December
Support for Kronos
The Chemistry Computer Center helped to install Kronos, which is the web-based UW student time-keeping system now being used by Chemistry student hourly employees to record their hours worked. The CCC staff also provided troubleshooting and training for administrative staff and students who will be using the program. Kronos is currently being used by more than 10,000 student hourly employees across the UW campus.
Cluster Repaired
The Chemistry Computer Center helped to repair a research group cluster that had crashed and brought the cluster back to working condition.
Software
The license for Mathematica has been renewed for 2006. For more information, please contact Hieu Tran.
Publications
New publications have been added to the publications page.
Holiday Computing Safety Reminder
During the holiday season, many virus and trojan attacks take place. Please take the time to secure your computer for the holidays and protect your personal and financial information. If you are going to be away from campus for a while, please turn your computer off. Upon your return to campus, update your virus definitions, install the latest security updates, and use an anti-spyware program.
AppleTalk Support Discontinued in June 2006
Many changes are being made across campus to increase reliability and performance of network resources, including having an IP-only backbone network infrastructure. This means that non-IP traffic, such as AppleTalk, will no longer be handled as of June 2006.
Rendezvous, available for Mac OS X 10.2 and newer, is an IP-based method (based on Zeroconf and Multicast DNS) that allows devices (e.g., printers and other computers) to find one another without configuration or knowledge of the IP address for the device. In addition to Rendezvous, Mac OS X uses Service Location Protocol (SLP) to locate other computers on the local network. More information on Rendezvous
Across Campus, Macintosh users who are using AppleTalk to connect to printers or fileservers outside the Chemistry Department Network (e.g., Pharmacy or Biochemistry) will need to transition to IP-based services where possible, reselect printers and reconnect to a fileserver.
Within the Chemistry Department, Macintosh users who are using AppleTalk to connect to printers or fileservers in the Chemistry Department Network will still be able to use AppleTalk (i.e., no changes will need to be made to connect to in-network printers or fileservers). However, it is recommended that all users use an IP-based service to connect to printers or fileservers rather than AppleTalk where possible.
Instructions for connecting to a printer using IP are available here.
Instructions for connecting to a fileserver using IP are available here.
November
Research Clusters
We are in the process of building new 32- and 64-bit clusters to test out new software and conduct basic system testing. We are also comparing the new 64-bit, AMD Opteron machines to the existing 32-bit machines.
21st Century Network Upgrade
As part of the campus-wide 21st Century Network upgrade, we finished repatching ports for the Coon and Hamers labs, which were recently remodeled. The 21st Century Network project included an upgrade of hundreds of network closets across campus. Many new, high-speed services were recently implemented to increase the reliability and security of communications and data transfer.
New Publications
New publications have been added to the publications page.
October
21st Century Network Upgrade Now Complete
We are pleased to announce that the 21st century network is now complete for the Chemistry Building. The last area to be hooked up to the network, Seminar Hall in 1315, was recently refitted by CompHelp staff. All 128 ports in the room should now be active and ready for use.
New Publications
New publications have been added to the publications page.
New CompHelp Posters
New posters publicizing CompHelp and their services have been placed on various bulletin boards around the building. Thanks to Kara Hartmann for the design and everyone at the Computer Center for their input and suggestions. If you would like a CompHelp poster, contact us. Or download a smaller version (8 1/2 by 11 inches): version 1 (pdf - 104KB) or version 2 (pdf - 171KB).
September
Newsletter
The Fall 2004 Newsletter is now available. See the HTML version or the PDF version (198KB).
Lineup Change
Steve Barnet, Instrumentation Technologist and Network Administrator at the Computer Center, has recently accepted a position at the Ice Cube Project beginning October 3. Ice Cube, which is a $250 million telescope funded by the National Science Foundation, will be used to detect neutrinos – infinitesimally small, high energy particles produced by radioactive decay that can travel great distances.
Steve will be missed by everyone at the Computer Center, but we will not be without a leader for long. We will formally announce his successor at a later date.
During the Interim, the CompHelp crew will be available to assist with any network and computer troubleshooting. A schedule stating their availability is posted on the door to 9311a. Please contact Hieu Tran for questions about research clusters, software licenses, software training, and computational chemistry research.
New Website Launched
After an intense redesign and reorganization, the computing.chem.wisc.edu website has a new look! We hope you find the new website to be more usable and functional. Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions.
New Hardware
New machines have arrived at the Computer Center. These 64-bit, AMD Opteron machines will be used to create a new mini cluster – a platform for testing out new software and conducting basic system testing.
A pilot project has already begun that will compare the new 64-bit machines to the existing 32-bit machines. Please let us know if you are interested in trying out these new machines.
August
Network Upgrade News
The 21st century network is almost complete. See our Spring and Winter newsletters for more information. The fall newsletter will be available soon.
New Remsen
A new Linux computer was purchased to replace the old SGI:Remsen. We now have a new Remsen machine that is running Sybyl 7.1. The Remsen is capable of pursuing molecular modeling research using different modules of Sybyl, from advanced molecular mechanics, molecular dynamics computing, and biomodeling, to investigations in docking modules for drug design.
ChemDraw Incorporated into the Merck Index Search Engine
Courtesy of the Chemistry Department and the Chemistry Computer Center, ChemDraw is no longer merely a tool for teaching. Recently, by joined efforts of the UW Library Technology Group and the Chemistry Computer Center, ChemDraw has been incorporated into the Merck Index search engine and become the official tool for researchers across UW-campus to use in their research and publication. The Merck Index is now available online at http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.web/FindMLNativeByID?repl1=UWI13726. You will need ChemDraw to use the structure drawing application. Please contact us for more information.
Parallel Jaguar 5.5 and Macromodel 8.5
The Chemistry Computer Center has now successfully built parallel Jaguar 5.5 and MacroModel 8.5, computational software by Schrodinger, Inc. These applications are currently running with Message Passing Interface (MPI) on Red Hat Linux clusters for scientific research. Please contact us for more information.
New Publications
The publications page has been updated.
July
The Chemistry Computer Center is organizing Summer Training Classes. Hieu Tran led two tutorials this month:
- Introduction to Red Hat Linux
- Parallel Ab Initio Computing with Gaussian 03 and GaussView
See our tutorials page for tutorial references or contact us for more information on upcoming classes.
April
Network Upgrade News
A Network Upgrade Deployment Schedule has been added to the Computer Center Website.
Network outages scheduled for the chemistry building will be announced at least one week in advance. The upgrade is scheduled to be completed tentatively by the end of May. If you have any questions about the network upgrade and scheduled outages please contact us.
New Publications
A list of the publications that used facilities or services offered by the Chemistry Computer Center in 2005 was added to the publications page.
SMTP Authentication
We are now offering SMTP authentication, which can be used to set up your email client to send email from outside the Chemistry Building. Detailed instructions on how to use SMTP authentication to be able to send email from outside the Chemistry Network are now available for the following clients:
Windows
Macintosh
February
Chemistry Department Email
New instructions for configuring Netscape and Outlook email clients.
New instructions for setting up Netscape and Outlook spam filters.
New Macintosh instructions for Eudora: configuring your client and setting up spam filters.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to questions about Mailing Lists and Redirecting Messages.
Newsletter
New Chemistry Computer Center quarterly newsletter launched.
January
This Year's Resolution: CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS!