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Information Systems Services UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
Connected June
In this issue
A collaborative cloud . .1
Changes to the cluster
desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Racking up success . . .2
Equipment Sharing and
Management System . .3
Moving to Office 2010 .3
News in brief . . . . . . . . .4
And finally . . . . . . . . . . .4
What's a Tiny URL?
You'll probably notice that many of
the web addresses (URLs) begin
with tinyurl.com. TinyURL lets you
take a long URL and turn it into a
much shorter one. Just type in the
relevant TinyURL and you’ll go
directly to the original page.
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about Connected? We’d love to
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think of the style and content,
what kind of articles you’d like to
see more or less of. Email your
views to the Editor, Sue
Cunningham
s.m.cunningham@leeds.ac.uk
A collaborative cloud
In February this year, YHMAN, the
company that operates the regional
network, established a shared virtual
data centre (SVDC). It provides
shared services based on pooled
resources across several data
centres. The Pathfinder phase is
based on three physical hosts based
at Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan and
Sheffield Universities. It was
recently nominated for an 'Innovation
Nation' award, for 'Innovation in
Collaboration' celebrating the most
innovative use of technology in the
UK private and public sector.
The SVDC offers a range of benefits,
including:
• Secure environments for
'tenants', hosting applications
and data. Secure tenancies are
available for the Universities of
Bradford, Huddersfield, Hull,
Leeds, Leeds Met, Sheffield,
Sheffield Hallam and York.
• Improving business continuity
and disaster recovery, leading to
region-wide strategic planning of
data centre capacity
requirements. The 3-way
synchronous data storage across
the hosts means data will always
be available, even if one of the
hosts is not.
2012
• Reducing the total cost of
ownership by reducing over
capacity in data centres,
economies of scale and support
efficiencies.
• Reducing the overall carbon
footprint of partners by
maximising use of existing and
planned data centres.
YHMAN have showcased the SVDC
at various conferences, such as
VMworld 2011 and UCISA 2012.
The Project has been shortlisted for
several prestigious awards. The
initial Pathfinder will run to the end
of this year, when a decision will be
made on whether to take it forward.
Further Information
If you would like to use the SVDC
please contact the ISS Help Desk
(helpdesk@leeds.ac.uk)
SVDC project
www.yhman.net.uk/projects/
YHMAN
YHMAN is a joint venture company
of universities in the region, run by
the University of Leeds on their
behalf.
www.yhman.ja.net/about-us

Changes to the cluster desktop
Every year, ISS and faculty/service
IT teams collaborate to plan, create
and install a software image to be
used on around 4,000 public space
PCs on campus, including machines
in computer clusters and Central
Teaching Space.
Requests for standard software on
the ISS Cluster Desktop 2012/13
have now been finalised and can be
viewed at
http://atsu.leeds.ac.uk/update/
stand1213.asp
This list shows what software will be
available and whether it will be
patched or updated from the current
version.
The 2012/13 image will be based on
Windows 7 64-bit and Java is being
updated to version 1.7.0_04
Software being
removed
It is not intended to make the
following software available on the
new image:
w Animation Shop (due to low
usage)
w Corel R.A.V.E. (due to low
usage)
w IBM SPSS AnswerTree (as the
functionality has been absorbed
within Decision Trees, part of
IBM SPSS Statistics)
w Microsoft Office 2007 (see
overleaf)
w NewsXpress (due to low usage)
w OSGR Tutor (due to 64-bit
incompatibility)
In addition, lcc-win32 (currently
available to everyone under the
Program Development menu) will be
moved to the Departmental Software
menu and access will be restricted to
users undertaking modules within
Physics (due to licensing
restrictions).
Wimba Create may not be available
after June 2013 if it is not possible to
continue licensing the software.
New software
The following new software will be
added to the new image:
w Corel VideoStudio Essentials X5
Racking up success
Claire in action at the National
Racketball Championships
in Birmingham
Claire Walker, from the ISS SAP
team, is celebrating after winning
the Dunlop National Over 40’s
Racketball Championship on 6
May, and following it up with the
British Open Over 40’s Squash
Championship on 16 May.
