Welcome School of Education Members

This is the first SSCC Newsletter being sent to many Social Science Computing Co-op (SSCC) members from the School of Education. SSCC News is a monthly newsletter that keeps you informed about upcoming free computer software workshop opportunities, new and upgraded software, new publications on computing topics, and changes on the network (Linux and Winstat) including down times. If you still have not used any of the services included in your SSCC membership (including our Windows servers for running statistical software), visit our welcome page for an overview of services.

Summer Training Schedule

Our summer training is underway and the schedule is available on SSCC's training web pages. This month we will be offering Stata graphics, an introduction to SAS on Windows, and several SPSS sessions. Registration is required. Be sure and register early before sessions fill!

Broadcast Messages now Available via RSS

The SSCC's Broadcast message contains information like downtime plans, software upgrades, any problems with SSCC servers, and other important announcements. However, you only see it when you first log in to an SSCC computer. Thus we have begun making the same information available as an RSS feed. RSS gives you access to the latest information in SSCC's Broadcast message at any time and from any place. See Getting SSCC Announcements via RSS for more information about what RSS is and how to use it.

Reminder: Save Files on Network Drives when Using Winstat

When you're using Winstat, it's very important that you save the files you create on network drives, like U:, X:, H: or P:. These locations are secure and backed up nightly. Never save files on your Windows desktop, in My Documents or on the C: drive.

The C: drive is the local hard drive of the Winstat server you happen to be using. When you log into Winstat you're automatically assigned to the least busy server, so the next time you log in the odds are you'll be on a different server and unable to access anything you previously saved on C:. The Windows Desktop and My Documents are part of your Windows profile. Files saved there will probably continue to be accessible, however, they are not backed up and can be lost if your session crashes. (It's okay to put shortcuts to files on your desktop for quick access to them, since shortcuts can be recreated easily.) We hate to see anyone lose data, so please save your files on network drives where they are backed up.

Also please remember the other guidelines for using Winstat: never try to install new software (including the "codebook" programs that come with some data sets) and please log off when you are finished rather than just closing the ICA client. If you just close the ICA client, your session remains active and continues to use resources on the server. It also means your profile is not saved: when files on the Desktop or in My Documents are lost it's usually related to sessions that are left running for long periods.