From:   SMTP%"Nicki.Agron-Olshina@csiro.au" 21-AUG-2002 01:04:21.97
To:     cockcroft@img.cryst.bbk.ac.uk
CC:
Subj:   problems with the Project

Good Morning Jeremy Karl,

I hope you enjoyed the marathon IUCr Congress.   My colleague, Nikki
Scarlett, returned to work yesterday with two volumes of abstracts from the
congress.

I have been having a lot of problems with the Project for the PD on the Web
course.  I downloaded Rietica and went through the Rietica tutorials.  The
learning curve has been very steep.  There are no useful instructions that
are of much help to the novice.  Many of the choices in the Rietica menus
are just words or names with no meaning (to me) and not adequately defined,
if defined at all. I have spent well over a week putting the given
parameters for the supplied data files into Rietica only to have it crash
and lock up my computer.  It has been an exercise in frustration not
learning.

It is also not entirely clear (to me at least) just what we are supposed to
do with this data, should I ever get Rietica to work properly. I have
assumed we are to track the changes in space-group symmetry of the PbSO4
with changes in temperature.  Further details concerning the marking scheme
for the project have not yet been provided.

So, given the many other demands on my time, I do not see that the effort
apparently needed (by me) to complete this project is worth the possible
learning payoff.    The knowledge could be obtained in some other way.

Could you give me some guidance with this project which will enable me to
actually learn what it is we are supposed to learn from it.  Please remember
that not many others have obtained Lachlan Cranswick's level of expertise
with crystallographic software.

Respectfully,

Nicki Agron-Olshina

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|Nicki Agron-Olshina   | Email nicki.agron-olshina@csiro.au   |
|CSIRO - Minerals      | ph (03)  9545-8711                            |
|P.O. 312, Clayton Sth | fax (03) 9562-8919                            |
|Victoria              | Int. Prefix +613                              |
|Australia    3169     | http//www.minerals.csiro.au                   |
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