ITaP: ITaP Newsroom

myPurdue maintenance early Tuesday, Nov. 24

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Access to myPurdue will be unavailable from 6:30 to 7 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 24.

Customer satisfaction survey coming in December

itap@purdue.edu — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP soon will release its 2009 customer satisfaction survey - first to students on Tuesday, Dec. 1, and then to faculty and staff on Wednesday, Dec. 2. This annual survey's data becomes the source of ITaP's improvement efforts.

ITaP seeking solution to Macintosh wireless issues

itap@purdue.edu — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Some campus Macintosh users have been unable to reliably connect to Purdue’s wireless network, PAL, since late August. Others have connected to PAL successfully using an updated patch for Airport.

Cluster Challenge: Purdue, ITaP student supercomputing team completes first phase

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue's student Cluster Challenge team at the SC09 conference in Portland, Ore., got off to a fast start Monday in the benchmarking phase of the competition, which is designed to push the student-run computers to the maximum.

ITaP will offer faculty expanded lecture-capture service as an option in spring semester

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

For the spring semester of 2010, ITaP plans to offer a multimedia lecture-capture service that some Purdue faculty members have been testing during a pilot study in 275 classrooms.

SC09 Cluster Challenge: Purdue, ITaP student supercomputing team wins 'green' computing award

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue’s student Cluster Challenge team at the SC09 supercomputing conference in Portland, Ore., was fast and green. The Purdue team in the competition, where teams of undergraduates from around the country pushed their student-run supercomputers to the maximum over three days, won the award for getting the most done on the least amount of power, organizers announced Thursday.

DiaGrid: Purdue puts SC09 supercomputing conference computers to work on science

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Ken Newton uses computer simulations of ions (charged atoms) to optimize techniques used in studying their structure. Enter DiaGrid, a Purdue system for harnessing idle computers in offices, student computer labs, supercomputing centers and, this week, on the show floor at the world’s largest supercomputing conference.

SC09 Cluster Challenge: Purdue, ITaP student supercomputing team places in benchmarking phase

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue's student Cluster Challenge team at the SC09 Conference in Portland, Ore., finished behind the University of Colorado in the benchmarking phase of the competition designed to push the student-run supercomputers to the maximum.

ITaP hosts seminar for computer security trends, tips

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Halloween week isn't the only time that cybercriminals can scare up trouble. A preventive focus on reducing risk when handling sensitive data can ease fear of cyber-boogeymen at any time of year. That was a major theme during ITaP's keynote event for Purdue's fourth-annual celebration of National Cybersecurity Awareness month — held Friday, Oct. 30, in Fowler Hall at Stewart Center.

Purdue highlights cloud-computing tools at SC09 supercomputing conference

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Facebook for scientists — but built to facilitate serious research rather than socializing — and an award-winning method for putting idle computers to work on scientific breakthroughs are Purdue-developed technologies in the spotlight at SC09, the world’s largest high-performance computing conference. Purdue is highlighting the HUBzero and DiaGrid technologies in the University’s booth at SC09, which runs through Friday, Nov. 20, in Portland, Ore.

Purdue research-computing grid is no 'Toy Story,' but a new animated video about it is close

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

If Purdue University computer-graphics technology student Micah Bojrab gets his dream job with a Hollywood animation studio, a system for harnessing unused computers to do cutting-edge research will have played a part. The DiaGrid system developed by Purdue inspired a video combining computer animation and real-life scenes that would make Pixar proud.

ITaP is discontinuing its DocuShare service at the end of January 2010

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP is discontinuing the DocuShare service after Jan. 31, 2010 because newer collaboration tools offer users more features and aging hardware needs to be retired. DocuShare software is expensive and outdated, and users have requested more advanced functionality than DocuShare can offer.

Spring into myPurdue this fall for password changes, class registration

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Students registering for spring semester may need to change the career account passwords they’ve used since the summer.

Cluster Challenge: Purdue, ITaP student supercomputing team ready for SC09

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue students Alex Younts and David King helped build Purdue’s latest supercomputer in July. Call it a summer workout. Younts and King are now part of a Purdue student team running its own supercomputer in a competition at the SC09 Conference in Portland, Ore., which runs through Friday, Nov. 20.

