July
Summer 2006 Newsletter
The Summer 2006 Newsletter is now available. See the HTML version.
New to UW Chemistry?
Welcome to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Chemistry! Visit our Welcome Web page for important information to help you to obtain and use your Chemistry Department e-mail account, personal Web pages and network storage as well as instructions on how to connect your computer to the Chemistry Network.
Need Computer Support?
Chemistry Network Support staff provide a full range of technical support services for network connectivity, computer hardware and troubleshooting with software applications. In addition, we provide support for high-performance and specialized computational chemistry applications as well as space for research clusters and other machines.
Feel free to contact us if you have questions regarding computing or technology in the Chemistry Department
June
Bohr Retirement and Replacement
As of June 1, 2006, Bohr has officially retired and has been replaced by nBohr (aka Niels Bohr). All data has been successfully transferred from Bohr to nBohr and all systems are now stable. nBohr will serve as the gateway to the Curie and Research Group Clusters. More Information.
Upcoming Summer Training Workshop
Hieu Tran (tran at chem.wisc.edu) will be leading a training workshop from August 1-3. The workshop, "Ab Initio Computing with Gaussian in Linux Environment", will consist of two parts: Part 1: Intro to Red Hat Linux for Windows, Mac OS and Linux newbies, and Part 2: Ab Initio Computing with Gaussian in Linux Environment.
Registration is required and space is limited. The deadline to sign up is July 15. More Information.
May
AppleTalk Support Changes
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.
Though it is recommended that all Macintosh users use an IP-based service to connect to printers or fileservers rather than AppleTalk where possible, users will still be able to use AppleTalk to connect to printers or fileservers within the Chemistry Department Network. That is, no changes will need to be made to connect to in-network printers or fileservers.
However, 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 fileservers.
Instructions for transitioning to an IP-based service are available on our Web site.
If you have any questions, please contact us.
New Face at the CCC
Please join us in welcoming Alan Silver as our new Departmental Computer Systems Administrator. Alan, originally from New York State, previously worked at the Department of Biostatistics & Medical Informatics at the UW-Madison. Alan has 4-year-old twin boys. In his free time, he enjoys going to the farmers market and hiking in and camping at state parks.
Computer Center Website
Welcome to the new and improved CCC Web site! The Web site has had some modifications to its navigation and organization. The Web site now features a new and easier to use navigation. Please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions.
New Web Mail Interface
The Web interface for Chemistry Mail (http://mail.chem.wisc.edu) has had a makeover. Take a look and let us know what you think.
April
New Face at the Computer Center
Please join us in welcoming John Rayho as our new 'comphelp' student. John will assist our current CompHelp students with troubleshooting and computer-related problems in the Chemistry Department.
Chemistry Research Tower Dedication Events at the Computer Center
On May 5-6, there will be celebrations in honor of the dedication of the Irving Shain Chemistry Research Tower.
We at the Computer Center will have an open-house tour of the Computer Center (Room 9311) on May 6 from 1:00 P.M. - 2:00 P.M. We will also have a computing software demonstration, called Visualizing the Invisible, for high school students and adults in the Gradlab (Room 1381) from 2:00 P.M. - 3:30 P.M. Please contact Hieu Tran for details.
Spring 2006 Newsletter
The Spring 2006 Newsletter is now available. See the HTML version or the PDF version (252KB).
March
Email Server and Spam Filtering
As of Wednesday, March 15, we reconfigured our mail server to resolve some security problems. As a result, you may have noticed fewer spam messages in your inbox.
Compromised machines, such as hacked machines used by spammers, should no longer be able to use our mail server to send out spam. Instead these messages will be bounced back to the senders. Email messages sent through compromised commercial email servers, such as Yahoo, gmail, hotmail, etc., will more likely be affected by this change. However, email messages sent from legitimate academic or governmental email accounts should not be affected.
Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
Gradlin Update
We are pleased to announce that Gradlin has been effective in helping students in Chemistry 775 with their homework assignments. More information about Gradlin.
Participate in the Chemistry Building Dedication!
On May 5-6, there will be celebrations in honor of the dedication of the Irving Shain Chemistry Research Tower. We at the Chemistry Computer Center encourage all graduate students and research groups in the department to participate in the event by showing visitors the results of your research using computing tools (software, parallel computing, etc.). You can demonstrate through posters, "live" software demonstrations, or Q&A sessions.
We at the Computer Center plan on having a tour of the Computer Center (Room 9311) and Gradlab (Room 1381). We also plan on assisting with computing software demonstrations in the Gradlab (Room 1381). Please contact Hieu Tran for details.
New Fileserver for Curie Cluster
The new fileserver for the Curie cluster is now up and running. Several test runs with parallel Gaussian03 have completed successfully. Services on Curie should be back to normal. Please contact Hieu Tran with questions.
February
New Computer Pilot Project for Chemistry Computing Courses
Gradlin is a new computer built by the CCC available for graduate students in chemistry computing courses. Currently, the computer is configured to allow students to access it from both inside the Computer Classroom and from outside the Chemistry Department Network. Graduate students are able to remotely access Gradlin to complete their homework assignments and store their files on the fileserver throughout the semester they are enrolled.
Gradlin is running Gentoo Linux. It has a Pentium 4 Processor 3GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 250GB hard drive. Gradlin, which is separate from the research clusters, serves as a new model that the CCC is testing to expand computing resources to both chemistry and non chemistry students on campus. CCC staff are also working on expanding this concept to work on the Windows platform.
New Chemdraw License
Chemdraw Std 10.0 (UW site license) is now available for download. The current license is good through 8/25/2006. Click here for download instructions
January
New CCC Website Interface
The Computer Center Website now has a new and improved interface design. The website now features interactive menus and rotating images on the home page. We hope that everyone finds the new interface to be more enjoyable. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please let us now if you have any thoughts on the website's organization or presentation.
Mathematica Renewed
The license for Mathematica has been renewed for 2006. Interested research groups may install Mathematica on their chemistry-network computers. Contact Hieu Tran for details. More Information