Urania

Another new version of Scisoft OSX for Intel has been released and is available for download here. Here’s the entire description of the changes in this version of Scisoft OSX from the release notes:

This version contains an updated [ESO-]MIDAS package.         

I checked the list of packages included and sure enough, the only change was in the ESO-MIDAS package (whose current version is actually 07SEPpl1.0).

• MIDAS 07FEBpl1.1 (previously MIDAS 06FEBpl1.0)

I don’t use ESO-MIDAS, which is an image reduction package aimed as users of ESO’s La Silla facilities and the VLT at Paranal, so I can’t really comment as to the usefulness of this update. As with previous versions of Scisoft, the release notes warn if you use Aquaterm devices for PGPLOT, GNUPLOT, or any other packages that you “must manually run /scisoft/i386/Applications/Aquaterm.app once first to enable the aquaterm devices.”

I have also confirmed that this release also fixes the IRAF problem with symbolic linking to mkpkg and xc in /scisoft/i386/bin/ I referred to earlier in my blog.   Thanks for the fix guys!

Finally, as I noted with the last release of Scisoft, my standard method for updating Scisoft OSX is to move my existing /scisoft directory to /scisoft_old and then I unpack the new version. That way, in case anything goes wrong, I can always switch back.

When I first came to Minnesota State University Moorhead, I was irritated by the fact that their wireless network didn’t use some authentication scheme. Instead it is open, but useless unless you log in via a Cisco VPN client. This was irritating to me because the Cisco VPN server (at least the setup for MSUM) was not compatible with the built-in VPN clients in MacOS X. As such you had to use Cisco’s incredibly poorly designed client. It worked, but everytime I wanted to connect, I had to launch the Cisco VPN application, then log in. The password was not remembered in Apple’s Keychain, which was just un-Mac-like.

Lo and behold, a few week’s after getting here, I discovered the (then) newly introduced Cisco VPN frontend for the Mac, Shimo. Shimo is awesome. It lives in the Menubar and all I every had to do to log in to the campus VPN network is go to the Shimo menu and click “Connect”. Done. This has actually come in very useful when I am away from campus since access to the VPN network allows me to connect to any MSUM server as if I was local, so I have been able to send outbound mail from Arizona, run IDL (using the campus license server) from Minneapolis, and so on.

Setting up Shimo for use here is fairly simple.

2. First go to the MSUM Cisco VPN client download page. Download and install the appropriate client for MacOS Cisco VPN client software.
3. Download and install Shimo.
4. Launch Shimo (it’s in the /Applications directory). It’ll appear on your menubar as a “doorway” icon. Click on it and select “Preferences…”.
   
5. In the General Preferences tab, I just set up Shimo to launch on startup, to disconnect the VPN on quit, and to show how long I have been connected on the menubar.
   
6. I then when to the Profiles tab and clicked on the [+] button near the bottom of the pane to add a profile.
   
7. When the Profiles sheet appears, I just set up a “msumvpn” profilename in the General tab:
   
8. Under the Authentication tab, I had to set my username and password (blurred out here), and here’s the tricky bit, at MSUM, the Authentication method is “Group”, so you have to know the Group name and password, which (as revealed on the Linux VPN Configuration Instructions page for MSUM) are “wireless” and “dragon-wireless” respectively. With those four pieces of information, the MSUM VPN account was setup. I clicked “OK” to accept. The passwords are stored securely in Apple’s Keychain, so I never have to worry about them again.
   
9. Under the Connection tab, I had to tell Shimo the address of my server (”msumvpn.mnstate.edu”) and the VPN protocol (IPSec over UDP).
10. Now all I do is go to my menubar and select “Connect” and I am connected to the VPN.
    

Now, with a nice, simple, mac interface, the only issue I have with the MSUM VPN server is that it disconnects you from the VPN after about 60 minutes. If this bothers you, you can set up Shimo to automatically reconnect if the connection is dropped and/or to automatically connect if it sees the “msum-wireless” wireless network. Its all under the Profile “Advanced” settings.

I have found that the folks here at Minnesota State University Moorhead are fairly operating system agnostic (unlike St. Cloud State University, which was relatively hostile to any OS not from Redmond). Usually if there is a problem, it is not because MSUM folks choose a Microsoft solution, but rather it is lack of documentation. This is one such case.

I was trying to get my Mail program to talk to the MSUM directory server. It’s not hard, but it wasn’t documented anywhere (for either MacOS or Windows). So I talked to Bill Scheffler, the local Mac guru, and in short order he produced a set of instructions which I am now placing online (with his permission).

These instructions are for Macs running the current version of MacOS X (10.4). You can probably use them to figure out what you need on other operating systems from this.

1. Open the Address Book application.
2. Select Preferences… from the Address Book menu.
3. Click on the LDAP icon in the toolbar.
4. Click the [+] button in the lower left hand corner to add an entry. Fill out the fields with the following:
   1. Name: Anything that works, I use “MSUM LDAP“
   2. Server [address]:ldap.mnstate.edu
   3. Search Base: ou=Users, dc=mnstate, dc=edu

   Once you are done, everything should look like the screenshot below:

   

5. Click the “Save” button and the LDAP section should match this screen:
   
6. Click the red close button in the top left hand corner to save changes and setup is done.

Note that when you have done this, Mail.app will automatically look up matching names in the directory as you type. However, it only works if you are connected locally to the MSUM network (or if you are connected to the MSUM VPN remotely).