ITaP offers course in easy interactive virtual environment creation

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

A training course covering Vizard 3.0 will be offered at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 17 and Dec. 1 by ITaP’s data visualization facility, the Envision Center for Data Perceptualization.

TLT conference proposals due December 11

itap@purdue.edu — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

The theme of the 13th annual Teaching and Learning with Technology conference, set for April 7–8, 2010, is "Learning Revolution: Collaboration in Education." ITaP solicits proposals for 45-minute presentations or point–counterpoint discussions from college, university and P–12 faculty, as well as IT professionals.

Study gives clearer picture of how land-use changes affect U.S. climate

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Researchers affiliated with ITaP’s Purdue Terrestrial Observatory program say regional surface temperatures can be affected by land use, suggesting that local and regional strategies — such as creating green spaces and buffer zones in and around urban areas — could be a tool in addressing climate change.

It's always polite to share, and SharePoint makes it easier

itap@purdue.edu — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Sharing information on, and off, Purdue University’s campus has become easier, thanks to a new enhancement to ITaP’s SharePoint service – one of ITaP’s fastest-growing services.

Purdue’s Usenet service being discontinued at year’s end

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Emerging technologies and decreasing use have reduced the effectiveness of Purdue’s own on-campus Usenet service.

Completion of Exchange migration brings new features, added space

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP has completed the migration of mailboxes to the new Exchange 2007 email environment. Each Exchange account now has a default storage-limit quota of 1 GB – up from the previous 500 MB. The new web-access interface also is more intuitively user-friendly and boasts several useful new features.

ITaP solicits collaborative and cross-disciplinary technology projects from faculty

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP is offering a competitive grants program to fund innovative technology projects that aim to improve instructional quality and effectiveness.

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month celebrated at Purdue

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

In honor of Purdue's fourth annual National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, ITaP will host a live event from 9 to 11 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 30, in Fowler Hall, as well as produce a webcast series of "Firewall Chats."

Campus computer reps at ITaP Shopping Offline

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue faculty, staff and students with questions about Macintosh or Dell computers can get answers from Apple and Dell campus representatives in ITaP Shopping Offline in Stewart Center, room G65.

Voice and data plan discounts offered to Purdue community

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Don’t pay more than needed for AT&T mobility services.

Purdue Google Gadgets offer satellite data visualization for everybody

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue collects masses of satellite data for use by scientists and state and local officials, but anybody who uses Google can now share in some of this data cornucopia.

Apple machines added to SMARTcomputing program

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Apple desktops and laptops are now available through SMARTcomputing – Purdue’s institutional-computer purchasing program that emphasizes savings, support, community and security.

Purdue researchers propose method to image electron wavefunctions

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Researchers at Purdue University and the University of Melbourne, Australia, are proposing a novel way to accomplish something normally impossible to do — 3-D mapping of electron wavefunction, which is the probability that an electron will be in a given position around an atom in a solid.

Research-computing services event approaching

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Cyberinfrastructure Day — a series of informational sessions covering research-computing services and cyberinfrastructure available to Purdue researchers in all fields — will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30, in the Stewart Center.

Blue Waters project offers Purdue researchers opportunities in computing and education

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Opportunities for Purdue research computing and computing education projects with the Blue Waters petascale computer being built at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) were highlighted at a Purdue seminar in September.

Research suggests urban sprawl, wet falls and winter affect severe weather

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Previously rare big city storms — like an Aug. 19 tornado that downed trees and ripped off roofs in downtown Minneapolis and the powerful thunderstorms in New York City a day earlier — may not be so unusual anymore.

SMARTcomputing saves money, lends support and strengthens security

itap@purdue.edu — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue departments are having an accelerated learning experience with SMARTcomputing — an institutional-computer purchasing program approaching its four-year goal of selling 5,000 institutional desktops and laptops. SMARTcomputing is a joint project of distributed departmental IT and ITaP.

Data-management demonstration available in video format

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

For those who were unable to attend ITaP’s demonstration of data-management tips last week, or would like a refresher, a video of the demonstration is available that will open in Windows Media Player.

