I've finally got a relase of rSoNIA and dynamic network packages (0.0-3) that seems to work somewhat. I've tested it on Windows, Mac, Ubuntu Linux, and R versions 2.3.1,2.4. Let me know if it works for you.

rSoNIA Install Instructions

1. download rSoNIA and dynamic network packages from:
   https://csde.washington.edu/~skyebend/dynamicnetwork/current/
https://csde.washington.edu/~skyebend/rsonia/current/
unix/macs use the  *.tar.gz version
   windows use the *.zip verssion
   
2. install packages from local archive (menu option in windows, R CMD INSTALL on unix)
   
3. load the sonia library
   library(rSoNIA); #also loads dynamic network
   
4. run the self update script
   updateSonia();

   This checks if the correct version of java is installed, downloads a java-based installer from source forge, downloads sonia and associated libraries from their respective website, installing them in the same directory as rSoNIA. You need to accept all the licenses (mostly GPL).
   
   At the end it will ask you if you want to go to the QuickTime website.  If you are on Windows or mac, and you have not recently installed QuickTime, you should download and run the QuickTime installer.
   
   
5. finally exit the installer.  
   

Demo / Test:

quick launch to make sure it installed OK

WARNING: check renewal false means that edges that go away and come back are treated as one continuous edge, so don't use this to debug your model!

Launch sonia in interactive mode, no colors. just to test it

  launchSonia(fauxDyn);   #if this works, quit and continue, not very interesting


set up colors and shapes in data structure for export

1. convert sex into a vertex attribute of shape names
   
        shapes <- get.vertex.attribute(fauxDyn,"Sex");
     shapes <- replace(shapes,shapes==1,"square");
     shapes <- replace(shapes,shapes==2,"circle");
     fauxDyn <- set.vertex.attribute(fauxDyn,"shapes",shapes);

   

2. convert race into a vertex attribute of aribrary colors
   
   set.vertex.attribute(fauxDyn,"color",colorize(get.vertex.attribute(fauxDyn,"Race")));



3. launch with colors in interactive mode
   launchSonia(fauxDyn, vertex.col="color", usearrows=FALSE, displaylabels=FALSE, vertex.shape="shape",vertex.cex="Grade" );
   

use GUI to apply network

1. click "Apply Layout"
   
   
2. set "max passes" to 5000   (give it more time to run the layout)
3. set "optimum distance" to 20   ( set length of edges)
   
   
4. set "comp connect value" to 10  (set spacing between components)
5. click "Apply " and wait for layout to finish
   
   
6. advance to the next layout with the ">|" button
7. click "Apply Layout" again
8. change "Starting Coordinates" from "use random positions" to  "from previous slice"
   
   
9. click "Apply to Remaining"   to run through all the rest of the slices.
10. wait for a bit while it crunches
11. rewind the movie with the "|<" button, or by entering "0" in the "Layout slice #" field and hitting return.
12. press play ">" to watch the movie
13. choose "Export QuickTime Movie" or "Export Flash Movie" from the Export menu to save the movie to disk.
14. You can open the movie in Firefox (assuming you have Flash installed, most people do)

All of that is very long and painful.  Once you have experimented enough to know what the good parameter values are, you can do it all directly from the command line in R

Do Everything Above No GUI

export flash movie, non-interactive

#need to specify some of the settings so it won't use default
soniaApplySettings$kk.opt.dist[2]<-20;     #specify node spacing
soniaApplySettings$kk.comp.connect[2] <- 10;     #specify distance betweeen components
soniaGraphicsSettings$layout.height[2]<-500; #increase height of movie
soniaBrowseSettings$num.frames[2]<-10;


launchSonia(fauxDyn,
     max.iter=5000,
     interactive=FALSE,
     vertex.col="color",
     usearrows=FALSE,
     displaylabels=FALSE,
     vertex.shape="shape",
     vertex.cex="Grade",
     movie.file=file.choose(),  # will bring up the save dialog, you can also put a file name here
     movie.type="swf");


If it works, you should have something that looks like this:
Note:hit your browser's reload buttion to make the movie restart, or here to open it in a resizeable window

Windows/ Mac  QuickTime Demo

If you are on a mac or a windows* machine, you can also export the movie as a quicktime file, which is much bigger but you can scroll in time and save it in other formats.

* unfortunately, this will not work on Windows Server 2003 machine aka csde-ts2

     launchSonia(fauxDyn,
     max.iter=5000,
     interactive=FALSE,
     vertex.col="color",
     usearrows=FALSE,
     displaylabels=FALSE,
     vertex.shape="shape",
     vertex.cex="Grade",
     movie.file=file.choose(),
     movie.type="mov");            #change  to "mov" instead of "swf"


If all of this works, you should end up with a movie that looks like this.