Issue #84 August 2009

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Successful completion of Data Centre power upgrade

A message from Vice President (Administration), Peter Marshall
______________________________________________________________

Successful completion of Data Centre power upgrade

The upgrade of power to the University’s IT data centre carried out over
last weekend was completed on schedule, except for a short delay in
returning the SAP service. All applications and systems have been
returned to normal operations. I would like to thank all staff for their
patience in dealing with the limited provision of IT services last
weekend. The upgrade increased the data centre power capacity by 70% to
meet future data centre requirements and the expected peak demands which
occur during summer.

Over 70 University staff, worked around the clock on this major
infrastructure undertaking and I would like to acknowledge and thank
them for their outstanding work. In particular I would like to
congratulate the combined efforts of ITS and Facilities and Services
Divisions, combined with the support given by the internal service
owners of our major IT systems, ensured that the upgrade was successful,
and carried out with minimum disruption.

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Time to change your authcate password

ITS Security peformed an audit of all Facultly authcate accounts earlier this year and have found that over 1000 Faculty staff have not updated their authcate password in over 6 years.
And over 100 staff have not changed their password in over 10 years.

Passwords at Monash
Your login details (username and password) should be treated like your bank PIN number and protected at all costs. You are responsible for this information and should never share your password with anyone. Sharing your password is a breach of the Acceptable IT use policy and can lead to disciplinary action.

Change your password often
As passwords can be captured and cracked over time, ITS recommends you change your passwords every 3 months. This makes it more difficult for any hackers to get access to your account.

Monash IT systems are set to check passwords when they are changed to ensure that they are difficult to guess, either by another human, or a program meant to guess passwords.  This helps ensure that your account cannot be broken into and your data (documents, programs, etc) stolen or deleted.

To change your password, visit:
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/accounts/passwords/

Password security:
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/security/passwords/pwsecurity.html

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Apple Warranty Change: September, 2009

Apple has decided to change the education warranty in Australia  from the current three years return to base (RTB) ("Apple TriCare Protection Plan) to one year RTB ("AppleCare Protection Plan") effective September 1st 2009.  All machines purchased by the University until the end of August will include the 3 year RTB warranty.

This means  that warranty will be reduced to 12 months and Monash staff will need to pay for the extra two years (if required).  The new plan has been enhanced to include on-site and also global coverage.   Apple sees the benefits of the new plans as being onsite, global coverage and offering more customisation options.

The prices of the new warranty plans are listed below:

iMac                          - $169 ex GST
MacBook                       - $229 ex GST
MacBook Pro*                  - $349 ex GST
Mac Pro*                      - $229 ex GST
Mac Mini*                     - $139 ex GST
Display                       - $113 ex GST
Xserve                        - $1087 ex GST
*Cover for 1 Apple Display is included with each
Mac Pro, MacBook Pro and Mac mini CPU

For more information, please contact Monash's two endorsed Apple Suppliers:
Designwyse Australia and Connecting Point
http://www.adm.monash.edu.au/procserv/products-and-suppliers/suppliers.php
(Under IT & Computing)

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How do I access Novell (V:\ drive) from home (off-campus)?

Staff who have accounts on the Monash NetWare staff environment can gain access to their U: and V: drive files remotely (through your own ISP) with NetStorage via any web browser.

Access to NetStorage is operating system independent so whether you are a Windows, Macintosh or Linux user, you will be able to access your NetWare drives. The web interface is accessible to all staff at:
https://netstorage.its.monash.edu.au/NetStorage/

Instructions on use is available from:
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/systems/novell/monash-netstorage.pdf

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Accessing Monash email via the web

When away from your work computer, or when your email client fails, staff and students can access their Monahs email via the Monash Portal
https://my.monash.edu.au/
or
https://mail.monash.edu.au/

For staff wanting to configure Thunderbird at home, please visit:
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/email/guides/thunderbird_email.html

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Graphpad Prism: Register and download for NEW USERS

"GraphPad Prism is a powerful combination of biostatistics, curve fitting (nonlinear regression) and scientific graphing in one comprehensive program. You can easily organise, analyse and graph repeated experiments; pick appropriate statistical tests and interpret the results."

To register and download Graphpad Prism (Windows and Macintosh), please visit:
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/tsg/itss/software/guide/graphpad-prism.html

For more information on the Faculty's site licence, please visit:
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/tsg/itss/software/guide/graphpad-prism.html

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Graphpad Prism - biostatistics, curve fitting and scientific graphing for all Faculty staff AND students

Prism offers a more comprehensive set of tools to analyze your data than any other scientific graphics package. While it won't replace a heavy-duty statistics program, Prism lets you easily perform basic statistical tests commonly used by laboratory and clinical researchers. Prism offers t tests, nonparametric comparisons, one- and two-way ANOVA, linear and nonlinear regression, analysis of contingency tables, and survival analysis.

