RLAB IT Blog

STATA 11 manuals are now available online for CEP and STICERD users

2010-06-10T16:27:00.004+01:00

PDF versions of STATA 11 manuals are now available to browse online.

Please note these are restricted to members of CEP and STICERD who use STATAwithin the Research Lab and already have an existing RLAB account.

Users will be requested for their RLAB username and password to view the manuals. For username type RLAB\username and for password enter your normal RLAB password.

The manuals are available from the following link-
http://rlab.lse.ac.uk/itsupport/data/stata/manuals.asp

Please DO NOT PRINT OUT the entire manual(s)!!!!!!!! These are for browsing and reference only.

Watch out for Fake Windows Alert Viruses

2010-04-09T13:32:00.005+01:00

Please be aware of Fake Alert Trojans - these are alarming, but FAKE security messages, FALSELY claiming that viruses have been found and will require the user to register the product to clean the system.

EXAMPLE: The Trojan 'FakeAlert' loads a Security Center as shown below, which informs the user that they do not have a Firewall or Anti-Virus. This is a fake Security Center which attempts to trick the user into purchasing the Fake Scanning software.

NOTE: There are OTHER variants and different screens for similar types of Fake Alert Trojans, for example false anti-virus screens as shown below:

How To Get Rid of Fake Alert Trojans

Follow BOTH steps below:

A new Stinger has been developed to specifically target "FakeAlert" threats being seen in the wild. This version of Stinger detects and removes the following "FakeAlert" Variants - Kryptik, AVP Security, Fakespypro, Winwebsec, Antivirus Soft and XPSpy. Download directly from McAfee, save on your desktop and run immediately.
Make sure you have up to date Anti-Virus Software. Current LSE students and staff can download Sophos Anti-Virus Software for their own home personal computers or laptops directly from the LSE website

For further information please visit the RLAB IT Help Page on Virus Protection at http://rlab.lse.ac.uk/itsupport/help/start/virus_protection.asp

Connect to your LSE email using Gmail or Googlemail

2009-12-03T19:04:00.004Z

You can connect to your LSE email using Gmail or Googlemail. The messages will appear in your gmail inbox and also in a separate window.

You can also set up gmail to reply to any LSE email messages with your LSE email address (instead of your gmail address).

For full, illustrated instructions on how to set up gmail to read and send LSE email see the RLAB IT Website at http://rlab.lse.ac.uk/itsupport/help/googlemail/default.asp

Can't convert STATA 10 dta files using Stat Transfer? Try the Outsheet Command.

2009-11-09T15:30:00.006Z

If you find you have problems converting your STATA 10 dta files into other formats using Stat Transfer 8, one method is to use Outsheet,to produce a delimited data file.

From the STATA window use File > Export > Comma or tab-separated data.

You can then use Stat Transfer to convert the file into a filetype of your choice.

Another option is to use the command Outsheet in the command window.

Outsheet using c:\statafile.txt

will output into a tab delimited ascii file on your C: drive

Outsheet using c:\statafile.xls

will output into an excel file, with the variable headings on the first row.

For more detailed instructions and options using outsheet type help outsheet in the command window of STATA - or - go to http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?outsheet

How to copy text from a Word Document and keep Track Changes

2009-07-21T17:30:00.002+01:00

If you are reviewing a Word document and want to copy a paragraph, page or a couple of pages into a new document, any reviews/track changes will be lost when you paste the text into the new file.

To keep your review/track changes in the new document do the following.

Save a copy of the Word document. [This is your backup]

Select the text you want to copy.

Press CTRL + F3. This will cut the text along with track changes. [Hence the need to follow step 1 and make a backup of the original Word document].

Open a new Word document.

Press CTRL + SHIFT + F3. This will paste your selected text AND your reviews/track changes along with it.

Installing Outreg2 on your desktop.

2009-06-26T15:59:00.001+01:00

Create C:\ado\personal
Run Stata
Type net set ado C:\ado\personal
Type ssc install outreg2

You can now use the Outreg2 command

RSS Feeds: Want to keep up to date with CEP News or Publications or Events on Outlook?

