======================== SSC News, October, 1995 ======================== This is the SSC News. This monthly electronic newsletter will keep you informed about recent changes on the SSC computer networks. We hope this information will help improve communication between the SSC computing staff and all of you computer users out there. Inside this issue... Weekly Downtime on Wednesdays 7-10 SSCC Policy on Individual Web Pages SAS 6.10 for the UNIX OSF Machines is Finally Here! SSC Training Sessions - Fall Semester 1995 -- Three New Sessions Added DoIT's new Dial-in Number for 28.8 Modems Network Changes This Summer SSC Publications Announcements ---------------------------------- Weekly Downtime on Wednesdays 7-10 ---------------------------------- The SSCC Steering Committee approved a regularly scheduled downtime for SSCC computers on Wednesdays from 7-10 a.m. SSCC staff have a backlog of tasks necessary to reconfigure and simplify the computer systems as well as to reconfigure the setup of the computer room. Many of the tasks require that commerical support staff (primarily from Digital, but also from DOiT) be on site or on call and thus require that we schedule the downtime during the week rather than during the weekend. It is too expensive to pay the overtime labor fees charged on the weekend. If for some reason we do not plan to use the downtime or plan for it to end earlier than 10 a.m., we will post a notice in broadcast. Also, a bulletin article will outline what we hope to accomplish during the downtime. ----------------------------------- SSCC Policy on Individual Web Pages ----------------------------------- The SSCC runs web server software on one of its shared Unix workstations. A small number of individual SSCC users have been ambitious enough to create their own WWW homepages. The Co-op does not wish to discourage individual initiative but it has become necessary now -- before many more users create their own homepages -- to set a policy that will help the Co-op and its sponsors avoid certain problems that have occurred in other places. The Co-op and its sponsors need to be concerned about the various issues that might be summed up as "appropriateness". For example, state law forbids that public communications facilities be used for partisan political purposes or in ways that could be interpreted as harrassing or discriminatory. Representatives of the Co-op's five sponsoring agencies (CDE, Sociology, IRP, the Institute on Aging, and Rural Sociology) have agreed that the agencies themselves should be responsible for making the judgments about the appropriateness of materials made available through web pages created by their members with resources provided by the SSCC. Thus individual web pages accessed through the SSCC's web server must have a link in an agency homepage. A CDE member, for example, can create an individual homepage and ask the CDE computing committee to allow access to his or her homepage via a link from the CDE hompage. The agencies may apply different criteria in making these judgments but the main principle is that individual homepages must present material that is related to the creator's professional activities as a member of the university. Although the SSCC staff will not make a regular task of trying to search out and destroy private homepages, such pages will inevitably come to our attention. We expect, in the cooperative spirit, that all users will be willing to comply with this new policy. The policy is more restrictive than some users would prefer because the sources of Co-op and departmental computing support are public. Commercially provided Internet services are already quite cheap and getting cheaper and are a more appropriate channel for disseminating personal, nonprofessional information. At the present time only CDE and IRP have their own institutional homepages. Members of the Sociology or Rural Sociology departments or the Institute on Aging may wish to encourage their agencies to invest the minimal resources needed to set up an agency-level homepage. This task is clearly within the powers of some members of these agencies already. For your reference the members of the SSCC's faculty steering commitee are: James R. Walker, CDE and chair of the committee H. H. Winsborough, Sociology Paul Voss, Rural Sociology Daniel R. Meyer, IRP Carol Ryff, Institute on Aging --------------------------------------------------- SAS 6.10 for the UNIX OSF Machines is Finally Here! --------------------------------------------------- SAS 6.10 for the UNIX OSF machines (NORMAN, WINGRA, and ELAINE) was just installed this morning. We have been waiting a long time for DoIT to obtain the media for this software. Test it out and send any problems you discover to CONSULTANT. DoIT still has not distributed documentation for this release so we can't tell you yet about changes and enhancements over version 6.09 (which we have installed on the other UNIX machines). Note: Just like with SunOS and ULTRIX, OSF is considered yet another operating system by SAS (even though all three are flavors of UNIX) and so you need to use transport files if you are working with permanent SAS data sets across operating systems. ------------------------------------------ SSC Training Sessions - Fall Semester 1995 ---Three new offerings added ------------------------------------------ Date Time Topic Room Instructor ---- ---- ----- ---- ---------- 10/16 10-11:30 UNIX Basics V: Manipulating Data 2470 Rodriguez 10/18 10:30-12 Extracting Data Interactively w/ BADGER 2470 Fassnacht 10/20 2-3 WiscWorld (inc. FTP) for Windows from Home 3432 Arnold 10/23,25 10-11 Intro to STATA 2470 McDermott 10/24 10-11 VMS Basics IV:Manipulating Data-ODH,XTRACT..4452 Cooper 10/25 2-3:30 WWW and its browsers (Netscape,Lynx,etc..) 4308 Brand Added Sessions: 11/1 12-1 Intro to the EMACS Text Editor 2470 McDermott 11/6 10-11:30 Customizing Your X Environment on UNIX 2470 Rodrig/McD 11/8,15 12-1 Displaying Descriptive Stats in Tables w/ SAS 4452 White Descriptions for each of the training sessions listed above may be found in SSCGOPHER. Note: All SSC training sessions require preregistration. If no one has preregistered 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. If no training session is offered for a topic you are interested in, please send mail to SSCCLASS requesting a session. We will schedule a session if a minimum of five people request training on a topic. ----------------------------------------- DoIT's new Dial-in Number for 28.8 Modems ----------------------------------------- There are now 624 modems in the campus dial-in pool: 432 are 14.4's and 192 are 28.8's. If you dial in with a 28.8 modem, use the number 265-4328. If you dial in with anything less than 28.8, use the number 265-4321. --------------------------- Network Changes This Summer --------------------------- This summer, we were plagued by problems of the slowness of data transfer over the network. Among the things that we did to solve problems and improve network performance, was the following: 1. Replaced a flaky network card on Norman. This network card caused traffic through Norman to be excruciatingly slow at times. 2. Replaced a flaky network hub on the 4th floor. This hub caused slowness on the network on the 4th floor. 3. Separated 4th floor offices from the computers in the computer room. Again, performance improved after this change. 4. Upgraded the router that connects all network devices in the building, improving reliability. 5. Encouraged users to use TCP/IP (telnet) rather than DECnet (set host) when logging in between VMS and UNIX. The performance improvment for those users who switched was remarkable. Additional upgrades and redesigns are planned for the coming months. ------------------------------ SSC Publications Announcements ------------------------------ The following new (or majorly updated) publications are available: How to Use Zip and UNZIP for File Compression (#37) How to Convert an SPSS Save File into a SAS Data Set (#38) How to Access WordPerfect on UNIX (#27) SSC publications are available in the racks in the public terminal room, Soc. Sci. 2470 or from Consultant. Copies are also stored on-line in SSCGOPHER. 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