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Hi Aryeh and everybody,

what Leica people told us was essentially: "Do 
what you want but don't blame us if the system dosn't work any more."

So, my recommendation is, when the system is 
coming in, as the very first step, but certainly 
before hooking it up to the network or installing 
any third party software, make a complete system 
backup (e.g. with Acronis) and check that the 
backup is readable. That way, you can always go 
back to a stable version if necessary.

The system usually comes with a backup-CD but we 
once had one that had a problem (not readable or 
different software version, I don't remember)

Repeat a backup every time Leica-Software gets 
updated, so that you don't have to go back all 
the way if you really should once download an incompatible Windows patch.

I know of two SP5s, one is hooked up to the 
internet with zonealarm and sophos antivir, it 
runs fine so far (no computer problems, that is). 
The other is isolated, in the days of affordable 
4 GB USB sticks that also works out nicely.

Conerning the warning about Microsoft software, I 
wonder how you are going to keep that up, given 
the operating system it is running on... :-)

Concerning an Office application, you might want 
to have a look at http://portableapps.com/suite
The portable apps are software that runs without 
(!) installation on the target computer, from a 
USB stick (name) or some disk directory. They 
include firefox and OpenOffice. They also have 
links to individual portable applications, i.e. 
without the "suite" user interface.

Steffen


At 09:29 15.08.2008, you wrote:
>Search the CONFOCAL archive at
>http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
>I have received many replies to this -- most of 
>them off list. So first, thank you to the 
>many  Leica users who replied. There are too 
>many  (and more coming in, to reply personally 
>to everyone who wrote, but it is greatly appreciated.
>
>The consensus of the replies (so far about a 
>dozen replies) is that one must exercise care, 
>but most everyone who wrote has added something 
>to their system (usually ImageJ, admin 
>utilities, and similar). Most have their 
>computer networked, with some antivirus. None 
>appear to have been ordered by Leica not to  put 
>anything on their machine, but Leica did 
>recommend (at least to some)that other programs not be added.
>
>One responder asked why we would want to add 
>anything. We of course do not intend to turn 
>this into a general use computer, but there are 
>some additions that I consider important.  I 
>should add that we have not yet received the 
>machine -- the rep had visited to inspect the 
>installation site, and apparently he wanted to 
>"lay down the law". So I am not sure exactly 
>what it included in the Leica software installation.
>
>1. A compression utility, such as WINZIP. Last 
>time I saw the Leica image format, it was 
>uncompressed. Lossless LZW compression can save 
>30-50%, depending on the images, and even more 
>if you have two channels stored in uncompressed 
>RGB (becasue the third channel is identically 
>zero).  The datasets can be very large, and 
>transferring compressed files can save time.
>
>2. ImageJ + bioformats plugin. We prefer this to 
>the utilities that the manufacturers sometimes 
>provide to read their special formats. We often 
>put ImageJ+appropriate plugins onto data 
>DVDs  that we burn. It saves time because the 
>users have something with which they can read 
>their files. We can tell them to install ImageJ 
>at their end until we are blue in the face -- it 
>is easier to just give them a working copy.
>
>3. Network -- I prefer to leave a machine which 
>is dedicated to running hardware off of the 
>network. However, if Leica is anyway going to 
>make us connect it to the network, then I want 
>to use that to transfer intermediate sized data 
>sets (too small to justify burning a DVD, too 
>large for a flashdisk). I know DVDs are cheap, 
>but there are ecological considerations... BTW 
>-- a few responses mentioned that they are 
>running antivirus software without problems.
>
>4. Someone warned against installing Microscoft 
>office on the system. I would extend this 
>warning any Microsoft software. They apparently 
>believe that it is ok for software to fiddle 
>with system files,  drivers, whatever. However, 
>OpenOffice would be nice, mainly for being able 
>to conveniently make notes about the system or the experiment.
>
>5. Finally, we may want to put some tracking or 
>auditing software on the system.
>
>Someone asked if we were talking about an SPE, 
>because that system has real restrictions on its 
>OS. I can assure you all that are talking about an SP5.
>
>--aryeh
>--
>Aryeh Weiss
>School of Engineering
>Bar Ilan University
>Ramat Gan 52900 Israel
>
>Ph:  972-3-5317638
>FAX: 972-3-7384050

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steffen Dietzel, PD Dr. rer. nat
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Walter-Brendel-Zentrum für experimentelle Medizin (WBex)
Head of light microscopy

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