By
Patrick McLeod,Research and Statistical Support Services
Consultant
As Spring turns into Summer in North Texas, more
than just the seasons are changing in the Research and Statistical
Support office in Academic Computing Services. We have four new
pieces of software that we are working on rolling out for the UNT
research community: New versions of SPSS, S-Plus and Stata and a new
product (that many of you probably already know),
Matlab.
Unfortunately, while we have new software for the Summer, we also
have new complications: The new versions of SPSS and S-Plus both
make use of licensing management software that node-locks each
installation.
For individual installations (office computers, authorized users’
home computers and standalone workstations), node-locked licensing
does not present a problem as long as the computer has an active
internet connection at the time of installation. For network
licenses, however, different arrangements must be made to correctly
install and run both the statistical software and the license
management software.
SPSS 13 for Windows, SPSS 11.0.2 for OS-X
SPSS 13 for Windows makes use of the Sentinel
License Manager, a new product feature that was not present in prior
versions of SPSS. At the present time, RSS and the ACS Lab are
investigating possible alternative ways to implement the Sentinel
License Manager for our network license for Windows. SPSS 13 is
available for checkout and installation by authorized individuals.
Per the terms of our contract with SPSS, “authorized individuals”
are deemed to be full-time, benefits-eligible faculty and staff
members of UNT. Teaching fellows, teaching assistants, research
assistants and students are not eligible under any circumstances to
check out SPSS for their use; any non full-time, benefits-eligible
faculty member or staff member who wants to check out SPSS but
intends to send a graduate assistant or student to pick up the CDs
will need to make prior phone arrangements or email arrangements
with an RSS staff member or provide a signed note for the graduate
assistant or student to pass along to RSS. All non-eligible members
of the UNT community can purchase the SPSS Grad Pack at the UNT
Bookstore; the Grad Pack also includes the popular structural
equation modeling package AMOS in addition to SPSS. The SPSS Grad
Pack is $180 and is licensed to function for four years from
installation.
SPSS 11.0.2 is also available for check-out to eligible faculty and
staff members for OS-X. One important technical note: While SPSS
11.0.2 works with OS-X “Jaguar,” according to SPSS it will not work
with the newest version of OS-X, “Tiger.” SPSS has not provided a
resolution timeline for bringing 11.0.2 up to Tiger standards. As of
this writing, SPSS will not be bringing 11.0.2 up to Tiger
standards; instead, SPSS has announced that Tiger will be supported
in SPSS 13 for OS-X which is due in Fall 2005.
Last month, Insightful Corporation released the
first full point release upgrade to S-Plus in a couple years’ time.
S-Plus 7 makes use of Macrovision Corporation’s FLEXlm license
manager to uniquely identify each installation of S-Plus 7.
S-Splus-7 is available on the same terms as SPSS for eligible
faculty and staff members for check-out and installation. Under the
terms of our license arrangement with Insightful Corporation, RSS
does copy CDs licensed under a Student Edition serial number that
are available for student purchase in the UNT Bookstore. S-Plus
Student Edition CDs are fully-functional versions of S-Plus 7 that
have a license period of 115 days.
S-Plus 7 is also available for Unix platforms and for the Solaris
platform. As of May 13, 2005, RSS is still awaiting the arrival of
media for the Unix and Solaris versions of S-Plus 7 and the network
license codes for the Windows version of S-Plus 7.
Contact Dr. Richard Herrington, ACS Research Manager, with any
questions about S-Plus 7.
Stata 9 for Windows, Unix, Solaris and OS-X
Stata Corporation of College Station Texas
released Stata 9 at the end of April. Stata 9 incorporates a
significant number of new methods over previous versions of Stata
and it adds the entirely-new Mata matrix programming language. Stata
is licensed in a different way than our other statistical packages
maintained and supported by RSS. There is a 30-seat “Educational
Lab” license that is accessible via the ACS Gauss server for network
access. Beyond this license, UNT is part of Stata’s “GradPlan”
system. Under the GradPlan, faculty, staff and students of UNT can
purchase Stata at a discounted rate (a deeper discount than the
academic pricing!) for either one-year (students only) or perpetual
licenses. Since RSS maintains a stock of Stata merchandise at UNT,
orders can be processed by Stata and then picked up from the RSS
office located in the Information Sciences Building. Typical
turnaround is 24 to 48 hours during the working week. Stata is not
available for check-out from the RSS office.
Stata 9 (in Small, Intercooled and SE (Special Edition) formats) is
available for Windows, Unix, Solaris and OS-X operating systems.
I’ve successfully installed and run Stata 9 SE on Windows XP, Debian
linux and OS-X (both Jaguar and Tiger).
Contact Patrick McLeod, ACS Research Consultant, with any questions
you might have about Stata 9.
Matlab 7.0.3 (Release 14)
Research and Statistical Support is proud to
announce the introduction of support for Matlab 7.0.3 (Release 14)
for Windows, Unix and OS-X. Matlab is a powerful scientific
computing and mathematical computing package from The MathWorks of
Boston, Massachusetts. While certain colleges have had licenses for
Matlab in the past, centralizing our Matlab license into a campus
license will allow the entire UNT research community to benefit from
Matlab’s power.
Our license for Matlab is very flexible: Matlab may be installed on
any university-owned computer attached to UNT’s network whether this
computer is assigned to a professor, a staff member or a graduate
student. Unlike some of our other statistical package licenses,
Matlab’s license does not discriminate based on the university
employee’s FTE or status as a graduate student. In addition, all
professors and staff members can install Matlab on a home machine or
laptop for the purposes of conducting research. Under the terms of
our contract, students cannot install Matlab on any non-university,
non-network computers.
Based on calculations made by The MathWorks and UNT, our license
caps our total usage at 5,660 “seats” or 5,660 individual instances
of Matlab. While that does seem like a large number of seats, when
you consider Matlab being distributed across two campuses of roughly
35,000 potentially eligible individuals, those seats can run out
fast. For that reason, we will be tracking Matlab checkout and
installation via the Remedy system much as we track SPSS, SAS and
S-Plus checkout and installation via Remedy.
Contact Patrick McLeod, ACS Research Consultant, with any questions
you might have about Matlab.
