I thought i'd start a thread for New users. There are many things to learn to get accustomed to Boinc. Rather than learning them in a piecemeal method I thought I'd start a thread that might teach you some shortcuts and interesting things about this site. All regular users, please post anything you think might speed the new users into a fuller understanding.

For example, Did you know, if you click on a user name you can view every post ever made by a user?

Did you know? That every user has ONE hour from the last edit to "Edit" a post. See top line of a post that you've made for "edit this post". After one hour it's part of the permanent record. This saves on multiple posts.

did you know it's good etiquette to include "part/all of a post your are responding to so the author knows it was intended for him? In the same light, to keep the threads neat and trim, it's best to "edit out" things that don't apply.

I hope everyone will add to this to improve the efficiency of these boards. these boards have moderators, but it's best if we as a group set the rules and live by them.

thanks
tony

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did you know that the support system here is voluntary by design? Unless you see Dr Anderson, Rom Walton, Bobb2, Matt Lebofsky under a user name, then they are vaolunteers here trying to help. They don't work for Berkeley and are here to help you, but don't posssess a magic "help button" to fix problems? They are infact, regular users like you and I.

There is a preference you can set under "General Preferences" under "your account" to either "hide computers" or View computers". The info you can see about yourself is different from that than anyone else can see? Click on my "username" and you can see my puters", see any IP addys? I see them when I click on mine, but you can't. Seeing your puters is exceeedingly helpful when I try to help you. I can see what version you're using and what changes in CPU time may have happenened. I can even see if you're returning invalid results. Leaving the setting to "view computers" helps us help you, but doesn't reveal your "sensitive" info.

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I hope everyone will add to this to improve the efficiency of these boards. these boards have moderattors, but it's best if we as a group set the rules and live by them.

Some suggestions. They're my personal opinion; if you disagree, you're certainly entitled but I'm not interested in debating them. They're not official rules or even official suggestions--just an opinion from one member, take 'em for what they're worth.

1) Before posting a question, take a quick look through previous threads to see if someone else is dealing with the same thing. (You don't have to read every post from the beginning of time, but scrolling down the page may be helpful.) Likewise, the Wiki is your friend.

2) This doesn't just apply here, but to fora in general. Before hitting the "Post reply" button, I try to take a step back, re-read the post from the beginning, and ask myself if this post will help the signal-to-noise ratio of the discussion. If the answer is no, better not to post. (And of course, sometimes I estimate wrong, but it does help cut down on the flamewars.) When the focus shifts from "solving the problem" to "who gets the last word," everyone loses.

3) Try to provide as much information as possible about your problem. Knowing what version of BOINC, what version of the science app, your operating system, and what you've already tried to do to fix the problem can help other members address your problem more efficiently. "It doesn't work, fix the stupid thing" doesn't give us much to work with.

4) Also remember, BOINC does things differently than Classic did, and some of the differences are by design. So the answer to your question may be, "That's not a bug, it's a feature."

5) This may be the first time you've encountered the problem, but it may not be the first time the problem has come up. If you get a response along the lines of "read this discussion and this wiki page" with links, we're not blowing you off, we're just not interested in repeating something that's well discussed somewhere else.

6) The fora are pure text--we can't see your facial expression or hear your tone of voice. Things that are meant as a joke may come across as snotty or rude. (I've been on both sides of this one.) Again, a re-read before posting can be helpful.

OK, that's enough nanny behavior out of me (see rule 2 above). ;-)

Cheers,

Brian

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If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

did you know that when some answers YOUR question there might be 4 or 5 others out there with the same problem, but afraid (for one reason or the other) to speak up. So when we describe the fix to your problem in "simplistic" terms (point cursor at the "start" button", right click, left click on "Explorer") it's NOT because we think you're stupid, but because we don't know your level of experience, and others with this problem may not have YOUR level of experience.

There have been rumors here that Classic users have been told that Boinc users feel "superior" to Classic users. Point of fact, most all of us ARE classic users, I've racked up 6200 credits since Jul 6 1999. If you ask a question with the intent of an honest answer you WILL get it. Don't let the fearmongers scare you. Most of us are here for the purposes of helping. to Heck with the few others. The majority is on our side (the honest science enthousiasts{I know it's a typo})

did you know<

these posts record the "original" post times and any subsequent "edits" seperately? to keep others from claiming any "fraudulant edits" it's normal to use [edit] to show that your post has been editted? For example, the lions team couldn't fight there way out of a paper bag.

should be edited thusly.

'the lions team [edit] could do better [/edit].

so everyone knows where the edit occurrred. That way when they see the difference between post time and edit time, there is some explanation.

There have been rumors here that Classic users have been told that Boinc users feel "superior" to Classic users. Point of fact, most all of us ARE classic users, I've racked up 6200 credits since Jul 6 1999. If you ask a question with the intent of an honest answer you WILL get it. Don't let the fearmongers scare you. Most of us are here for the purposes of helping. to Heck with the few others. The majority is on our side (the honest science enthousiasts{I know it's a typo})

I'm another Classic user that migrated to Boinc a while back. Everyone on the boards was new to Boinc at some point. We have all been in the position of asking a question about some aspect of the client we did not understand at some point.

