Hello all,

I know this may be an odd post, but I am here in DC doing research for a few months.  I have come across some unexpected data problems regarding my research that I thought I had taken care of before leaving Oklahoma.

Unfortunately I was wrong, and I am trying to avoid having to fly back to use the computers at my university.

So, I am hoping someone could help me with accessing a computer armed with relatively high processing capabilities, and STATA (a statistical computation and analysis program).  I figure there is at least a small chance someone in the congregation can help.

If you think you can help, let me know and I will give you further details.

Thanks and Many Blessings,

Curtis

Curtis What kind of processing power are we talking about here? Is STATA something that can be easily acquired and loaded onto machines?

Yeah it can be easily installed, but I do not have a copy of the program with me.  Its a common statistical program used for quantitative research.  What I am hoping is that someone from one of the nearby universities has access to a computer lab of some sort where I could work.

I don’t know what kind of processing speed exactly.  My laptop cannot handle it because there is simply too much data and too many conversions taking place with what I need to do.

I see. We have a few Macs in-house with heavy horsepower that we use for media development, but it sounds like a network of Windows-based machines is what you are hunting for. Correct?

Typically, in universities they are networks of windows machines.  That said, my wife has the mac version at home in Oklahoma.  If you think its worth a shot, I will have her mail the disk.

Being greedy from computing perspective : based on what I read at this site - http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/win/pcreqs.html

if the computer has more that 512MB of RAM and a gig of free space (my data set is about 14 MB - and i will be making it bigger - and it suggests having twice that available to run smoothly), then it seems to be worth a shot.

Curtis We have several multi-core machines with plenty of RAM. The machine I work on daily is a quad-core 2Ghz Mac with 8 GB of RAM.

How much time do you need to do your work? The only problem here is that all these machines are used daily for work.

Well, I would genuinely need to use if for a few hours on a couple nights, or for what may amount to a full Saturday and Sunday.  I have been in touch with a Prof. @ American that is going to loan me a laptop.  Hopefully that will work, but if you all are willing to be a backup plan that would be great.

I wouldn’t plan to use it during a week day, as I am on the Hill daily from 9am to 6pm.  It would more likely require some weekend time.  Genuinely, I have done this on a computer and it took overnight, and done it one one where it took only an hour.  It just depends on the machine.

Keep me posted. I think we can provide a backup plan for you if the laptop doesn’t work out.

Will do.  Thanks sooo much.  You have no idea how grateful I am for the support.

well everybody is helping each other in here, great place to hang out