===================== SSCC News, June, 1998 ===================== Inside this issue... Entire Social Science Building Network Unavailable June 10 UNIX Computers Unavailable 7:00 a.m. until Noon on June 24 CDE to Retire Its SunOS Computers October 31, 1998 UNIX Software Changes SSCC Summer Training Schedule SSCC Summer Consulting Schedule 200 MB Disk Quota on UNIX Home Directories Now in Effect Recycle Your 9-Track Tapes ---------------------------------------------------------- Entire Social Science Building Network Unavailable June 10 ---------------------------------------------------------- The entire Social Science Building network may be unavailable all day, June 10, in order to move our building connection to the new ATM campus network. All SSCC computers will be unavailable as well as network connections from PCs. (You can still work on files locally on your PC during the downtime.) PCs and X-terminals will need to be rebooted following this work. The work is expected to be completed by noon but it could take all day. Please reboot your computer and try to use the network in the afternoon. Call consulting with any problems. This upgrade will provide faster access to the campus network. Currently the building's network connection is 10 Megabits per second and the new ATM connection will be 155 Megabits per second. ---------------------------------------------------------- UNIX Computers Unavailable 7:00 a.m. until Noon on June 24 ---------------------------------------------------------- All SSCC UNIX computers will be unavailable from 7am until noon on Wednesday, June 24th. During this downtime, additional RAM and two additional CPUs will be added to GUY and some computers will receive faster networking cards. These changes should substantially increase the computing capacity at SSCC. During this downtime, email service will be unavailable as well for: o Users who receive/send e-mail from their PCs o Internet mail to/from VMS. -------------------------------------------------- CDE to Retire Its SunOS Computers October 31, 1998 -------------------------------------------------- On the advice of its computing advisory committee, CDE will retire its two remaining SunOS computers, cde2s and cdeinfo, on October 31, 1998. We expect that the four privately-owned Suns in the SSCC's UNIX network will also be retired by that date. Recall that UNIX ULTRIX computers were retired in the fall of 1996. With the retirement of the remaining SunOS computers, we will be left with only one flavor of UNIX, Digital UNIX. SSCC staff believes that this transition should go smoothly because all commercial application software on SunOS computers will be available on Digital UNIX computers and SSCC members have access to tools to convert SPSS and SAS system files from SunOS to Digital Unix format. --------------------- UNIX Software Changes --------------------- The S-Plus license has been moved from cde2s to GUY. Users with S-Plus binary files created on SunOS computers will need to use STAT/TRANSFER or DBMS/COPY to translate the files to a format readable by GUY. STAT/TRANSFER is available on WinCenter and DBMS/COPY is available on NORMAN. The STATA license will be moved from NORMAN to GUY on June 24 during the UNIX down time. This will help improve performance on NORMAN. And, with the increased capacity on GUY (see the related article above), STATA jobs should run significantly faster. Note that STATA is also licensed on ELAINE, WINGRA, MARIAH, and WinCenter. ----------------------------- SSCC Summer Training Schedule ----------------------------- Descriptions for each of the training sessions listed above may be found at SSCC's web page ( https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/Sscc/Training/trains98.htm ). All SSCC training sessions require preregistration. To preregister for a class, either send mail to SSCCLASS indicating which class(es) you plan to attend or register through SSCC's web page. Date Time Topic Room Instructor ---- ---- ----- ---- ---------- 6/9 1:00-3:00 Creating a Web Page for a Course 7413 McDermott 6/16 1:30-3:00 Preparing Presentations with PowerPoint 3218 McDermott 6/25 1:30-3:00 Moving Data on 9-track Tape to Other Media 4411 Flory 6/30 9:30-11:00 Getting Started with SAS on UNIX 4452 Hayes 7/9 9:30-11:00 Point/Click Extracts/Merges of Census Data 7413 Fassnacht 7/16 1:00-2:30 Getting Started with STATA on UNIX 7413 McDermott 7/22 1:00-3:00 Creating a Web Page for a Course 7413 McDermott Note: Any session scheduled in 7413 or 3218 (SSML) is a "hands-on" session. ------------------------------- SSCC Summer Consulting Schedule ------------------------------- SSCC's summer consulting schedule is now in effect. The consulting schedule is as follows: Day Time Office Consultant Questions --- ---- ------ ---------- --------- Mon - Fri 10-12 4403 Sandra Wald General Mon - Wed 1-3 4405 Scott Risberg General Thurs - Fri 1-3 4405 Jeff Hayes Statistical Packages Users needing to speak to a consultant regarding statistical computing issues that can't wait until Thursday or Friday afternoon are encouraged to make an appointment with Nancy McDermott (e-mail: mcdermot). Nancy is on a part time leave of absence this summer but will be available for appointments most Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons. Continue to send statistical computing e-mail questions to Consultant. They will be forwarded to either Jeff or Nancy. The SSCC Consulting phone (2-9917) now has voice mail for leaving messages when no consultant is on duty. -------------------------------------------------------- 200 MB Disk Quota on UNIX Home Directories Now in Effect -------------------------------------------------------- In April's SSCC News we announced that disk quotas of 100 MB will be established on Unix home directories. Users with additional disk space needs will be granted an additional 200-500 MB disk quota on the /aux file system. Additional temporary space is available on a new file system called /temp/fivedays. Quotas on /home are being phased in to minimize work disruption for users, starting May 1st. Each month, quotas will be decreased until the quota reaches 100 MB. Below is the schedule: July 1st 150 MB August 1st 100 MB Users using more than 150 MB of disk space should reduce their disk usage to below 150 MB (and, preferably, below 100 MB) before July 1st. All users must be using less than 100 MB of home directory disk space by August 1st. -------------------------- Recycle Your 9-Track Tapes -------------------------- Media Recovery of Dallas Texas recycles 9 track and 3480 tapes. They are licensed and bonded and will provide a standard agreement letter indicating that any data on the tapes will be destroyed. They have IBM tape drives and mount tapes to be recycled on those drives for degaussing. This process destroys any existing data. If the tape meets their ansi standards, they resell it. If it doesn't, they remove the plastic ring and it is recycled. The tape is chopped in half and sent to a special landfill in Dallas. The tape doesn't burn, won't break down. This landfill is only special because it is where the tape is sent, doesn't really decrease time tape spends in landfill. Media Recovery will pay freight charges for the tape shipment. However, they will only accept a minimum of 1000 tapes. The data library is now boxing their scratched tapes and saving them in the storage room. If you would like to recycle your tapes, please save them in boxes. When a sufficient number has been collected, they will be shipped.