I would like to say one thing to the folks joining Boinc.

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We have all been in the position of asking a question about some aspect of the client we did not understand at some point.

Everyone with the possible exception of some of the developers.

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BOINC WIKI

Did you know,

Seti under Boinc is actually two different things? One is Boinc, the current version is 5.2.7 and manages all the differrent science application files (Burp, Seti, PPAH, Einstein, Orbit, CPDN, Boinc Alpha, Seti Beta, etc.) And then the other part is the science application file which does the actual "crunching" of the numbers. THe seti application is "VERY" similar to classic, it's just controlled by Boinc. View it as being controlled by Setidriver, or other 3rd party software already included.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the previous poster John Mcleod VII IS the programmer of the new Scheduler which appeared with Boinc 4.35. If you see something he writes about the scheduler, you can write it in stone, it's a FACT, there is/can be NO argument. ( unless you're at his level, and want to try)

Very awesome thread here. Being someone who came from classic toward the beginning of the year, first place I looked was here on the boards. I found all the info I ever needed here, thanks to the many, many helpful people here.

The one thing I gotta say to all the newcomers, is that do not be afraid to ask questions. There is no such thing as a stupid question. The only stupid question is the one not asked. Many people will point you to the right point to help you get your answer.

And as many have already said, and it can't be said enough, is to post as much information about your problem, your computer, what BOINC client your running, and post the messages that you are recieving. The more information available to those who are very knowledgable the better they can help you with your problem.

Welcome to BOINC.

Jeremy

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along with Jeremy's thought, unlike Classic, when you return a WU you can check on it's progress, You can see if it's useful or not, by going to "your account", "view results" and comparing your result with the 3 other hosts it was assigned to. By clicking on "result ID", You can find out if your result was considered as "valid" or not. This can help you determine the fitness of your puter as well. Boinc provides a boatload more information about YOUR contribution.

This may be minor to us broadband users, but when a thread reaches 300 posts it can take 5 minutes for a dial upper to load. Out of courtesy, please limit your threads to 300 posts.

To add one more thought to this. If you have multiple computers, you can attached them all to the same project just like Classic. Many users you will see are doing this. And as mmciastro has said also, theres many many projects to attach to. Finding one is easy, you can point your web browswer Here and find them. They are all interesting, and have many different goals to read up on.

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did you know that the "originator"/"author" of a thread can change the title of a thread (by posting to it and editting the "title" box) and decide what is appropriate for his/her thread? It's best that rules be outlined ahead of time. It's also best to NOT hijack a thread to fix your problem unless it directly relates to the title of the thread. If it doesn't exactly match, Make your own thread. [edit]dictate your own rules[/edit]Hey, it's YOUR thread, it's your rules

If you like seeing your stats when you post a message, you can get one from BOINCSynergy or from MundayWeb. You will get a link such as mine like this "http://www.boincsynergy.com/images/stats/comb-2590.jpg" to put into your signature line. To find your signature, go to "Your Account", then to "View or edit forum preferences", then scroll down to "Signature for message boards", and copy the link there. Be sure to include the proper BBCode to get it to post right. Many are images, so you have to start the link out with "[img"http://whatever.com/whatever.jpg"[/img]" to get it to show properly.

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Did you Know,

there are three (four) fora here, and each is for different purposes. We have the Q@A fora (reachable by all) to answer your questions, the other three require you have "credits" to post to them. THey are the "Science" fora for discussing the science behind Seti, the Cafe which is for general fellowship and BS, and the Number Crunching NC thread which covers anything (and I mean anything) that can be related to crunching wus. It ranges from OC questions to management of work, to my wife stole my mouse so I can't crunch.

OK big topic here, since we've covered that there are TWO parts to running Seti under boinc and they are Boinc and (strangely enough)Seti. One (boinc) manages the projescts, and Seti does the actual crunching. There are available from third parties what are called "optimised" clients for both Boinc and for Seti. The Optimized seti applications (clients) take advantage of the specific Math Instructions that a specific CPU is good with. It can easily double the number of results (wus) that you can do. The optimized Boinc clients does NOT increase speed, but does increase the benchmarks and thereby the "claimed credit" that hosts request. If you run more than ONE project then you will be claiming more credit than you deserve by running an optimized Boinc. The purpose of optimized Boinc is to bring the Claimed credit of hosts using optimized seti applications inline with the claims of others, so noone is cheated. It's a good idea in theory, but when someone runs an optimized boinc with any project other than an optimized seti, then they are violating the intent of the programmers and thereby Cheating. Nothing stops people from this other than the "granted credit" process which discards the hi and Lo "claimed credit. and then averages the middle.

this could be a 15 page topic but I'll stop here.

did you know


that within "forum preferences" under "general preferences" of "your account", that you can set it to "not reorder post it notes" which will remove the top several lines/threads of "Stickies" from you view.