====================== SSCC News, March, 1998 ====================== Inside this issue... A Huge New Scratch Disk for VMS Reduced Consulting Hours During Spring Break Improving GAUSS's Performance on GUY Remaining SSCC Training Schedule for Spring Semester SPSS on PC LAN to be Upgraded March 11 ------------------------------- A Huge New Scratch Disk for VMS ------------------------------- The Co-op has acquired a 23gb disk to be used mainly for temporary storage of files being transferred from 9-track tapes to other media. The disk can be used for other temporary storage purposes as well. Users may keep files on the disk for up to a month. An automated procedure will remove files more than a month old. This arrangement will give users plenty of time to copy their files to offline media (8mm, 4mm, or 3480 cartridge tapes or CD-ROM) or even to use them and delete them. How to use the new scratch disk ------------------------------- A procedure called GETSCRATCH creates a directory on the new disk. The directory is named after the user who executes GETSCRATCH. That directory will be accessible through the logical name SYS$SCRATCH for as long as it exists. The directory will be deleted if all the files in it are deleted by the automated file-deleting procedure. There will be no quotas imposed on the disk. If we find that the disk fills up frequently we will address this problem, at least at first, by reducing the length of time that files can live on the disk rather than by assigning quotas. An example of using the new SYS$SCRATCH space: $ getscratch $ copy tapein:cps.dat sys$scratch This example creates a directory on the new scratch disk ($1$dua2) and copies a file called "cps.dat" from a tape into the new directory. If the user's i.d. is JERRY, the new directory is $1$DUA2:[JERRY]. Jerry could have used that directory name or SYS$SCRATCH to specify his output location in the example. If the directory had already been created and was still on the disk, it would not have been necessary to execute the "getscratch" command, but doing so would have caused no errors. -------------------------------------------- Reduced Consulting Hours During Spring Break -------------------------------------------- Walk-in Consulting will be open 1-4 p.m. next week during spring break. Mail sent to Consultant will be read throughout the day as usual. ------------------------------------ Improving GAUSS's Performance on GUY ------------------------------------ We have been working with the developers of GAUSS, Aptech Inc., to identify ways of improving the performance of GAUSS on GUY. This has resulted in one change to GAUSS's configuration file that Aptech promises will dramatically improve performance on jobs involving large matrices. (Jobs involving small matrices will not be affected.) Aptech has also advised us that performance is decreased when more than one GAUSS job runs at a time. This is a problem they hope to fix in a future release of GAUSS but until then you should check for other GAUSS jobs before starting up your own. You can do this by typing the following UNIX command: ps auxw | grep gauss If you see only your grep command listed, then no gauss job is running. If you see other entries, then one or more gauss jobs are running. Last, Aptech advises that setting the value of workspace in your ~/gauss.cfg file greater than GAUSS actually needs can decrease the performance of your program. A good initial estimate for setting workspace size is to set the value equal to the number of observations in the data set times the number of variables times 8. If you still get an "Insufficient Workspace Memory" error, try doubling the value. By default the value of workspace is set to 50 MB (52,428,800 bytes). Never increase this number greater than 100 without first contacting the SSCC consultant. ---------------------------------------------------- Remaining SSCC Training Schedule for Spring Semester ---------------------------------------------------- All SSCC training sessions require preregistration. If less than three people have preregistered for a course one week prior to its start date, the class may be canceled. 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 (www.ssc.wisc.edu/Sscc/Training/trainreg.htm) You will be reminded about your preregistration through e-mail a day or two before the class begins. Date Time Topic Room Instruct. ---- ---- ----- ---- --------- 3/17 9:30-11:00 Point/Click Extracts/Merges of Census Data 7413 Fassnacht 3/18 9:55-10:45 Working with ARRAYs in SAS 4452 McDermott 3/20 1:00-2:30 Designing and Creating Posters and Flyers 3218 Lenz 3/31 11:00-12:00 Working with SAS Formats including Dates 4452 McDermott Any session scheduled in 7413 or 3218 (SSML) is a "hands-on" session. Descriptions for each of the training sessions listed above may be found in SSCC's web page (https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/Sscc/Training/trains98.htm). -------------------------------------- SPSS on PC LAN to be Upgraded March 11 -------------------------------------- On March 11 during the regular morning downtime, SPSS on the PC LAN will be upgraded to version 8. This change will only affect users who currently access version 7.5 from office PCs. After the upgrade, SSCC members who have an SPSS 7.5 license need to contact Consultant to schedule changes to their workstation configuration by desktop support staff. You will not be able to run SPSS until you have been upgraded. There is no charge for the upgrade. WinCenter will continue to run SPSS 7.5 because version 8 is not compatible with the version of Windows NT that WinCenter runs.