Purdue email storage limit increases and owa.purdue.edu replaces exchange.purdue.edu

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Users of ITaP’s Exchange services are seeing some changes when it comes to email this fall. A new Web interface with a different address, http://owa.purdue.edu, now provides access to Exchange services in place of http://exchange.purdue.edu. Also, an increase in default storage-limit quotas from 500 MB to 1 GB, as well as other upgrades, will take effect after ITaP migrates Exchange email accounts to different servers.

ITaP’s student software trainers bring expertise to classrooms

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP undergraduate trainers are experts in such popular software programs as Adobe Connect, Adobe Dreamweaver, Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Photoshop.

Save green on computer software with ITaP

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

If you’re strapped for cash but in need of software, check out the deals ITaP has to offer on titles from Microsoft, Adobe, EndNote and others.

Event will highlight research computing services available to Purdue researchers

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Research computing services and cyberinfrastructure available to Purdue researchers in all fields will be the focus of Cyberinfrastructure Day, a series of informational sessions scheduled on the West Lafayette campus for Sept. 30.

Consortium offers Purdue researchers access to massive computational power

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue researchers will have a chance on Sept. 23 to learn about opportunities for research computing and computing education projects related to the Blue Waters petascale computer being built at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

Purdue warns affiliate organizations of .com email scam

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP is warning the Purdue community about reports of a targeted email scam alleging to be from the "webmaster" of Purdue University. Recipients of this email are encouraged to immediately delete these emails and not reply or take the action requested in the email.

Signals tells students how they're doing even before the test

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

This fall, Purdue University has launched a first-of-its-kind computerized system that will track student academic progress and warn students in real-time if they need work in certain areas.

Manage your email — use self-discipline with self-storage of data

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP has created a series of data-management tips to help establish regular email upkeep habits for all users.

ITaP training focuses on technology tools for instruction

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Training sessions are offered on each of several different technologies critical to everyday instructional practices—Blackboard Vista, Signals, eInstruction (better known as clickers) and Adobe Connect.

Remedy system upgrades deliver faster performance, other conveniences

itap@purdue.edu — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP upgraded the Remedy system in June with twice the hardware and the latest version 7 software. IT support staff in several departments on campus use the software-ticketing tool to record, track and monitor questions and requests.

ITaP helps bring the space program, Indiana’s role in it, to the State Fair

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Commemorations related to the 40th anniversary of the initial Apollo moon landing on July 20, 1969 — featuring Purdue alumnus Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and a high-profile space shuttle mission with two Purdue alumni presenting a “Go Boilers!” greeting from orbit — have made space the place much of the summer.

Blackboard provides instructors with easy plagiarism detection tool

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

SafeAssign — a service built into Blackboard, Purdue’s course-management system — checks papers against several databases using a text-matching algorithm.

ITaP units’ virtualization partnership avoids duplication, better serves researchers

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Recent growth in demand for computational resources from Purdue researchers prompted ITaP to drastically expand its high-performance computing hardware, including the Steele community cluster — built in 2008 and one of the world’s top 500 supercomputers — and the Coates cluster, built July 21.

Purdue partnership for putting idle computers to work on research wins international award

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue is being recognized as a worldwide campus technology innovator for its DiaGrid system, harnessing what would be otherwise wasted computing power for major research projects. Campus Technology Magazine has selected DiaGrid for one of its 2009 Campus Technology Innovators Awards.

Manage your email — delete items a second time

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP has created a series of data-management tips to help establish regular email upkeep habits for all users.

ITaP interns get real experience with research and technology, graduate student life

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP summer research intern Lutalo Webb already knew he would be back when he arrived at Purdue. The May engineering graduate from Vanderbilt University had applied and been accepted for graduate school in West Lafayette.

Encore to ITaP’s first supercomputer barn-raising is even better than the original

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Last year, ITaP staff and a small army of volunteers had the Steele supercomputer built by noon. The anticipation was that the new Coates cluster would take longer.

Manage your email — don't get too attached to large files

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP has created a series of data-management tips to help establish regular email upkeep habits for all users.

GoldAnswers knowledge base shines new light on self-support tech service

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Whether you’re seven hours into a term paper or halfway through creating a course syllabus, there’s never an opportune time to need tech support. But troubleshooting on your own is a speedy way to resolve computer issues, and ITaP offers helpful do-it-yourself resources.

