===================== SSCC News, July, 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... VMS Downtime July 17-18 Default Printer Changing to Double-Sided Laser 7/08/96 Memory and /tmp Space Added to ELAINE and WINGRA PC for Backing Up Files and Scanning Available in I/O Room EUNICE No Longer SSCC Mail Hub IRP01D Retired New Software - GLIM and AMOS SSCC Summer Training Schedule Computer Paper Wastage Please Remember to Log Off of Computers ----------------------- VMS Downtime July 17-18 ----------------------- Mark your calendars -- the entire VMS cluster will be unavailable on July 17th through the 18th in order to upgrade to VMS 6.2 on all the VAXes (SSCB, SOC3, and ROBIN). We are hoping to complete the work in one day but are requesting two days in case we run into difficulties. If you need to send and receive mail while the VMS system upgrade is taking place, you should consider using UNIX mail. Instructions on converting to UNIX mail temporarily have been added to bulletin. Recall that INGRES will be removed from the cluster with this upgrade. This was first announced in the May issue of SSCC NEWS. ------------------------------------------------------ Default Printer Changing to Double-Sided Laser 7/08/96 ------------------------------------------------------ Laser printers are now cheaper to maintain than the old style serial line printers. This is good news since most people prefer laser printer output because it is higher quality. For these reasons, we are going to change the default VMS and UNIX print queue from the serial printer to the double-sided laser printer effective July 8, 1996. Details about printing in landscape mode, changing default page settings in SAS and SPSS, printing on the serial printer, and using VMS symbols and UNIX aliases can be found in bulletin. ------------------------------------------------ Memory and /tmp Space Added to ELAINE and WINGRA ------------------------------------------------ Additional memory and /tmp space will be installed on ELAINE during next Wednesday's down time. Previously, ELAINE had 32 MB of memory and a 0.25 GB of /tmp space. As of Wednesday, ELAINE will have 208 MB of memory and almost 2 GB of /tmp space. This will make ELAINE a very powerful machine, suitable for processing large jobs. The table below shows the amount of memory and /tmp space for all the Unix machines: Agency RAM (MB) /tmp (GB) ELAINE Sociology 208 1.89 (as of next Wednesday) WINGRA IRP 160 1.71 CDE2S CDE 128 1.65 NORMAN Public 128 1.62 EUNICE Public 128 0.81 CDE2 CDE 96 1.13 CDE1S CDE 64 1.08 Also, recently, WINGRA's memory was increased from 112 MB to 160 MB. ---------------------------------------------------------- PC for Backing Up Files and Scanning Available in I/O Room ---------------------------------------------------------- Harmon's replacement has arrived! We now have a new PC in the computer I/O room for backing up files. This back up facility is even better than the one on Harmon because you can back up VMS and networked-PC files as well! The PC uses the same 4mm DAT tapes that Harmon used. 4mm DATs are available from DoIT Customer Service, 1210 W. Dayton St. In staff tests, the new hardware successfully read files that were archived on Harmon. Staff are not recommending appending new archives to tapes containing files previously archived. Details will be in the handout kept with the PC. In addition, this PC is equipped with an HP ScanJet 4c (with autofeeder) for scanning both graphics and text. Scanned images can be saved to formats useful for particular applications. Text is scanned using optical character recognition (OCR) software and can be saved into ascii files or files suitable for use with word-processing programs. ------------------------------ EUNICE No Longer SSCC Mail Hub ------------------------------ EUNICE has served as the SSCC mail hub for all incoming and outgoing mail since 1991. Since Ultrix is being phased out early in the fall of 1996, a new Digital UNIX machine, DUNCAN, was purchased to serve as a replacement mail hub. Unlike EUNICE, DUNCAN is a system dedicated to mail delivery and other administrative tasks. It will not run application software and no interactive logons will be allowed. This will make DUNCAN a more reliable mail server, as it will not be subject to applications related problems that occasionally arise with EUNICE. -------------- IRP01D Retired -------------- IRP01D is now officially retired from the SSCC UNIX network. Its system disk went bad and since it was scheduled for retirement with the rest of the ULTRIX computers in early fall, we decided not to have the disk replaced. EUNICE and CDE2 are the only remaining ULTRIX computers on the SSCC network. --------------------------- New Software: GLIM and AMOS --------------------------- GLIM, version 4, has been installed on Digital UNIX. This software was purchased to replace GLIM on ULTRIX when ULTRIX retires early this fall. AMOS, structural equations modelling software, is now available on the NT network. Contact consulting if you would like to access this software. The user manual is available from consulting for browsing. Note that this is unsupported software, i.e., staff cannot answer usage questions. ----------------------------- SSCC Summer Training Schedule ----------------------------- Date Time Room Topic ---- ---- ---- ----- 7/9 9:30-11 3432 WWW and its browsers (Netscape,Lynx,etc.) 7/10 2-3 4411 Scanning Text and Graphics with SSCC's New HP Scanner 7/11 9:30-11 3432 Finding it on the Web 7/16,18 10-11 2470 Introduction to STATA 7/17 10-11:30 3432 Intro to Citation: Bibliographic Database for PCs 7/31 10-11 3432 Sharing Data between UNIX, VMS, & the PC LAN 8/1 11-12 4452 Transferring Data between Stat Software Seamlessly 8/14 2-3 3432 Accessing the SSCC PC Network from Home 8/20 2-3 2470 Using SSCC's Consulting Database:Searching&Monitoring 8/28 2-3 3432 Using WiscWorld to Log On from Home Note: SSCC training sessions require preregistration. If less than five people preregister for a course one week prior to its start date, the class may be canceled. To preregister for a class, send mail to SSCCLASS indicating which class(es) you plan to attend. You will be reminded about your preregistration through e-mail a day or two before the class begins. ---------------------- Computer Paper Wastage ---------------------- We are wasting soooo much paper, guys! Every week (and, yes, it's getting worse) the operator throws out tons of computer output that users are not picking up from the I/O room. For the 1993-1994 fiscal year we spent around $7,000 for paper. And, this past year which ended last week, we spent $9,000! Please print only what is necessary. Also, if you accidentally send a postscript job to a non-postscript printing queue, call the operator immediately so that the job can be canceled. --------------------------------------- Please Remember to Log Off of Computers --------------------------------------- When you are done working on VMS and Unix computers, please remember to log off. Systems have a maximum number of logins. One morning recently, there were 16 users logged on to NORMAN and all but two had been idle for anywhere from eight hours to four days. These idle logins may lock others out of the system during peak usage periods of the day.