Graphpad Prism offers the following:

Statistical comparisons

• Paired or unpaired t tests
• Mann-Whitney or Wilcoxon tests
• Ordinary or repeated measures one-way ANOVA with Tukey, Newman-Keuls, Dunnett or Bonferroni post tests, or the post-test for trend
• Kruskal-Wallis or Friedman nonparametric one-way ANOVA with Dunn's post test
• Fisher's exact test or the chi-square test. Calculate the relative risk and odds ratio with confidence intervals
• Two-way ANOVA, even with missing values with some post tests
• Repeated measures two-way ANOVA with some post tests
• Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. Compare curves with the log-rank test (including test for trend)

Column statistics

• Calculate min, max, quartiles, mean, SD, SEM, CI, CV, Geometric mean with Confidence Intervals
• Specify desired level of confidence
• Frequency distributions (bin to histogram), including cumulative histograms.
• Kolgoromov-Smirnov normality test
• One sample t test or Wilcoxon test to compare the column mean (or median) with a theoretical value
• Skewness and Kurtosis

Linear regression and correlation

• Calculate slope and intercept with confidence intervals
• Force the regression line through a specified point
• Fit to replicate Y values or mean Y
• Test for departure from linearity with a runs test
• Calculate and graph residuals
• Compare slopes and intercepts of two or more regression lines
• Determine new points along the standard curve
• Pearson or Spearman (nonparametric) correlation
• Table of XY coordinates

Clinical (diagnostic) lab statistics

• Bland-Altman plots
• Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves

Deming regression (type ll linear regression)

http://www.graphpad.com/prism/statistics.htm

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SPSS 15 site licence ends October 31, 2009

You may be aware that SPSS is about to release SPSS v18.  This means that older versions of SPSS will no longer be supported for general distribution.  

SPSS 15 will no longer be supported (it was released in 2006).     

This is a notice that users will need to migrate to later versions of SPSS software, as v15 will begin to give out expiry warning in September, and will expire on 31 October.

The current version of SPSS is now known as PASW Statistics V17.0.2, and PASW Statistics V18 from September 2009.

At this stage, PASW Statistics V18 is expected to be distributed in early October, 2009.

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SPSS for Postgraduate Students - Privately Owned Computers

If Postgraduate student require SPSS on thri privatly owned computer, they or their supervisor will need to purchase the SPSS V17 Graduate Pack For Windows from the Monash Bookshop ($199):
http://www.bookshop.monash.edu.au/details.php?stkcode=2770000116299

Or student may be able to used Graphpad Prism which has basis statistical analyses:
http://graphpad.com/prism/statistics.htm

This can be downloaded by all Faculty staff and students via registration.

Details are available on the TSG website:
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/tsg/itss/software/guide/graphpad-prism.html

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Upgrade to Stata 11

'Stata is a complete, integrated statistical package that provides everything you need for data analysis, data management, and graphics.

The new version of Stata (11) has been released and adds many new features such as multiple imputation, factor variables, generalized method of moments (GMM), competing-risks regression, state-space modeling, predictive margins, a Variables Manager, and more.'

For more information, visit: http://www.stata.com/stata11/

Currently Faculty staff receive a discount on purchases based on a volume licence (there are currently over 80 licensed users of Stata 10 in the Faculty).

If you are interested in upgrading your current copy of Stata (10), please email software@med.monash.edu.au with your details on how many licences you are interested in upgrading.

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The MNHS Data Storage Cluster is changing

The MNHS Data Storage Cluster is being upgraded to provide greater redundancy and an increase in storage.  The current system will be unavailable to users during the upgrade. The new system handles authentication slightly different than the previous version, which only affects Windows users.

How will this impact me?

From 5pm Friday 21^st August, there will be no access to the storage cluster, until the upgrade has been completed, which is expected to be available again by 5pm Sunday 23^rd August.

What do I need to do before hand?

If you are you using Windows (XP/2003), you will need to change the way you connect to the MNHS Data Storage Cluster.

Disconnect any mapped drives, then reconnect, and when prompted for your username, prefix it with mnhs\

Ie: mnhs\jbloggs

Your password should be entered as normal. (Your password will not have changed)

Anyone using the storage cluster for backups, please ensure your backup has completed by 5pm Friday 21^st August.

The change can be made now, in preparation for the new system as it will still work with the existing system.

If you need assistance in making this change, please contact your local MNHS IT support via JobDesk (jobdesk.monash.edu.au).  Due to varying workloads, it’s recommended to log the job as soon as possible to ensure the change is made before the new system is in place.

Documentation is available at https://storageadmin.med.monash.edu.au/pdfs/EndUserDocumentation-v3.pdf

For more information, please contact MNHS TSG Infrastructure and Major IT Projects via JobDesk (jobdesk.monash.edu.au).

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New - Fabric posters

In addition to traditional laminated paper posters, Multimedia Services
is now able to offer fabric posters, ideal for travelling. If you would
like to have your poster printed on fabric, please let us know when you
submit your poster for printing.

For more information about printing posters through Multimedia Services,
please visit our website at:
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/tsg/multimedia/posters.html

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Replacing the CMS Visual Format Editor

Last month, the ITS CMS Team updated the inline editor in the CMS from VisualFormat to TinyMCE.

he existing editor in TeamSite CMS, VisualFormat, is no longer as compatible with newer web browsers in use around Monash. Many users and departments have been contacting ITS with issues while using VisualFormat. This change has been expedited owing to the number of users who are now experiencing problems. 

What impact will this have my use of the CMS?

Minimal. Both editors are very similar in appearance and functionality. ITS have created some support material to illustrate the changes:
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/web/cms/support/guides/tinymce.html

What is the advantage of TinyMCE over VisualFormat?
Apart from better compatibility with newer web browsers, TinyMCE has the advantage of not needing to be installed on the machine as it is a Javascript based editor.

TinyMCE also has additional editing features not present in the older VisualFormat editor.

Further queries
Please contact the Web Technology Services team on extension 52640 if you have any further questions or queries.

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