Manage your email — advanced archiving increases access and success

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP has created a series of data-management tips to help establish regular email upkeep habits for all users.

Before calling tech support ... try this!

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Computer manufacturers and software developers operate customer-support call centers to respond to users’ inquiries and troubleshoot problems. But a few bars of hold music go a long way, and the end result could wallop your wallet. Here are some tips offered by ITaP, from which perhaps even the simplest adjustments can get your computer back to business as usual.

Learning any time, anywhere with ITaP services

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Shoot HD video. Share work online for a team project. Build and maintain a Web site … from your couch.

'Green' scales well for Purdue's early users

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Early “tire kicking” by Purdue researchers is winning the University’s new “green” supercomputer some fans, although the results have been mixed for others and they all caution that more refining and testing needs to be done.

Manage your email — archive to retain, delete without refrain

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP has created a series of data-management tips to help establish regular email upkeep habits for all users.

Virtual Omaha Beach: Purdue team recreates D-Day battlefield, launches learning environment where information searches for user

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue and Indiana University researchers commemorated the 65th anniversary of D-Day by releasing the first version of a 3-D, interactive model of the Omaha Beach battlefield. Public presentations were given Tuesday, June 2, at the Advanced Visualization Lab on the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis campus.

Purdue email storage limit increases with upgrades coming this summer

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Users of ITaP’s Exchange and Mailhub services can expect to see some changes when it comes to email this summer. Both services are being upgraded, and the mailbox storage limit will increase from 500 MB to 1 GB.

ITaP taking orders for new research supercomputing cluster and individual systems

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Orders for nodes in the new Coates community cluster are now being taken by ITaP. This also is an opportunity for departments or individuals purchasing computing equipment for use outside the cluster.

Upgrades to Remedy system promise faster performance, other conveniences

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP upgraded the Remedy system in June 2009 with twice the hardware and the latest version 7 software. The software-ticketing tool is used to record, track and monitor requests for IT service.

Five Purdue instructors awarded for quality distance ed courses

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP awarded cash prizes to five Purdue faculty members for developing a high-quality distance education course in 2008.

New TeraGrid Campus Champion making Purdue researchers an offer they can’t refuse

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EDT

A “people person” with a background in helping users take advantage of high-performance computing resources and whose job already focuses on assisting researchers in using the TeraGrid. You couldn’t ask for a better description of a good TeraGrid Campus Champion.

Supercomputing cluster-building game attracts crowds

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Safe to say Rack-A-Node, the Purdue-developed supercomputing cluster-building game, was a hit at the SuperComputing '08 conference, drawing an international collection of players at the premier gathering for high-performance computing, networking, storage and analysis.

ITaP offers Purdue researchers fast, reliable, secure data storage

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP is now offering no-hassle data storage in the same way its community cluster program helps faculty members do research using high-performance computing — that is, without having to worry about running a computer system.

April ITaP conference drew attention to Web 2.0 in teacher education

itap@purdue.edu — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EDT

A number of Web 2.0 applications that educators have found useful for learning were demonstrated and discussed at a Purdue University conference aimed at preschool to college teachers and other education professionals, including educational technologists.

Patient safety focus of immersive virtual environment for training pharmacists

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EDT

A Purdue project makes it easier for students to train in proper clean-room procedures using a flight simulator-like virtual version. The 3-D immersive environment — think the holodeck from the Starship Enterprise — was created from hundreds of digital photos of actual hospital clean rooms and even includes ambient sound recorded in those facilities.

Time on giant computer will allow Purdue researchers to look at very small things, lots of them

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Using one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Purdue researchers have started studying the next generation of computer chips before they are even built.

Drought information to be more predictive and versatile for a variety of users

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Odd as it may seem given that a considerable swath of Indiana flooded this spring, parts of the state were almost dry enough in September to start using the “D” word before Hurricane Ike sent a spate of rain north.

Purdue project aims to move visual mountains, and quickly

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EDT

In an age of scientific visualization employing huge datasets, and of networked instruments that produce data in torrents, bandwidth is an issue. More of it may be available than ever before and it may be faster than in the past, but the pipeline remains relatively limited and expensive.

