What’s New on the SSC Network?

Les Flodrowski

 

This past summer brought a number of enhancements, new services, and changes to the SSC Network. The following is a summary of some of the software and support updates not mentioned elsewhere in this newsletter.

Increased Network Quotas

H: drive quotas for faculty, staff and graduate students have been increased from 200MB to 300MB, while those for undergraduate students have increased from 50MB to 100MB. Also, the Supplemental Storage (S: drive) quota has changed from 50MB to 100MB for all users. Everyone is encouraged to make use of their H: and S: drives as this provides a safe and secure repository for storing files. These network drives are backed up nightly, allowing files that you accidentally delete or overwrite to be recovered from the previous night’s copy.

New and Updated Software

Microsoft Office 2007, a major upgrade to the Microsoft Office productivity suite, is available on the network and installed on all SSNDS student lab computers and remote access servers. This new version features a dramatically different interface and document format that you should be aware of before upgrading. Due to the difference in document formats, anyone running previous versions of Office will need to install the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack before they can open documents created with Office 2007.

A network license for Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Professional has been procured to facilitate the creation of PDF documents for easy, more secure distribution, collaboration and data collection through PDF forms. Acrobat 8.0 is fully compatible with Office 2007.

New and Updated Software

Along with Office 2007 and Adobe Acrobat 8.0 Professional, the following software upgrades are available for installation on both Windows XP and Vista computers through Add or Remove Programs:

  • SPSS Version 15.0
  • Adobe Photoshop CS3
    Microsoft Expression Web (    replaces FrontPage)
  • SNAP Surveys 9.0 Professional
  • ArcGis 9.2
  • Scientific WorkPlace 5.5
  • Matlab 2007a
  • GraphPad Prism 5.0
  • Intel Visual Fortran 9.1
  • IMSL Numerical Library 5.0
  • Trend OfficeScan 8.0

Windows Vista Support

Windows Vista

SSNDS now supports the Windows Vista Business and Ultimate editions.

Although Vista has not proven itself to be a compelling upgrade for users currently running Windows XP, we advise anyone purchasing a new PC to acquire Vista. As a minimum hardware platform, the Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of RAM is recommended for any new computer purchases.

Minimal Windows XP Supported Configuration

With the release of new updates, service packs and virus protection for Windows XP, the processor and memory requirements needed to adequately run the operating system have increased substantially. Having less than the recommended amount of memory or processing power results in very slow performance, making even logging onto XP a frustrating experience; therefore, SSNDS is increasing the minimal specifications for systems that we support to:

  • Pentium IV 1.5 MHz CPU or faster
  • 512 MB or greater RAM