Despite fracturing her fibula in
November playing squash, Claire
easily made it to the final of the
racketball championships, before
beating Vikki Jarvies in the final
3-1.
Claire also dominated the Over
40’s final in the Allam British
Open Squash Championship,
winning all three games to clinch
the match.
w CorelCAD 11.8.1054
w GIMP 2.6.12-2
w IBM SPSS Smartreader 20
w Inkscape 0.48.2-1
w LibreOffice 3.5.2
w OS Interactive Guide to the
National Grid
w Corel DESIGNER X5 SP2
(replacing DESIGNER v7.1)
Corel DESIGNER and CorelCAD are
licensed on a trial basis until March
2014. A decision will be made next
Easter about whether to keep the
software on the desktop for the
2013/14 academic year. This
decision will depend on whether
people want to use it in their
teaching, and the usage figures
recorded across both the Cluster
Desktop and departmental
installations. If you think you will be
using either product in your teaching,
please let Anna Clough know (email
A.Clough@leeds.ac.uk).
Student use of Corel
Because the Corel licence has
changed, students are no longer
licensed to use Corel products at
home, and the use of Corel products
on Desktop Anywhere (i.e. Animation
Shop, Corel PaintShop Photo Pro
and CorelDRAW) cannot be offered
after August.
However, the Corel Edustore (which
can be accessed from the IT &
Libraries tab of the Student Portal)
offers discounted versions of their
software to students - all products
are currently priced at £19.99.
On Desktop Anywhere, GIMP and
Inkscape will be provided as
replacement software. These will
also be available on the ISS Cluster
Desktop.

Moving to Office 2010
For students
Currently students can access both
Office 2010 and Office 2007 in the
computer clusters. However, for the
new academic year, Office 2007 will
be removed and the only installation
of Office will be 2010.
For staff
Although there is a need to make
Office 2010 available to all staff as
soon as possible, it needs to be fully
tested with all the various plugins
and add-ons that staff use before it
can be rolled out. As a result the
release date has not been confirmed
yet, but where possible it will be
delivered as part of Windows 7
updates.
Get trained
Most products in Office 2010 are
very similar to their 2007 versions
(Outlook 2010 does differ from
Outlook 2007, as the Office ribbon is
fully implemented in the 2010
version). Apart from Outlook, if you
can use Office 2007 you will not
require any extra training to use
Office 2010. ISS do run a number of
classroom based courses for Office
products. Until September, delegates
can choose to use Office 2007 or
2010 at any of these courses (just
ask the trainer when you arrive).
After then the Training Unit will be
moving to Office 2010 in line with the
Student clusters.
We also provide a range of
e-learning – see
http://iss.leeds.ac.uk/elearning
for more details.
‘Windows 7 & Office 2010’ sessions
are run about once a month and
provide an overview of the
differences and new features in
Office 2010 and Windows 7. You
can book on these sessions, and any
of our other courses, through
www.leeds.ac.uk/staffdevelopment
A short video showing the
differences between Office 2007 and
2010, and a PDF guide covering all
the major differences (including
those in Outlook) are available at:
http://iss.leeds.ac.uk/office2010
New Word course
ISS are now offering a new Word
course - Everyday Tasks. This will
introduce you to a range of skills that
anyone who uses Word on a daily
basis will find helpful and timesaving,
including formatting and proofing
text, using lists and bullets, working
with tables and using headers and
footers. The course will be
scheduled in the usual way - check
www.leeds.ac.uk/staffdevelopment
for our latest courses.
Equipment Sharing and Management System
In response to the Wakeham Report
in June 2010, the Research Councils
are changing how they fund the
capital elements of grant
applications. In light of this, the
University is classifying all
equipment worth more than £25,000,
and the and the SAP and Web teams
working together with Research and
Innovation Service have produced a
fully searchable equipment database
based on this taxonomy.
The database, the Equipment
Sharing and Management System
(ESMS) is available online at:
https://esms.leeds.ac.uk/default.aspx
It currently contains 972 items of
equipment, with a total value of
around £100 million, and new
equipment will be automatically
added.