Purdue Cluster Challenge team creates a stir at supercomputing conference

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue’s team may not have won the Cluster Challenge at the SuperComputing ’08 Conference in Austin, Texas. Then again, no other team got to run code on a supercomputer powered by bicycling colleagues of seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.

Purdue team learns from Bandwidth Challenge at supercomputing conference

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

A team of staff members from Purdue’s Rosen Center for Advanced Computing learned some things likely to come in handy from competing in the Bandwidth Challenge at SuperComputing ’08, the world’s premier high-performance computing conference.

Visitors at supercomputing conference impressed with Purdue-developed technology

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

A Purdue-developed technology called HUBzero sounds chilly, but it looks to Chris McPhee like a hot way to allow researchers to do science online easily in a graphical web-based fashion rather than typing in cryptic commands DOS style. McPhee, a system engineer from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, stopped by the Purdue booth at the SuperComputing ’08 conference in Austin, Texas, for a presentation on HUBzero.

Steele supercomputer at Purdue makes list of world's most powerful systems

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue’s Steele supercomputing cluster — made possible by the collaborative efforts of faculty, staff and volunteers — is among the most powerful high performance computing systems in the world, according to rankings released at the SuperComputing ’08 conference in Austin, Texas.

Purdue project aims to make drought information more predictive and versatile

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue Cluster Challenge team starts fast

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue’s Cluster Challenge team started off fast at the SuperComputing ’08 Conference in Austin, Texas. As in 694 gigaflops fast.

Purdue Supercomputing '08 presence mixes projects to enable scientific productivity, education and fun

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

From an easy way to do cutting-edge science in a web-based environment today to getting ready to take advantage of tomorrow’s next-generation high-performance computers, presentations given by Purdue researchers at the SuperComputing ’08 conference covered a variety of topics in the field.

Purdue Cluster Challenge team all set for Texas

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Huddled over their laptops in a classroom lab on the West Lafayette campus recently, Andy Howard, Alex Younts and colleagues were making adjustments to their competition machine — running in the Boston area at Purdue partner SiCortex — pretty much as if it were right in the room with them.

Purdue Bandwidth Challenge team: Go ahead, try this at home

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Instead of a specialized design you would never see on the street, nor in your average data center — which Bandwidth Challenge entries and IndyCars tend to be — a team from the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing at Purdue built its system on a standard framework, albeit with some judicious tweaking.

Pilot program lets users try Sun systems before making purchases

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

ITaP and Purchasing have announced a pilot program designed to give researchers at Purdue rapid access to new computational hardware. Since the equipment prices have been pre-negotiated, the program can reduce researchers’ “time to science” on purchases from weeks to days.

Making sense of the world an old idea, new technologies offer ways to do it better than ever

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Today, “spatial data infrastructures” that are national, regional and global in scale rely on a satellite’s sensor-suite view of the world rather than a bird’s-eye view. The systems employ and integrate myriad data collections from satellite and other remote sensing techniques — as well as scientific and demographic material collected on the ground — sifted by powerful supercomputers.

Workshop to cover easy-to-use cyberinfrastructure system faculty can use to fulfill grant requirements

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Hub technology that makes it easy for researchers to connect with colleagues throughout the world and share ideas, tools, computational resources and data storage while satisfying funding agency grant requirements was the focus of a November 2008 workshop covering the HUBzero platform.

Virtual clean room to enhance training for pharmacy students

itap@purdue.edu — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Hard-to-come-by training time in a pharmacy clean room is about to become a lot easier for Purdue pharmacy students to get, eventually as easy as turning on their laptop computers. View a fly-through animation of a standard hospital clean room from this story.

Purdue project aims to put isotope analysis on the map, and the Web

itap@purdue.edu — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Mapping and spatial analysis of isotopes in water — particularly hydrogen and oxygen isotopes — could be used to trace the ultimate source of a city’s water supply, the wintering sites of migrating birds, the trading patterns of prehistoric peoples and perhaps even the travels of an unidentified corpse to a crime scene.

