Computing

Printing

• The Follow-me printing service will print to the main fast colour printer. The instructions to access this printing service can be found at the bottom of the page ("Follow me print guide").

  • The driver link in the document does not work. Go here and download "Print Driver ver V1.21.00 for Mac OS 10.4" (If you are feeling frisky, there are drivers for more recent OS versions, but they include more than just the printer driver. I have tried the one mentioned on High Sierra 10.13.5 and it works).

  • Install the driver (Downloads > PrinterDriver > MAC_Printer > Printer Driver Installer.pkg).

  • If necessary, allow software from unidentified developers to be installed (system preferences > security & Privacy).

  • Restart computer.

  • Follow the rest of the "Follow me print guide".

• The black and white Canon printer on the first floor has the IP address 10.21.18.6 and alias kprnguybri1kitchen.nms.kcl.ac.uk

• Office Printer IP: 10.21.13.8 and alias is kprnguybri023.nms.kcl.ac.uk

• To reset the printer drum

  • Open the printer lid

  • Press the Up arrow key while holding down “Go” on the printer's control panel.

  • Press the Up or Down arrow key to display Drum Unit.

  • Press the Up or Down arrow key to display the colour of the drum unit that you replaced.

  • Press the Up arrow key for “Reset” to reset the drum counter.

Evernote (We STOPPED using this Since 2023)

1. Make yourself a notebook and put it in the Lab Members stack.

2. All your experiments should be recorded here, either directly, or by scanning / snapping your paper lab book.

3. Tags

   1. Please tag every note you make with your initials.

4. Weekly Reports:

   1. Please make a separate note in your lab book summarising each week’s work.

   2. Tag this note as “Weekly Report” then we can fish them all out at once.

   3. Adding ruled lines to this note will enable the evernote presentation tool to create new slides for all the stuff between these ruled lines, try it out and see!

5. If you email something to miwgroup.24e589@m.evernote.com

   1. it will create a note in the _unfiled notebook. Please file it afterwards!

   2. Alternatively you can add special characters to the end of the subject line:

      1. Use the at (@) symbol and notebook name, such as @travel to specify a notebook

      2. #Tag: Add tags using a hashtag (#) symbol,

      3. e.g. Send a mail to miwgroup.24e589@m.evernote.com with subject Experiment Failed Again @Mark Wallace #MIW #crazy ideas

6. Your smartphone can snap photos and upload them directly to evernote.

If you wish to log in to the web version of Evernote, the details are:

miwgroup@gmail.com       P208foes

JOPLIN INSTALLATION 

1. Download and Install joplin on your PC, tablet or phone. 

2. Set up synchronisation with the server.

• Go to /Settings/Synchronisation/. Below the 3 main options select the configure S3 or other server link.

• Enter the credentials as follows:

S3 Bucket: markwallace

S3 URL: https://s3.eu-central-003.backblazeb2.com/

S3 region: eu-central

S3 access key: 003dc0d41a6184b0000000001

S3 secret key: K003eRZE8rbBa32kizjFIPAyp6R6ZoE

3. Don’t forget these additional settings:

• In /Settings/Synchronisation/ hit the ‘sync advanced’ option.

• Consider what Attachment download behaviour you want. I suggest this is almost always Manual unless you want all the attachments downloaded from everyone’s experiments ever. Manual means it will download these the first time you access a particular note.

• /Settings/Application/Show tray icon/enable/. This will allow the app to sync in the background.

Then your first steps

• Locate the notebook with your name like you had in evernote

• All your experiments should be recorded here, either directly, or by scanning / snapping your paper lab book.

• Tag protocols with #protocol.

• Remember to record details of your methods, concentrations, laser powers, camera settings, etc. A copy and paste now will save you pain later.

• Always include a header at the top of your note if it describes an experiment

       Date:

   Description of experiment:

   Location of files on NAS:

Don’t upload raw movies!

Always convert to gif. ffmpeg is great. For Joplin you really want a small GIF so it’s visible in both markdown and RTF editors. For example:

ffmpeg -i input_file.mov -filter_complex

“[0:v]split=2[palette][vid];

[palette]palettegen[pal];

[vid][pal]paletteuse,scale=‘min(800,iw)’:-2”

 -pix_fmt yuv420p -fs 10M

output_file.gif

File storage

• Data should be kept on our main NAS (HP). Anything in "archive" and "current" will be backed up automatically to a data centre. Everything else is only protected by RAID5/6.

• Our main NAS (HP) can be accessed at the following IP address: 10.21.13.5 or at the alias nmsdps002907.nms.kcl.ac.uk

• New group members should request access to the NAS for their k number by raising a ticket with KCL IT, (currently here).

• Our Secondary NAS (Buffalo), which contains a snapshot from Oxford, can be accessed at 10.21.13.7 or at the alias knasguybri223.nms.kcl.ac.uk for the time being (the alias miwnas.nms.kcl.ac.uk no longer works). Please note, this should NOT be used for storage of new data, and nothing on it should be modified in any way. It is there as a reference of what we brought with us from Oxford. At some point in the future it will be removed from the network.

