The new Seti@home/Boinc

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SteveB

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Message 1087 - Posted: 24 Jun 2004, 11:00:18 UTC

After seeing that Boinc went live yesterday i decided to switch over to check out the new and improved Seti@home.
24 hours later and all i feel is disapointment.
What Seti@home needed was improved feedback to the users and that clearly has not happened.
It has gotten worse.
Sometimes i would open the old client and watch the graphic to see what was going on but the new 3D graphic is just to disgusting to watch.
Yes,It's 3D and you can play with it with your mouse buttons but it's not clear and just keeps moving.
I signed in and changed my prefrence for the graphics and of course i have to wait a few hours for boinc to talk to the server to make the change.
Now that's improvement!
It's just a change in the display graphic, why is it not user selectable in the client?
Signing on to my account or even the message board requires my user id.
My user id is 32 charecters long and because of my computer security it will not remember the id.
So every time it's required, i open my email client, open the folder that has the regestration email, open the email, copy the user id, close all the above, switch to the boinc page and the paste the user id.
Because of my security settings i have never had a virus, trogen, worm or even spyware on my computer.
I'm not going to change them for boinc.
Just haveing a user id without a password is a security issue no matter how long the user id is.
Credit for work done is now dependant on others.
I see an exploite in this thinking.
Lets say someone sets their computer to download a weeks time of work units and then deleats the file.
Then does it over and over again.
How many thousands of people get screwed?
User choices in the new client are about the same as the old but i'm leaning in the direction of Remove BOINC.


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Ingleside
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Message 1096 - Posted: 24 Jun 2004, 11:43:31 UTC - in response to Message 1087.  

> I signed in and changed my prefrence for the graphics and of course i have to
> wait a few hours for boinc to talk to the server to make the change.
> Now that's improvement!

Hit "update" under the projects-tab. ;)

> Credit for work done is now dependant on others.
> I see an exploite in this thinking.
> Lets say someone sets their computer to download a weeks time of work units
> and then deleats the file.
> Then does it over and over again.
> How many thousands of people get screwed?

Currently there's a limit of downloading 50 wu/day per host. Also, if someone doesn't return a result within the deadline, this wu is sent out to someone else for crunching, so the only real problems here is that it takes a little time getting your credit.
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SteveB

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Message 1149 - Posted: 24 Jun 2004, 13:08:15 UTC

After going through the procedure i explaned before.
IF "Hit "update" under the projects-tab. ;)" would have been in the help files then there would have been no problem.
Just like most software sites i visit today they leave the problem solving to the users.
There are hundreds if not thousands of seti users today that exploit the system and they will figure out how to to it today.
If not for gain then for grief.
I don't want to be passimistic but i have to.
Do you realize that there is no user policy link or statement for these boards?
Any trash can be said here.
Because this took more than a few minutes to compose i have to go through the procedure stated in the other post.


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STE\/E
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Message 1151 - Posted: 24 Jun 2004, 13:13:49 UTC

I see an exploit in this thinking.
Lets say someone sets their computer to download a weeks time of work units and then deletes the file.
Then does it over and over again.
==========

Please don't give anybody any ideas, I'm sure they will come up with enough of their own... :/

Yes there are a lot of potential pitfalls with the Credit System the way it is but only time will tell if it will work out or not. If it doesn't then I think BOINC is in for a hard road to travel. People simply won't put up with it and say the hell with it and quit running it all together...

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SteveB

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Message 1793 - Posted: 25 Jun 2004, 9:17:42 UTC

48 hours after the change to Boinc.
I've had more time to think about it and have come to realize it's the science that my computer does that i beleive in.
I'll keep crunching just on that fact alone.
I don't want to discourage others or new users from switching over to Boinc because it is an improvement to distrubeted computing but it does have it's problems.
Computers are a visual input device and it's hard to beleive that programers don't realize that.
If it's not visualy pleasing then people want to make it go away or loose intrest.
Boinc has had many months to set up a web site for NEW users with a good user manual and in depth instructions.
When i signed up the instructions said Boinc will ask for a project url and user ID.
I expected a pop-up window that asked for this info.
Not so.
I had to poke around and find the proper window.
The window is under (Settings, Attach to project).
Hmm User help.
Over all i'll keep Boinc running and hope there's improvement in the program.

Note The user ID is very very anoying for me.
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STE\/E
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Message 1802 - Posted: 25 Jun 2004, 10:04:50 UTC

Note The user ID is very very anoying for me.
==========
Yes, it was for me too until I set my disk cleaning program to save the Cookies that BOINC use's when I try to open my Account up. Try this program if you like, it is free and has the option to select which cookies to keep when you run the program...CrapCleaner > http://www.ccleaner.com/

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wedgenix

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Message 2076 - Posted: 25 Jun 2004, 19:41:37 UTC - in response to Message 1802.  

> Note The user ID is very very anoying for me.
> ==========
> Yes, it was for me too until I set my disk cleaning program to save the
> Cookies that BOINC use's when I try to open my Account up. Try this program if
> you like, it is free and has the option to select which cookies to keep when
> you run the program...CrapCleaner > http://www.ccleaner.com/

That won't help me...I have ~50 machine seti'ing at the moment. Not looking forward to converting them all to ploink, nor the additional 3 or so per month I've been adding on average. That is provided I ever can get a work unit downloaded in the first place (2 machines trying for 24+hrs, exactly zero work received). ploink is the microsloth of distributed computing. I'll prolly swap to some other project all together before enough bugs are worked out of ploink.
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John McLeod VII
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Message 2120 - Posted: 25 Jun 2004, 20:36:52 UTC - in response to Message 2076.  

> That won't help me...I have ~50 machine seti'ing at the moment. Not looking
> forward to converting them all to ploink, nor the additional 3 or so per month
> I've been adding on average. That is provided I ever can get a work unit
> downloaded in the first place (2 machines trying for 24+hrs, exactly zero work
> received). ploink is the microsloth of distributed computing. I'll prolly
> swap to some other project all together before enough bugs are worked out of
> ploink.
>
BOINC is already multi project. Try attaching to http://predictor.scripps.edu/ as well as S@H. Usually, there is work from one or the other. If you want to help with test new releases of BOINC (yes there is more development scheduled) try attaching to http://setiboinc.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/. Each project has a different logon :( but the client does remember it once it has been set up :).
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