Iolite Workshop - sunday August 14, 2011

(Please note that registration has now closed for the 2011 workshop in Prague)

We'll be running our first Iolite workshop in conjunction with the Goldschmidt conference in Prague later this year!

[Please note: registration is now open, see here for the latest post with details]

The workshop will be aimed at introducing Iolite to new users, and will focus on everything you need to know to get started processing your mass spec. data with Iolite, including:
--- Importing your data
--- How to get the most out of viewing data in Iolite
--- Using the Report Window and X-Y Plot Window
--- Selecting data and using different interpolation methods
--- The basics of modifying an existing DRS

We intend to make it a very hands-on workshop, with participants working through example datasets on their own laptops, instead of just staring at powerpoint slides and handouts. There will of course still be amazingly stunning slides and mindblowingly brilliant handouts, but the hands-on stuff will be so much fun that they'll just fade into insignificance by comparison...

There will be a bias towards laser ablation data in the workshop, particularly U-Pb zircon geochronology and trace element imaging, but we'll also be covering solution mode ICPMS and TIMS data.

Note also that the workshop is being run in cooperation with the Detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology workshop, and will follow on in the same venue to make it easy on anyone wanting to attend both.

Finally, if you have requests or suggestions for other topics you'd like included in the workshop, feel free to comment on this post, or on our forum.

v. 2.13: Iolite's been updated!

We've just released an update for Iolite, so we're now on Version 2.13, this version is compatible with IgorPro version 6.21, but should also work on earlier versions (e.g. 6.12).
The update is available from the main Iolite page (http://www.iolite.org.au/Iolite.html).

Here's a quick run-down of what the new release has going for it (I've started with the most interesting bits for those of you with limited attention spans):

--- We've added a new way of automatically selecting integration periods, which uses thresholds for up to three different channels (e.g. select data where Ca43 is greater than 100,000 CPS and the Mg24_v_Ca43 ratio is less than 0.15). This is quite a big feature, and will be the subject of an upcoming post, so I won't go into more details here.

--- The Report Window now quotes all numbers to the equivalent of two significant figures in the uncertainty (e.g. 123.4567 ± 1.23456 will be expressed as 123.4 ± 1.2).

--- The "Auto Y axis" buttons now have a toggle functionality - click them one and the axis will autoscale to encompass all data - a second click immediately after this will do a more clever autoscale which attempts to reject extreme outliers.

--- You can now use shortcuts to get to the Report Window and XY Plot Window using Command+4 and Command+5, respectively (Control instead of Command on PC). These are in addition to the pre-existing shortcuts for the Main Control Window, Traces Window and Log Window using Command+(1,2,3).
--- When selecting the Primary channel, the popup is sticky (i.e. it will have the current item selected when you open the popup), making it easier to systematically move through your channels one at a time.
--- We've added a default setting for whether to add to, or overwrite, existing integrations in automatic integrations windows.
--- There were some cosmetic issues for the Main Control Window on the PC that have been improved.
--- We've fixed a bug on the "Drive L/R" control on the PC
--- People running the newest version of IgorPro (6.21) were getting a bug when trying to create images, which is now fixed.

On top of this there were mountains of small bug fixes, but nothing we need to burden you with here...