Topics

1) Lab News: Duplex printing from the Lab's PCs & Macs
2) Lab News: Tektronix printer rather than Deskjet for color printouts
3) Lab News: Software upgrades on Macs
4) General News: Email Primer
5) General News: Chemistry Passwords
6) General News: Abuse of everyone@chemistry
7) General News: Recent Chemistry crashes; scheduled upgrades
8) Unix News: How to run Gaussian
9) Lab News: Free diskettes available
10) HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!!

Newsletter Archive:
        http://www.chemistry.ohio-state.edu/compsupp/Newsletter/



1) Lab News: Duplex printing from the Lab's PCs & Macs:


We have provided detailed directions for using the duplex option on the
Computer Lab's 4000TN printer ("2105NW") from the Lab's PCs & Macs. Please
see
Internal --> Computer Support --> Chemistry Department Related Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How do I print doublesided on 2105NW, the Lab's HP 4000TN printer?


2) Lab News: Tektronix printer rather than Deskjet for color printouts:


Whenever possible, please use the Tektronix Phaser 360 rather than the Deskjet
for color printouts in the lab. The Phaser has substantially lower maintenance
costs than the Deskjet. For transparencies, the Phaser will also produce
better quality images, and it is a lot faster.


3) Lab News: Software upgrades on Macs:


Many changes/upgrades on the Macs in the Computer Lab have taken place
recently (too many to list here). For a detailed summary, go to
Internal --> Computer Support --> The Support Bulletin Board


4) General News: Email Primer:


Everybody in the Department uses email. Not everybody uses email in an
efficient manner. Many people (unknowingly) send email back and forth between
the Chemistry Department and the University's osu.edu mail distribution
system. Many people regularly mistype addresses, use wrong addresses,
use addresses that have been outdated for many years and get confused
when "my email takes forever to arrive".

To help our users, we have written "The Great Email Primer" and updated other
explanations (Frequently Asked Questions, aka "FAQs") on how to use
chemistry's email facilities. Some of the highlights are:

 * How do I know what somebody's chemistry address is?

 * What are osu.edu, magnus and postbox addresses?

 * How can I find out where my osu.edu address is forwarding to?

 * Departmental mailing lists and aliases

To find out more, go to
Internal --> Computer Support --> The Great Email Primer
or check out new items under
Internal --> Computer Support --> Chemistry Department Related Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)


5) General News: Chemistry Passwords:


This should serve as a reminder that you need to choose secure passwords
on the chemistry Unix server. It is NOT acceptable to keep the default
passwords based on your SSN# when you get your account. It is also not
acceptable to use easy-to-guess passwords, names, parts of names or words
that can be found in dictionaries. Even if you think you don't
have anything of importance on your account, you still have to make sure
that nobody else gains access to your account. We've had numerous cases
in the last few months in which outside intruders were able to guess poorly
chosen passwords and subsequently abused our system for illegal activities.

Also see COMPNEWS issues 13 and 15 for more on the same topic.

Furthermore, do not give your password to anybody, neither friends nor
relatives. It is not acceptable to allow somebody else access to your
account.


6) General News: Abuse of everyone@chemistry:


Recently, everyone@chemistry has been abused again and we've received
complaints from some users. We do believe that this is only a minor nuisance,
and the offended people are in the minority. We have taken a non-response
stance to this issue. However, to make the policy clear, from now on we'll
include the following statement on all account-creation notifications to new
users. Neither new nor established users can later credibly claim that they
didn't know.

					*

For your convenience, a number of email lists are provided for the faculty,
staff and students in the Department of Chemistry.

        faculty@chemistry.ohio-state.edu        <-- ALL faculty
        staff@chemistry.ohio-state.edu          <-- ALL staff
        chemgrad@chemistry.ohio-state.edu       <-- ALL graduate students
        postdocs@chemistry.ohio-state.edu       <-- ALL postdoctorals
and
        everyone@chemistry.ohio-state.edu       <-- ALL Chemistry personnel

THESE EMAIL LISTS ARE FOR OFFICIAL DEPARTMENTAL BUSINESS ONLY.

Please do NOT send any messages to everyone@chemistry.ohio-state.edu which
are for personal business. Chain letters, virus announcements, and other
personal items are not appropriate for these email lists.

INAPPROPRIATE USE OF YOUR CHEMISTRY EMAIL ACCOUNT WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE
ACTION AND WILL INCLUDE THE TERMINATION OF YOUR ACCOUNT.


7) General News: Recent Chemistry crashes; scheduled upgrades:


As you may have noticed, the chemistry Unix server crashed because of
overtemperature in the middle of the night early last week. The reason was
a broken CPU fan, which was subsequently replaced. We apologize for any
inconvenience this unintentional downtime may have caused.

To meet the growing utilization of chemistry, we'll be doubling chemistry's
memory (RAM) as well as disk space for /home in the near future. We will
announce necessary downtimes well in advance and keep them as short as
possible.

These upgrades should guarantee sufficient performance until we can replace
the server (hopefully soon).


8) Unix News: How to run Gaussian:


All Gaussian 94 users in the computer lab should be aware that we will be
implementing procedures to prevent users from running G94 interactively.  If
you do not already know how to run G94 jobs using the NQS queuing system via
the script subgauss, please go to
Internal --> Computer Support --> How to get started with Gaussian

The above mentioned measures will take effect as soon as Support can
implement them. Thereafter, any and all Gaussian jobs that are found to be
running outside the NQS queuing system will be terminated.

We have received several complaints from users having their Gaussian jobs
wait in the queues for weeks at a time because others were jumping the line
and causing overloads and slowdowns of the machines.


9) Lab News: Free diskettes available:


There are previously used, free diskettes available in the lab. They were
bulk-erased before they were made available on the shelf next to the printer
2105NW. There are double-density (DD) and high-density (HD) diskettes.


10) HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!!