NEWS

Welcome New Members!

Hopefully, we've gotten to welcome each of you in person either at our orientation session last week or at the SSCC Consulting office. If we haven't though, please drop by Social Sciences 4226 (our new location) to pick up a packet of information and to sign up for a 30 minute computer orientation session. The amount of computing resources available at SSCC can be overwhelming and a 30-minute orientation is time well spent even for the most experienced computer users.

Consulting Office Experiencing Delays

Due to the large volume of requests we are currently receiving in our Consulting office, expect a longer than usual delay in hearing back from the SSCC staff person assigned your problem. This is especially true for PC support requests which may take several days. We are usually able to tend to other requests within one business day. If you wish to inquire about the status of your request, contact Nancy McDermott, Director of SSCC.

Bringing PCs into the Building

SSCC has the following policy in place for all computers connecting to the building network for the first time:

  • Any computer brought into the building must be taken to the SSCC Consulting office, Soc. Sci. 4226, for scanning and any necessary installation/update of antivirus software. This process usually takes about two hours. It's taking even longer now because of the high volume of requests. SSCC's Consulting Office is open 8-12, 2-4, Monday through Friday.
  • Computers must be registered before they will be given any access to the building network. This includes access to web pages, email, network drives, and servers. To register your computer, plug in to the network, open a web browser, and you will automatically be directed to a web form. This form and the registration software it runs (NetReg) will gather information including your name, how to contact you, and a unique identifier for your computer (the MAC address). This way, if we identify a problem with a computer we will be able to contact the owner, locate the computer, and fix it quickly.

If you don't log into the PRIMO domain (many people in Economics), it is extremely important that you keep your operating system patched and your antivirus software up-to-date. If you need assistance, contact our Consulting office by phone at 2-9917, by e-mail at consult@ssc.wisc.edu, or drop in 4226 Social Science 8-12, 2-4 M-F.

SSCC Publication, Keeping Your PC Secure, contains a lot of very useful information, especially for home PCs, or any other PC that doesn't log in to PRIMO.

Mac users -- There is no need to bring Macs into the Consulting office for scanning. Just make sure you are running Software Update monthly.

SSCC's Fall Training Schedule

SSCC's Fall training schedule is now available on SSCC's training web pages. Once again we are teaming up with Sociology 365, Computing in Social Research, so you'll find many topics offered Tuesday/Thursdays, 9:30 - 10:45, including several SAS classes. Remember that all SSCC training sessions (including Soc 365 sessions) require preregistration. Register early before sessions fill!

Other On-campus Training Resources

The SSCC provides a lot of training classes each semester. Unfortunately, we can not offer all levels of training for all software. Fortunately, there are other resources on campus that can supplement SSCC's training:

Resetting Passwords Reminder

Last month we sent e-mail to all users about a change in policy for resetting passwords. It is very important for you to set your security questions and answers so that you can easily reset your password should you forget it. Please visit https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/sscc_jsp/password/questions.jsp at your earliest convenience if you haven't done so already. This page will allow you to choose three security questions and answer them. Should you forget your SSCC password, you'll be able to answer the questions you gave and reset your password by visiting https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/sscc_jsp/password/reset.jsp.

SPSS 13 on HAL

SPSS 13 for Linux is now available on HAL. Since SPSS 13 runs fine on the latest version of Linux, there's no longer the need for a special server just to run SPSS. SPSS users will notice that HAL is significantly faster than OWL.