Topics

1) General News: Tim Cogley leaving
2) General News: Vacation Schedule
3) General News: new ISIS
4) Unix News: Gaussian 98 (g98) available
5) Unix News: GIMP 1.0.4 on chemistry
6) Lab News: Various upgrades
7) General News: pick up your printouts, recycling, etc.

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



1) General News: Tim Cogley leaving:


We regret to inform you that Tim Cogley, our main support for Windows NT in
particular and PCs in general will be leaving the Department. Tim's last day
will be this Friday, June 11. Tim has been instrumental in deploying and
maintaining NT in the Department, and his presence will be sorely missed. We
thank him for all the extra effort and overtime that he has put into this job
and wish him good luck for his new position.

Due to budget constraints, the Department has currently no plans to replace
Tim. This will create a shortage of personnel power, particularly in the PC
arena. This shortage will be intensified, since our undergrad student worker,
Josh Gould, has left for the summer (his last day was Friday, June 4).

We plan to have a farewell for Tim at BW3 (High Street) at 3:30 p.m. on
Thursday (June 10). Please join us to say good bye to Tim.


2) General News: Vacation Schedule:


Gerry Raimann: TUE, June 15, to THU, July 1
Barb Bennett:  MON, June 28, to FRI, July 16


3) General News: new ISIS:


ISIS (Integrated Scientific Information System) is a set of programs to
access chemical structure information, stored in a database on a Unix
computer, from Mac and PC clients. ISIS has been available for a long time.
We have now installed the latest version of ISIS/Host (the server part),
along with the most recent database updates (containing literature references
up to and including 1999). We are in the process of making the latest version
of ISIS/Base and ISIS/Draw (the client part) available on the PCs and Macs in
the Computer Lab 2105 NW.

Starting next week (week of June 14), ISIS will be available on all PCs in
the lab. The Macs in the Lab still run the old version of ISIS, accessing the
old database. They will be upgraded as soon as possible.

Note:

 o to access the old ISIS database, a generic username "mdluser" was used;
   for the new database, please use your own chemistry username and password

The old ISIS version will be removed some time in July.

ISIS manuals are available in the Computer Lab.


4) Unix News: Gaussian 98 (g98) available:


g98 has replaced g94, its predecessor, on the RS6000 workstations in the
Computer Lab 2105 NW. Also, g98 has been installed on various Unix
workstations owned by research groups. The Department is licensed to run g98
on various Unix operating systems, including Linux.

We don't have a g98 manual. Each group that is interested can purchase one
from Gaussian (www.gaussian.com).



5) Unix News: GIMP 1.0.4 on chemistry:


Gimp stands for "GNU Image Manipulation Program", and is a freeware,
Photoshop-like program.

You can get more information via GIMP's man-page ("man gimp") and on the web
under

Internal --> Computer Support --> Online Manuals and FAQs


6) Lab News: Various upgrades:


DeltaGraph 4.0.4 has been recently installed on all Macs in the Computer Lab
2105 NW. This plotting software is made available in part to fill the void
left when SigmaPlot was no longer available for the Macs.

Also, Adobe Acrobat 4.0 (the entire package, not just the reader) was
installed on the Lab machines (both PCs and Macs).

Other recent software upgrades on the Lab Macs include:

- Netscape Navigator (4.51 --> 4.6)

- MDL's Chime plugin for Netscape Navigator (1.0 --> 2.0a); the software
  allows the display & "live" manipulation of 2D & 3D molecules within a
  web page.  For more info, check at http://www.mdli.com/relmain.html.

- new virus definition files (dated 6/1/99) for Virex


7) General News: pick up your printouts, recycling, etc.:


This is a reminder, mostly for our graduate students.

Every week, we go through 10 to 20 reams of printer paper in the Computer
Lab. There is nothing wrong with this, provided that you actually use the
printouts. However, every week we have to throw away huge stacks of printouts
that were not picked up.

Here are a few guidelines:

 o only print documents that you actually need; printing costs real money

 o if you print something, please pick it up

 o the printer and all other computer resources are for chemistry-related
   work, not for personal things

 o if you take somebody else's printout from the printer, put it in the
   printout holder on the wall, don't leave it on top of the Mac or next
   to the RS6000 workstation

 o don't put trash into the blue recycling bin; the University recycles
   white and colored paper, but not plastic transparencies or banana peels