Distributed Rendering Environment supports classes and TeraGrid partners

itap@purdue.edu — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Rendering the frames in a complex animation can tie up a workstation, or a whole lab of them in a computer graphics class setting, for literally days or weeks. But if the load could be shared among thousands of machines, a job can be done faster. Enter the Distributed Rendering Environment, or DRE, developed at Purdue and now available to users of the TeraGrid through TeraDRE. It is being used in classes on a regular basis.

Flying particles in Europe will wing plenty of data Purdue’s way

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Just try solving the mysteries of the universe without high performance computing in your tool box. Certainly, the physicists, many of them at Purdue, involved in the CMS experiment connected to the Large Hadron Collider wouldn’t do it. A CMS Tier-2 Center at Purdue is built around high performance computing systems administered and supported by the Rosen Center.

Boilermaker Cluster Challenge team to use powerful, but lower-power supercomputer

itap@purdue.edu — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue’s 2008 Cluster Challenge team is looking to make its competition green with envy. That goes not only for trying to win the undergraduate student competition at the SC08 conference in Austin, Texas, in November — the largest supercomputing conference in the world. It goes for the team’s choice of hardware as well.

Students take top honors at TeraGrid conference

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Students received honors, and Purdue's contributions to the world's largest open science-computing network were highlighted at the TeraGrid conference in June 2008.

Summer research interns get early look at graduate-student life

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Five interns were sponsored by ITaP, the Purdue Terrestrial Observatory and the NASA-funded Indiana Space Grant Consortium based at Purdue under the Purdue Research Opportunities Program (PROP).

Purdue project for FEMA producing a flood of flood maps

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Classify Kaiem Frink as a first-shift worker in a flood factory running on Purdue University’s campus this summer. Frink and the rest of the student work force — two shifts of them a day and one on weekends — aren’t actually filling the labs they occupy in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering building with water, of course. The floods they’re producing are on maps of 100-year flood plains in more than 700 U.S. counties.

iPhone software connects with Exchange servers

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT

iPhone 2.0 software released by Apple in July 2008 enabled Purdue faculty and staff iPhone devices to connect to the Exchange servers.

Campus alert: Purdue never sends email asking for passwords

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue students and employees receiving emails that ask users to confirm an email address and provide password information are advised to immediately delete the emails and to not reply to them. Purdue will never send an email message asking users to reply with a password or other confidential personal information such as Social Security numbers or bank account numbers.

Graduating senior gives Purdue high marks for its disability resources

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Brian Petraits is a student with initiative, confidence and drive — and one of 29 students on campus who is blind or visually impaired. At age three, Petraits began to lose his vision because of retinitis pigmentosa, which robbed him of peripheral and night vision. In fifth grade, he learned Braille.

Purdue installs the Big Ten's largest campus supercomputer

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue University staff members hoped to build the Big Ten’s largest campus supercomputer over the course of a Monday in May 2008. But their estimate was off. They were done by lunch.

Purdue creates scientifically based animation of 9/11 attack

itap@purdue.edu — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Although most Americans believe they know what brought down the World Trade Center twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, civil engineers are still seeking answers to questions that could save lives in the future. For the CBS News report and animated visualization, read more.

New view for the outage notification system

itap@purdue.edu — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Purdue campus faculty and staff now have a better view of unscheduled outages and scheduled changes affecting central IT services with the release of the new outage notification system.

Purdue team's 3-D animation displayed at Future of Flight center

itap@purdue.edu — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 EDT

When students at Purdue University looked at plans for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, they saw the future of commercial aircraft assembly, and they shared this vision by creating a 3-D visual holographic display of how the Dreamliner could be assembled. It's currently showing at the Future of Flight Aviation Center in Everett, Wash. View the animation

ITaP releases a position statement on the use of Instant Messaging

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP) released a position statement reminding users of Purdue policy and state and federal laws that may be relevant to the use of Instant Messaging.

Purdue's system-wide technology lets students click in to academics

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Some Purdue students bring more than paper and pencils to class. They also bring radio frequency (RF) response pads — handheld, remote control-like student feedback devices that are commonly called "clickers."

Password reset self-service now available

itap@purdue.edu — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Career account users can now set up challenge questions that allow them to reset their forgotten passwords themselves.