Download "Stuff"

Two programs are going to be used here, these being "R" and "OpenBUGS"

If you do not already have "R" you can get it from:

http://cran.r-project.org/

Some people prefer ro use "RStudio" for which you will need to have downloaded "R" anyhow.  If you want to use RStudio you can get it from:

https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/#download

And OpenBUGS can be gotten from:

http://www.openbugs.net/w/Downloads


To MAC or to Windows?
"R" is perfectly happy on either platform.  OpenBUGS can apparently be installed on MACs using Wine (https://www.winehq.org/) with which I have absolutely no experience. 
I do have a friend (yes, I have one) who has installed OpenBUGS on a MAC.  Here are the directions they passed along to me.

Note: "R" has many, many packages that can be downloaded.  Below is an example of how to download the package VGAM.  The easiest way to get this is through the "R" menus once you get "R" started (follow the trail of gingerbread men below):

  1. "Packages" from the menu
  2. "Install package(s)..." from the sub-menu
  3. Select your closest "mirror" (I'm going with Ames, Iowa).
  4. And get VGAM
  5. Type "library(VGAM)" to get started using VGAM
This is shown below.


Package 1Package 2
Package 3Package 4Package 5