2009-02-23T13:37:00.009Z

Want to find out the latest news or publications or events from the Centre for Economic Performance, but don't want the hassle of searching through the CEP website or signing up to a mailing list?

Want your news appearing live on Outlook, organized in a folder of its own and updated automatically? Now you can with CEP's RSS feeds.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication - which allows site content to be shared easily and viewable in other programmes. Any site with the following RSS icon has content which can be shared:

Follow the simple instructions from the RLAB IT Website to get started: http://rlab.lse.ac.uk/itsupport/help/rss/default.asp

Want to have a calendar of RLAB events on Outlook?

2008-12-17T16:46:00.004Z

Need a reminder about upcoming research seminars? Would you like a calendar of RLAB events that is automatically updated when events are added, or details have changed.

With Outlook 2007 you can now have an RLAB Events Calendar appearing alongside your personal Outlook Calendar...

... With all speaker, title, location and time details to hand:

Visit http://rlab.lse.ac.uk/itsupport/help/calendar/ for illustrated instructions.

Black and White chart fills in Excel 2007

2008-09-23T09:49:00.003+01:00

Microsoft have sensibly removed the option to have black and white fills in the charts that you create in Excel 2007. Luckily someone out there has written a piece of code that reenables it. Go to the following link to get instructions on how to install the Excel addin. http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2007/11/16/chart-pattern-fills.aspx

Unable to stream radio/Web content after PC Upgrade

2008-09-09T14:16:00.006+01:00

Attempting to play/stream web content ie radio or TV causes Internet Explorer to hang, crash or not respond.

Goto Start, Programs and select Realplayer. Accept the agreement or terms to allow Realplayer to fully launch. This should solve the issue experienced above

How to Access Googlemail via Outlook 2007

2008-06-18T16:37:00.003+01:00

If you have a googlemail account you can retrieve your email via Outlook.

The only reason to do this is if you wanted to transfer some of your LSE mail onto googlemail and view it anywhere without having to configure remote access to LSE.

Do Remember it is still important you back up your LSE Outlook Mail in mail archives on your Z: or J: drives.

STEP 1
CONFIGURE GOOGLEMAIL

Log onto Googlemail
Once in Googlemail click on Settings
On the Settings page click on Forwarding and POP/IMAP
Under POP Download:
1. Make sure Pop is enabled for all mail
2. Make sure that “When messages are accessed with POP” - keep Google Mail's copy in the Inbox is selected
Under IMAP Access:
1. Make sure enable IMAP is checked.

STEP 2
CONFIGURE OUTLOOK

In Outlook go to Tools > Account Settings
Under the Email Tab click New
Check Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP or HTTP
The Auto Account Setup Dialog will appear
Enter display name eg John Smith
VERY IMPORTANT
Enter your email address as your googlemail username followed by '@gmail.com' e.g. jsmith@gmail.com – you must do this even if your email is something like jsmith@googlemail.co.uk
Enter your password.
Check 'Manually configure...'
Select 'Internet E-mail.'
The Add New Email Account dialog will appear
Under User Information...
1. Enter your name, googlemail email address in the form jsmith@gmail.com
User Server Information…
1. Account Type: Select IMAP;
2. Incoming Mail Server: imap.gmail.com
3. Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com
Under Logon Information…
1. User Name: googlemail email address in the form jsmith@gmail.com
2. Enter your password
VERY IMPORTANT
Click 'More Settings,' then the 'Advanced' tab.
1. Incoming server must be 993, and must use SSL encryption.
2. Outgoing server can use 587, TLS encryption.
VERY IMPORTANT
Click 'Outgoing Server.' tab.
1. Make sure that 'My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication' is selected. The radio button 'Use same settings as my incoming mail server' should also be selected.
Click 'OK'
Click on Test Account Settings to see if it works. Sometimes you need to go back to "More Settings" and check that the Incoming and Outgoing Server details are as above (sometimes Outlook will not automatically apply your manual settings)
After a test message has been successfully sent click on 'Next' > 'Finish' > 'Close' > 'OK.'