• To access either of these from Windows, you can use Windows Filesharing. Click Start --> Run (Winkey+R) and type "\\address" without the quotes. On a mac, you must use Samba. From a finder window, click Go --> Connect To Server and type "smb://10.21.13.5" without the quotes.

• The Buffalo does not have a username or password - you should connect as a guest. The HP requires you to log in with your K number (followed by @kcl.ac.uk). Please bear in mind that if you save your password on a communal machine (using the miwgroup username), then your password will be stored in decryptable format to anyone that knows the miwgroup password. If this is a sensitive password and/or you don't trust other group members to behave themselves, you should not store your K number password on a lab machine (or your own machine, if using the standard group password).

• Ensure your office PC is backed up. For example, All staff and students at King’s have access to 1TB of space on OneDrive for Business which can be accessed via Outlook 365.

• No data should be stored on experimental PCs. Be warned, this could be deleted at any time.

• This is a work in progress, but the intention is:

  • Data is transferred from expt PC's and stored in \new\Mark Wallace\data\2016_09_19_AnExperimentsName\1\image1.tif for example

  • Once you've had a chance to see if it's worth keeping, 'good' data moves to \current\Mark Wallace\data\2016_09_19_AnExperimentsName\1\image1.tif

  • Old users 'good' data can then be moved to \archive\Mark Wallace\data\2016_09_19_AnExperimentsName\1\image1.tif

  • Put a short txt file in each dated expt folder. Without this you will have no clue what is was about or what the laser power, magnification, wavelength, temp etc. really were and we can't use it for publication.

• Other useful files will also live in /current, such as /_Code,  /_Theses, /_Books, etc.

Wallace lab mailing list

You can subscribe at https://mailman.kcl.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/wallacelab.

Slack

1. Slack is like twitter for teams; useful for sending quick messages and communicating with the lab. Especially whilst we are split between Oxf and Lon.

2. Sign up by going to https://wallacelab.slack.com/signup

3. Any problems, ask an admin (Mark W or Matthew C)

Trello

Not everyone's going to use this, but Trello helps us organise ongoing and future work in the lab.

1. Sign yourself up by following this link (https://trello.com/invite/wallacelab/fef28fce0a6aaca2eaa87ccd166ee050) and create an account.

2. Trello works by having a set of notes on a board, a bit like a whiteboard.

3. There is an overall plan ‘research plans’. Mark is the primary contributor here, crazy ideas get added, and work gets done. Have a look.

4. You will probably be involved in one or more active projects, they should have their own board, with headings like the current examples. This will help us plan what work to do.

VPN

Request VPN user rights from IT. cc in Mark as supervisor permission is needed.

https://internal.kcl.ac.uk/it/connected/VPN-service/vpn.aspx

Mac users:

- Download & install the forticlient for mac.

- Follow instructions on PDF attached at the bottom of this page.

Software

Andor Solis

Go to the Andor  website; find and click on My Andor, currently at the top. Log-in with username jason.sengel@kcl .ac.uk and password andor. Click on My Andor (top of page). Latest Solis can be downloaded from the Software section, a little way down the page; you might need to reactivate the download links by inputting a serial number for one of the cameras.

Serial numbers of the cameras are:

X-5647

X-3951

X-2270

X-6286

optgeo

Free software for 2D-simulation of optical systems (microscopes, etc.). The results can be exported as .png or .ps

Go to the optgeo  website (French) and find the version of the software you need (Windows / Linux / MacOS X) and download it. The first time the software is used, the interface will be in French. Create new simulation, click Next, and switch to English by going on Options > Langue and select en.

Troubleshooting: on MacOS X, the simulations cannot be exported as pictures (software will crash). Problem can be fixed by opening the simulation on a Windows installation.

IgorPro

Igor is a coding-based data manipulation software. The current version is version 7 but we have a license for version 6.37, which can be found here:

https://www.wavemetrics.com/order/order_igordownloads6.htm

Here are the license details:

>    Serial Number:  41430

>    Activation key: ZLYT-WFLJ-LWNY-NREF-AZ

>    Product: IGOR Pro 6

>    License Type:   Single-User/Academic/EN

WinEDR

There are several interfaces required to get electrical information from our bilayers to the recording software, WinEDR:

Here are the standard software settings for interfacing the Axopatch 200 with the DAQ:

KCL SOFTWARE LICENSES

can be found here.

REMOTE DESKTOP

To access your Kings computer from another (non-Kings) computer, you will need to:

1. Configure your (Kings computer) Firewall settings to allow remote desktop connections.

2. Connect you (Non-Kings)computer to the VPN.

3. Enter your Kings computer IP address into 'Computer' in the Remote Desktop Connection wizard. 

Instructions to do this can be found here. 

There is a mistake on Page 9: To find out your IP address, type 'ipconfig /all' into the command line. 

The website they suggest you use ('www.whatsmyip.com') will tell you a different number, which won't work. 

This should work for PCs, unsure about Macs...

PLOTTING GRAPHICS IN R

See below for our trial script for consistent graph plotting.