Frequently Asked Questions

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1. What is CSE-Online?

CSE-Online is a virtual desktop environment running on the user desktop computer that allows tranparent access to both local and remote data, application tools, and computing resources. Currently, it has more than 30 tools for computational chemistry, biology, and material science.

2. How can I get a copy of CSE-Online?

You can go to the Get Started link and follow the instructions to get a free user account and copy of CSE-Online.

3. Why should I use it? What kind of benefits or incentives, above what I currently have, can I receive and apply to my research or teaching?

It is a well accepted sentiment that if it is not better than what one currently has then one would not try to learn a new system. And the fact that in many areas of computational science and engineering, there is a significant amount of time the researchers have to spend on non-science tasks such as managing files in various servers, preparing input files, accessing data from various web sites, monitoring jobs, etc.. Such time could have been better spent on thinking science!

By making access to remote data and computing resources transparent, CSE-Online will significantly reduce the time that the researchers have to spend on non-science tasks and can focus on obtaining solutions to the scientific problems. It will improve your work efficiency and productivity and help you to shorten the time to solution.

Whats more? CSE-Online allows vertical integrations of application tools. This facilitates the flow of data or knowledge from one domain to the others and thus opens up more opportunities and possibilities for interdisciplanary research on multi-scale scientific problems. Its impact is in its enabling multi-scale science capability.

On the education front, CSE-Online provides an user-friendly Web-accessible interface that would facilitate the introduction of computational chemistry or computational science in general to the Undergraduate level or even K-12 levels. What we need however is teaching materials for this purpose. CSE-Online provides a collaborative environment using the TWiki technology for developing such materials. For example, users can add tutorial materials in any product tutorial pages.

4. Can I put my tool in CSE-Online and have it communicate to other tools in there?

The short answer is YES. In fact, there are many benefits for you to put your tool in CSE-Online while retaining full control of its accessibility. See For Developers^? link for more details.

5. How can I provide feedback on certain application tools?

There are two mechanisms for you to provide feedback to us.

1. Go to the Comments link, then enter your comments on any particular tool.
2. There is a Feedback item on the Menu bar for all of CSE-Online tools. This feedback system allows you to report bugs, to make request for new features to our development team, or just to send a snap shot of the tool to your friend.

6. When trying to submit jobs using MolDesign, Gaussian GUI and Globus, you get the error 'Major Error: Cannot submit a job. Cannot access the server directory, I/O error. Please check the execution directory and system clock skew'.

1. You might be behind a firewall which does not allow access to ports CSE-Online requires. To test this, please go to http://www.cse-online.net/ and go the Get Started section, point 4 - Check Internet connections. Run the application provided there, this will bring up a GUI which will run a diagnostic test and tell you which ports are failing. After this is determined, please contact your network administrator to gain access to the ports.
2. If the system time test fails, you will need to check that the computer which you are running CSE-Online from is set to the correct date and time for your local timezone. (For Windows machines go to Control Panel -> Date and Time -> Date & Time and Time Zone tabs and reset the time and/or timezone).
3. If you are using another locale, you will need to change your locale to en_US (English (United States)). For Windows machines go to Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Advanced tabs and select English(United States).
4. If you are still facing problems after these three steps, please email support@cseo.utah.edu referencing this error and attach the file Output.log and error.log which you will find in your <CSEO_INSTALL_HOME> folder after running CSE-Online once and reproducing the error. To get to the installation home directory, for Windows machines, right click on the CSE-Online icon on desktop, click on the Find Target button. For Linux, go to <USER_HOME>/cseo/JODAF

7. Everything installed correctly, but on clicking the MolDesign icon nothing happens OR on clicking the MolDesign icon the GUI is shown but it hangs and I cannot do anything after that.

1. MolDesign uses JOGL (JavaOpenGL) to display it graphics. Sometimes, especially with laptops having integrated graphics cards, the graphics drivers need to be updated to handle JOGL correctly. The update will generally be offered free on your system vendor website. If this does not solve the issue, email support@cseo.utah.edu with the configuration (OS, RAM, graphics card and driver information) of your system and attach files indicated in step 3 in FAQ 6 above and please mention that you have already updated your graphics driver.

8. I am trying to access the Share File System on GlobalFileExplorer but it gives me an error saying 'The server cannot be accessed....'.

1. There might be a couple of problems here. If you registered with cse-online before 2007 and have never changed your password, please try changing your password first. To do this, go to www.cse-online.net, login in and on the right hand navigation bar you will find a link to 'Edit Password'. Complete this process, login to the desktop application again and try and access the GlobalFileExplorer^? - Share File System. If you still have problems please follow step 3 in FAQ 6 above.

If you have any questions, please send email to support@cseo.utah.edu