Exporting Favourites to Text/HTML

2008-06-17T12:51:00.005+01:00

To export your favourite websites (or a subfolder of favourites) to a text file

- open internet explorer
- select /file/import and export from the tool bar menu
- follow the wizard

this will create an html file which can be read in textpad/notepad or any other text editor. There will be a lot of html coding, but this can be removed fairly easily if required.

Office 2007 - the new version of Microsoft Office coming to your desktop soon

2008-03-13T10:04:00.002Z

Office 2007 is rolling out to RLAB computer users this year. This new version of Microsoft Office is considerably different to previous versions in both appearance and use.

To find out more, view online demonstrations or download the LSE Office 2007 course book go to our Office 2007 section.

Easter Shutdown: Servers shutdown Thurs 20th March 8:30am - 10:30am

2008-03-12T15:20:00.001Z

Dear All

I need to carry out some urgent maintenance on the servers over the Easter break, I plan to do this on Thursday 20th March. I will shut down the servers at 8:30 a.m. and plan to have them on again by 10:30 a.m. Services that will not be available for this period will be your Z: drives, printing, Stata, Stat Transfer, the data library and the web sites. Please make sure you have not left any files open on your computer that are on your Z: drive, this includes any email archives, or have any Stata jobs running, if possible please shut your computer down when you leave on Wednesday.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Thanks

Nic

Stata installations on Vista

2008-02-04T09:26:00.000Z

Please note you may have a problem getting Stata to register its licence file if you are installing it on a machine running Microsoft Windows Vista. If you do please do the following.

The default Vista permission settings do not allow applications write permissions to their respective install directories even if you are logged into a machine as administrator. Stata needs these permissions to create its license file. To get around the problem you must right click on the Stata executable in the Stata install directory, normally C:\Program Files\Stata\wsestata.exe, and select "Run as Administrator" from the right click menu to open Stata. Then you can enter your authorisation information, etc.and Stata should create the proper file.

Scientific Workplace new licence installation (for laptop and home computers)

2008-01-07T15:29:00.001Z

You need to go to the Scientific Workplace Help menu

Select Register
Select “By an automated web service”
Enter your email address, name and organisation, deselect the “Add me to the mailing list” option
Click OK, ignore error message
Accept the agreement
Click on “Register Now”
Please then email Karon James, email Karon.James@lse.ac.uk, in IT services that you have done this so she can forward you the new licence code when she receives it.

Then do the following to install it.

Make sure SWP is not running then open your original email from Carol containing the licence, open it in Outlook, not via web-access or any other email client

Copy all the content and save it in Notepad as TXT file, close and reopen this txt file.

Do CTRL+A

Do CTRL+C

Start the SWP5.

Please note you can only have a licence for this software if you are a member of the academic staff.

RLAB Servers Running: Networked Services Operational

2007-12-22T23:02:00.000Z

RLAB Servers are up and working for the rest of the Christmas and New Year break. On Friday 19th December the servers were shutdown for essential hardware and software maintenance.

Server Shutdown: No Network Facilities On Fri 21 Dec 2007

2007-12-20T12:24:00.000Z

The RLAB servers will be down on 21st December from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. They will then be up and working for the rest of the Christmas and New Year break. The shutdown is needed to perform essential hardware and software maintenance.

This will effect all services we provide, and will seriously restrict what your computers can do.

Services effected:

J: drives
Network printing
Stata (32 and 64bit)
Stat Transfer
Data library
RLAB Web sites

I hope the majority of you will be off enjoying you vacation but for those of you who will be working that day please come and see me or the team for advice on what you will be able to do and how you will work.

I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Thanks

Nic

New Email Quotas for LSE

2007-11-19T16:10:00.000Z

New email quotas have been set for LSE students and staff:

	Warning	No Send	No Send/ Receive
Staff and Research Students	250MB	270MB	300MB
Taught Students	100MB	110MB	130MB

This is an increase of over double the previous limits.

ArcGIS Documentation Library

2007-11-19T15:54:00.000Z

ArcGIS Documentation includes information on customizing and extending the ArcGIS Desktop applications, building solutions with ArcGIS Engine, and creating server-based solutions using ArcGIS Server and its Web Application Developer Framework (ADF).

