several processors and to use several gigabytes of RAM. In coming years, we expect to expand GUY rather than purchase additional Unix computers. This computer was paid for by funds contributed by SSRI when they joined the Co-op last July. The following statistical software is available on GUY: Mathematica 2.2, MATLAB 4.2C, and SAS 6.11. GAUSS, Maple, and LIMDEP will be available soon. Note that Mathematica, MATLAB, GAUSS, and Maple are unsupported software so Consulting will not be able to help you with problems you encounter other than making sure the software is properly installed. SSCC members are invited to log into GUY and use it for large SAS jobs, Economics applications, or just to read mail and search the Web. ------------------------------------------------- Holiday Closings for Computer Room and Consulting ------------------------------------------------- Consulting will be closed December 24, 25, 26, 27, 31, and January 1. As far as we know, the computer room will be closed these days as well in addition to December 23. If this changes, we'll let you know via BROADCAST. Use one of the self-serve printers in the I/O room or either Public Terminal Room (Social Science 2470 and 7413) if you need print out when the computer room is closed. Refer to How-to #9, "How to Use the SSCC Laser Printers" for details on how to print to these printers. -------------------------------------------------- Self-Paced Training Videos Available for PC Topics -------------------------------------------------- SSCC has purchased several self-paced training videos to supplement our formal training program. These videos come highly recommended from Univerity of California-Davis whose Computer User Services Department researched many companies offering self-paced training on videos and cds. The following videos are available for two-day loan from Consulting: Introduction to Windows 95 Making the Move to Windows 95 Beyond the Basics of Windows 95 PowerPoint 7.0 (Essentials) PowerPoint 7.0 (Intermediate) PowerPoint 7.0 (Advanced) Ideally, you should be sitting at a PC when you watch these videos but it's not essential. The Sociology and Economics Departmental offices have a limited number of TVs with VCRs that you can borrow (if they are not being used for a class) if you want to watch a video from an office or class room in the building. If you find these videos useful, we will order others. They are available for the most of the Microsoft Office and the Corel Office suite programs. ----------------- Software Upgrades ----------------- The following application software has been upgraded recently: Program New Version Computers ------- ----------- --------- Netscape 3.0 UNIX PINE 3.95 UNIX and VMS RATE 3.0A EAGLE SAS 6.11 NORMAN, ELAINE, WINGRA SPSS* 6.1 EAGLE STATA 5.0 NORMAN, ELAINE, WINGRA, WinCenter *This is the first production release of SPSS for EAGLE. Prior releases have been beta level (still undergoing debugging). -------------------------------------------------------- Remote File Access available in SAS 6.11 on Digital UNIX -------------------------------------------------------- Beginning with version 6.11 of SAS (currently only on Digital UNIX machines), you can read from and write to ASCII data files and SAS transport files on remote computers. For example, you could run your SAS program on UNIX and read in data that you have stored on a VMS computer or even a collegue's data he/she has placed in an anonymous FTP site for you. SAS uses FTP to connect to the remote computer and access the data. The data are read into your SAS session WITHOUT first storing them on your UNIX disk. For details, refer to How-to #44. --------------------- New SSCC Publications --------------------- The following publications are either new or have been majorly revised: How to Access an Anonymous FTP Server (#32) How to Transport SAS Data Sets between a PC and SSCC Computers (#42) How to Access Data Files Stored on Remote Hosts with SAS (#44) How to Use SSCC Laser Printers (#9) Using PC Windows Applications from X-terminals with WinCenter (5-9) ----------------------------------------- Netscape Preferences - Cache and Printing ----------------------------------------- Netscape keeps copies of the Web pages that you have used recently. By default, it will keep 3MB of data in its cache in memory and 5MB of data in its cache on the hard disk. With so many people using netscape, these caching policies take up too much memory and disk resources. If you use netscape, please change the cache to lower amounts. We suggest changing memory cache to 1MB and disk cache to 2MB. To change the cache, start netscape and select the menu item "Options/Network Preferences...". On the cache tab, change the memory cache value to 1000 and the disk cache value to 2000. You need to use a postscript queue in order to print web pages in Netscape. To specify a default postscript queue on UNIX, edit the line beginning with PRINT_COMMAND in your ~/.netscape/preferences file to one of the following: PRINT_COMMAND: lpr -Pdouble_ps PRINT_COMMAND: lpr -Piodouble_ps PRINT_COMMAND: lpr -Puserdouble_ps --------------------------------------- Reporting System Problems to Consultant --------------------------------------- Often times the Consultant does not have all the information that is needed in order to notify system administrators of system problems that are reported. This causes delays because the Consultant has to either write back to the user to get the information or spend time trying to figure out the needed information. Including the following information when you report problems will ensure that the problem is addressed quickly: o The name of the computer having the problem i.e. NORMAN instead of just UNIX. o How you are connected to the computer - X-terminal, modem, PC LAN, etc. o The specific program that was run (not just "mail", but "MH on emacs" or "pine" or whatever). o The time and date that the problem was first noticed. o Whether the problem is intermittent or constant. o Any log files or error messages (paste them in a mail message. It's also helpful if you indicate the severity of the problem. For example, is the problem preventing you from getting your work done?