Supporting SETI@Home and all BOINC Distributed Computing Projects
April 2007

©SETI.USA

CONTENTS:

* Latest News
* SETI News
* Member of the Month Interview
An Interview with SETI.USA's Steve
* Project of the Month
* BOINC News
BOINCpe v0.4.1
* Trivia Contest March Results
* Computer of the Month
* Quote of the Month
* Personal Milestones
* Team News

AMD's woes were underscored earlier this week when it said that lower prices and unit sales meant that first-quarter revenue would be about $1.23 billion, 20% below the average Wall Street forecast.

SETI NEWS: -SargeD

April 12 , 2007

Okay - I messed up. My workunit zombie cleanup process was querying against the replica database, unbeknownst to me (even though I wrote the script). So when the replica went offline my script started errantly removing workunits. That meant many users were getting "file not found" errors when trying to download work. Of course I'm smart enough to not actually delete files of such importance, and upon discovering the exact problem I was able to immediately move the mistakenly removed files back into place (they were simply moved into an analogous directory one level up). So all's well there, more or less. The good news is the replica issues of yesterday (and earlier) have been fixed sometime last night/this morning so we have both servers on line and caught up.

Once that workunit fire was put out I wrapped up work on the "nag" scripts and am now currently sending e-mails to users who signed up relatively recently but have failed to successfully send any work back. Directions about getting help were in the e-mail.

The validator queue has been a little high - not at panic levels but not really shrinking either. I believe this has to do with the extra stress the validators have now that there is less redundancy. They have to process results 25% faster than before (as long as work in continually coming in/going out). I just added 2 extra validators to the backend. Let's see if that helps.

- Matt

Member of the Month Interview: -Beerdrinker

This month we are going to interview a person who needs no introduction. You all know this guy - who always is willing to help and always does things in the best interest of the team. Please welcome...........

Steve!

Read Interview

Project of the Month: -DrBob

SETI.USA encourages its members to participate in the projects of their choice. Now that we have accomplished the team's original goal of being #1 in SETI@home, credit in ALL BOINC projects is valuable to the team's future success.

Some members have asked for direction as to which projects they should allocate their resources. Therefore we have decided to designate a “Team Project of the Month”. The chosen project typically will be one in which our team currently has a poor showing in that projects standings.

World Community Grid has been chosen for the Team Project of the Month for April.

Our team is currently ranked 129th in BOINC standings on the project and we are hoping enough members will participate in this project to improve our position there by May 15th.

Project URL: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org
Create an Account: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/reg/viewRegister.do?platform=all
Join Our Team: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/team/viewTeamInfo.do?teamId=6FG4T4VRP1

NOTE: While creating your account for WCG Step 2 asks which program you would like to download. MAKE SURE TO SELECT BOINC! If you download and install one of WCGs standalone applications your credits WILL NOT count toward the teams BOINC total.

IF YOU ALREADY HAVE BOINC INSTALLED – Select the link on the bottom of the page for Step 2 that reads “Click Here if you have already downloaded the software” and simply attach to the project using the Project URL: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org

BOINC News: -Steve

BOINCpe v0.4.1

With BOINCpe, you can now run a dedicated BOINC machine using a RAM disk! Requiring only 256 MB of RAM, this software will allow you to run a BOINC farm more energy-efficiently (without using the hard disk drive), or use machines without hard disk drives for BOINC crunching!

Read more

Trivia Contest March Results: -SargeD

Week 1

Topic: Survivor: Seasons 1-7
Difficulty Level: Tough-Difficult
Number of questions: 15

Week 1 winner: CrazyBob 86%

Week 2

Topic: Useless Trivia: Random Questions
Difficulty Level: Easy-Average
Number of questions: 20

Week 2 winner: Zedd2000 80%

Week 3

Topic: Internet: Web Sites
Difficulty Level: Easy-Average
Number of questions: 12

Week 3 winner: CrazyBob 91%

Week 4

Topic: Sports: Women Athletes
Difficulty Level: Average-Tough
Number of questions: 15

Week 4 winner: CrazyBob 100%

Hopefully we will see more members in next month's issue!!!!

Computer of the Month: - jghilino

This months computer belongs to SargeD !

Okay, I will enter my "Frankenstein" machine. I call it that because it is made mostly of used parts I collected and it is caseless. I seldom throw away parts when I do upgrades for other people and usually end up with lots of bits laying around. It all started when I upgraded a system from a P4 630 to a Pent D 915 for a customer. I ended up giving him a $25 discount to let me keep the old CPU. Next I ordered a refurbished Gigabyte Skt 775 MB for $30 and a Skt 775 HSF for $12.50. I had plenty of old DDR memory laying around and a few HDs and Power Supply's. Before I knew it, "Frankenstein" was born and happily crunching away. He now has a RAC that ranges between 590 and 610. Total cost to me was $67.50.

Machine Stats:
P4 630 HT CPU @ 3.0GHZ
1 Gig PC2100 DDR running @ 2.5 4 4 8
Refurb Gigabyte I865GV MB
120 Gig WD HD
ATI 3D Rage II Video card w/4meg
Generic 300 watt PS

My Apologies for having no pictures. I cleaned up the directory on my web server and inadvertently deleted them. My camera is at work so I cannot replace them.

Do you have a PC that you would like to see featured in our newsletter? Then visit here: Computer of the Month
(Note: You must log into the Message board to submit)

Quote of the Month April:

There were at least five extremely qualified quotes that were considered this month. Since we had a hard time choosing, we decided to go with the one that is a natural follow-up to Mr. Einstein.

If we ask, for instance,
whether the position of the electron remains the same
we must say "no",
if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time we must say "no"
if we ask whether the electron is at rest we must say "no"
if we ask whether it is in motion we must say "no"

-J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967)

Personal Milestones: -Orion

SETI.USA would like to thank ALL of it's dedicated members and offer CONGRATULATIONS to all those who achieved significant personal milestones in the month of March. As you all know, we are growing exponentially. We now have:

52 members with 1,000,000+ SETI credits
109 members with 500,000+
358 members with 100,000+

View April Milestones

Team News: -BlkJack-21

Spinhenge@Home

Team SETI.USA was faced with a question once we passed SETI.Germany for total credits in SETI. What should we try next? Many different ideas were presented. Then the thought regarding our Project Mobilization Force began to surface. Since our Race with P3DNow! in SIMAP, the subsequent formation of the PMF lay unchallenged. We then decided that is was now safe to "Stretch our Legs" so to speak.

AMD's woes were underscored earlier this week when it said that lower prices and unit sales meant that first-quarter revenue would be about $1.23 billion, 20% below the average Wall Street forecast.

BOINCpe v0.4.1

With BOINCpe, you can now run a dedicated BOINC machine using a RAM disk! Requiring only 256 MB of RAM, this software will allow you to run a BOINC farm more energy-efficiently (without using the hard disk drive), or use machines without hard disk drives for BOINC crunching! Read more

With BOINCpe, you can now run a dedicated BOINC machine using a RAM disk! Requiring only 256 MB of RAM, this software will allow you to run a BOINC farm more energy-efficiently (without using the hard disk drive), or use machines without hard disk drives for BOINC crunching!

Read more