The basic search facilities are
available to everyone, though more
detailed information, such as the
exact location of equipment, is
restricted, with five different
authorisation levels.
The system has already attracted
interest from other institutions, and is
being demonstrated across N8
research partnership institutions
(Universities of Durham, Lancaster,
Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle,
Sheffield and York), and to the
government. It is also likely that the
taxonomy developed in Leeds to
classify equipment will be used by
One of the differences between
Office 2007 (background) and 2010
(foreground) is that the Office button
has been replaced with a file tab.
other institutions.
The ESMS has been developed in a
modular way, so that although data
currently comes from SAP, it could
be used to access data from other
sources. Potentially this allows the
system to be expanded to search
across multiple institutions, and to
allow other institutions to customise
the system for their own local
requirements.
More information
For more information about the
system and the taxonomy behind it
see
http://researchsupport.leeds.ac.uk
/index.php/academic_staff
/research_equipment_infrastructure/

News in brief
One IT
Work on the One IT Programme is
progressing, and IT staff from across
the University have been invited to
help shape the direction of One IT
through a series of workshops. The
workshops are taking place from May
to July, and outputs from them will
feed into the One IT workstreams.
Summer internship
This summer the University of Leeds
Careers Centre is delivering the
Leeds Internship Programme, which
offers a range of internships in
professional services across the
University and in local businesses.
The scheme is open to all first,
second and penultimate year
undergraduate students. The posts in
professional services are supported
though a central university fund
which provides two thirds of the
salary costs, the individual
departments provide the rest. ISS
are offering one of the 12 week
internships, with the successful
candidate spending six weeks on
Help Desk working on the FixIT and
LoanIT services, and six weeks with
the Desktop Support Team looking at
management information and
reporting.
And finally...
‘Faulty’, but efficient
Researchers have created an
“inexact” computer chip that’s super
efficient, challenging the industry’s
50-year pursuit of accuracy. The
prototype, developed by
researchers from the US,
Singapore and Switzerland was
unveiled at the ACM International
Conference on Computing Frontiers
in Cagliari, Italy.
http://tinyurl.com/6p8syoq
Around the
University
Hands on the Future
Presentations from the ‘Hands on
the Future’ event are now available
online. The event, organised by the
SDDU, is an annual event providing
an opportunity to experiment with
some of the latest technologies
being used in student education at
the University of Leeds, talk to staff
using the technology in their
teaching and to view some of the
technology that we are likely to be
using in the future.
The keynote speaker at this year’s
event, held on 26 March, was Dr Neil
Morris - ‘Using technology to
enhance the quality of the student
experience’ and presentations
included:
w Leeds for Life;
w Mobile learning - there’s an app
for that!;
w Virtual resources to support
laboratory work;
w The use of social media for
students’ career development;
w Screencasts in Anatomy
teaching;
w CMALT;
w From e-learning to e-teaching.
www.sddu.leeds.ac.uk/
sddu-hands-on-the-future-
2012.html
A biological hard drive
A team at the University of Leeds,
led by Sarah Staniland, are using a
protein found in certain strains of
bacteria to create magnetic patterns
that store data. The bacteria use the
proteins to let them navigate using
the Earth’s magnetic field. Eventually
the work may lead to hard drives that
can store as much as 1 terabyte of
data per square inch.
http://tinyurl.com/7rqm2gz
Contact us
ISS Help Desk
Level 10, Edward Boyle Library
Tel: 33333 (int)
0113 343 3333 (ext)
Email: helpdesk@leeds.ac.uk
URL: iss.leeds.ac.uk
IT/IS Training
Level 6, EC Stoner Building
Tel: 35417 (int)
0113 343 5417 (ext)
Email: itistraining@leeds.ac.uk
URL: iss.leeds.ac.uk/training
For free online training courses in
Microsoft Office see
http://iss.leeds.ac.uk/elearning
For all the latest training news and
tips and tricks see
http://iss.leeds.ac.uk/trainingblog
Connected is available
online:
http://iss.leeds.ac.uk/
connected
To receive it in an alternative
format (eg large print or an
electronic format), please
contact Sue Cunningham,
s.m.cunningham@leeds.ac.uk
tel 0113 343 5696