September 2007

Welcome New Members!

Hopefully, we've gotten to welcome each of you in person either at our orientation session last Wednesday or at the SSCC Consulting office. If we haven't though, please drop by Social Sciences 4226 to pick up a packet of information and to sign up for a 45 minute computer orientation session. The amount of computing resources available at SSCC can be overwhelming and a 45-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.

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, 11:00-12:15, including several SAS classes. Remember that all SSCC training sessions (including Soc 365 sessions) require preregistration.

Stata Changes and Additions

We've made several changes and additions to Stata in order to make more processing power available to our members.

First, Stata 10 has been installed on Winstat and the Linux servers, and will be installed in the labs soon. Stata 10 includes a new graph editor, a variety of additional statistical techniques, a numeric optimizer for Mata, and many other new features. For details see Stata's web site.

Second, we've installed Stata/MP (Parallel Edition) on the SSCC's Linux servers (Kite, Hal, Falcon and the Condor flock). Stata/MP puts two processors to work on your job, giving substantially better performance. You will not need to change your code or do anything differently to take advantage of Stata/MP on Linux.

Third, we've created a web tool that allows you to submit Stata jobs to the Condor flock via the web without having to learn Linux. This makes the power of Condor (run up to six jobs at a time), Linux (more usable memory and faster processing) and Stata/MP (multiple processors) available to our Windows users. To submit jobs go to our Tools page and click on Submit a Stata Job to Condor.

Finally we are offering a new class on Mata, the matrix language built into Stata. Mata is comparable to Matlab or Gauss but features compiled code for faster execution. It also takes advantage of the parallel processing features of Stata/MP, and can be used on the SSCC's Condor flock. For a full list of features, see Stata's web site. Mata could be a useful addition to the toolbox of any serious number-cruncher. For more details, and to register, visit our training page.

Bringing PCs into the Building

SSCC has the following policy in place for anyone bringing in computers and connecting to the building's wired network for the first time:

Any computer brought into the building that will use the building's wired network 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 a few hours but can take much longer as the volume of requests increase. SSCC's Consulting Office is open 8-12, 1-4, Monday through Friday. Computers only connecting to DoIT's wireless network do not have to be scanned, although we are happy to do so.

If you don't log into the PRIMO domain, 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, 1-4 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.

If you have difficulty accessing this web page please contact Russell Dimond (rdimond@ssc.wisc.edu).
If you have questions about the SSCC or SSCC services, or if you are an SSCC member and are having computer problems, please contact the SSCC Consultant.© 2008 University of Wisconsin Social Science Computing Cooperative.