You may download the entire ArcGIS 9.1 Documentation Library as a single zip file (328 MB in size), from the RLAB IT ArcGIS Documentation page.

Alternatively you may find it easier to browse and search the Documentation Library online at
http://edn.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=doclibrary.gateway

Excel 2007 tables/graphs and Scientific Workplace

2007-11-07T16:38:00.001Z

There is a problem getting tables and graphs from Excel 2007 into Scientific Workplace, everything looks fine in the compiled dvi but when you create a pdf you can end up with a black box instead of your table/graph. To get around this, copy your table/graph into Word first then copy it from there into Scientific Workplace.

Stata 10 and Stat Transfer

2007-11-07T16:21:00.000Z

Stata 10 is now live. Please note that due to a change in the structure of the .dta files, and a licencing issue with the new version of Stata Transfer, if you wish to open these in an older version of Stata please do one of the following

1. Use the version command.
If you use this command as standard there won't be a problem of saving to an older version.

version 9.0
program text

2. or use the saveold command. Instead of using, save filename, replace, use saveold filename, replace (this saves the data as stata7, which can be read in 8, 9 and 10).

Important: STATA Upgrade: 6th - 7th Sept 2007

2007-09-06T16:18:00.000+01:00

Nic Warner Writes:
We are upgrading our Stata to version 10 and to do this I need to restart the server it is held on. I am going to do this tomorrow morning (Friday 7th Sept.) between 8:30 and 9:00.

Please make sure you quit out of Stata when you leave tonight or it will crash and any data not saved will be lost when I restart the server.

Thanks, and enjoy Stata 10.

STATA commands: hexdump and filefilter

2007-08-16T10:26:00.000+01:00

Brendan McConnell Writes:

Hi there computer people,

I’m emailing as I finally figured out a solution to a problem I was having with a dataset, and I thought I’d tell you in case people have the same problem in the future, and I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall trying to figure it out.

The problem I had was that someone at the DfES messed up a .txt dataset that I was trying to insheet into Stata; instead of the rows being separated by carriage returns, they were separated by tabs (columns were separated by commas) and Stata didn’t like this, as it read it in as a single row. I couldn’t rectify the problem with a “replace all” type command in any word editors as the programs couldn’t load the dataset fully (it about 85 MB, with all the data on a single line). Stat-transfer wouldn’t work either

I finally figured out that I could use the commands hexdump (hexadecimal dump – means nothing to me!) and filefilter from within Stata to alter the dataset before it is opened. It’s so simple, but it worked perfectly for my problem. I’ve attached the relevant bit of my log file for you to see how it works – it just let me replace all tabs with carriage returns, changing the dataset from being 1 line with 87,302,806 characters to 595,377 lines with something like 30 columns. Perfect.

So now I’ve figured it out in Stata, would there have been a better way? Is there a UNIX version of Stat-transfer? Also, is there a command line in the UNIX editor bit (not sure what it’s called) that I could have used to have done the same thing. Irrelevant for this task, but I’d like to know for future reference.

Tanvi Desai Writes:

Hi Brendon,

sounds like you found a very good method.

There are two possible alternatives, but I'm not sure they are an improvement on what you've done. The first method (which I usually use) is to do a find and replace on UNIX...

The other quick and dirty way is to infile into excel first where you can specify your delimiter, and then stat-transfer, but this obviously only works for the smaller datasets because of excel's size limits.

Economy mode for printers

2007-08-01T12:07:00.000+01:00

Dear All

From today, 1st August 2007, for testing during August I am setting the main printers to print in EconoMode as standard. This means all printing will use less toner printing out in dark grey as apposed to black. If you need to print out a document that requires the text to be black follow the instructions below.

When the print window comes up select the “properties” button next to the printer.
In the properties window select the “Paper/Quality” tab
Untick the EconoMode option. (See picture below)
Click OK, then print out you document.

If you have any problems with this please come and see us.

Thanks

Nic

Welcome to the RLAB IT Blog

2007-03-20T12:30:00.000Z

The RLAB-IT Blog will provide useful tips and IT news updates for all RLAB users.