Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

l008com · Nov 23, 2002, 03:48 PM

When RC5-72 starts, I want to set my computers up in a way that I can check each machines own stats. Some DC projects have this ablility built into thier stats system, but dnet has no plans to do this.
So I have two options, use a personal proxy, or use a different email address for each client.
I looked into the proxy, and they suggest that you should only use them if your internet connection is iffy. Mine is great. Plus They don't make a proxy that runs on OS X or 68K, which is all I have, and all I want to have. Now, assuming I did run a proxy, how do you get that stats out of it? Does it have a stats generator built in or do I have to custom build something in php?
As far as my other option, its much easier than it seems. I already host all my own email from my four web sites on my server in teh other room, and I can log on and add a new email account in about 1 minute flat. I forward all mail from each machine to one main distributed email address. I've tried this out already and it seems to work fine. I just make sure I modify each dnetc.ini file appropriately and then I just make sure when i set each machine up that i have that email address join my team, a team i create that only represents my machines, so the teams stats would compare to others personal stats. Right now it looks like the email way is the way I am going but i'd like others' take on this.

Scotttheking · Dec 4, 2002, 12:27 AM

The OSX personal proxy is in release candidate now.

l008com · Dec 4, 2002, 12:33 AM

I noticed that earlier!? After talking to the people on the dnet IRC channel (or was I pulling teeth, can't remember) it seems the email thing is the best way to get individual computer stats, and when it only takes a few seconds to set up a new email on my server and forward all the mail to my standard dnet email, thats probably the way I'm going to go. But im defiantly going to check out the proxy though.
I guess it uses IP to differentiate, so if you have a bunch of computers, you can't tell them apart if they are behind a LAN using my proxy.

Scotttheking · Dec 4, 2002, 12:53 AM

the proxy has to be installed on your lan, then it will track each machine by IP addy.
I once used this to track over 50 machines.

Email is only good if you are the one person doing it. If you want to join this team, a single email is probably better for watching yourself, and the proxy lets you do this.

l008com · Dec 4, 2002, 12:46 PM

Yeah but if I have more than one machine on any other LAN on the internet, like at work, and they were using my proxy, they would show up as one, right? So it wouldn't work. Plus I don't plan on joining this team, I was going to create my own team.

Scotttheking · Dec 4, 2002, 01:11 PM

Originally posted by l008com:
Plus I don't plan on joining this team, I was going to create my own team.

Then why are you posting in the Team MacNN forum...?

reader50 · Dec 4, 2002, 02:22 PM

Mac users are welcome here. So are visitors from rival teams ... though we may not be as helpful for them.

l008com · Dec 4, 2002, 04:49 PM

I thought this was the best place for RC5 & dnet questions? Should I put them in the lounge from now on?

Shaktai · Dec 4, 2002, 11:41 PM

Originally posted by l008com:
I thought this was the best place for RC5 & dnet questions? Should I put them in the lounge from now on?

Yeah, it is the best place for those questions, and even non team members have always been welcome.

Good luck with setting up your own team, but don't be surprised if it isn't all you expect. Been there and done that, team, website, forums, the works, and now I am back here. It is a lot of work with very little return and a few unwanted headaches along the way.

Still it did give me a real perspective on how much work Reader50, Scott and others have put into building Team MacNN and keeping it going. Much more fun to just crunch for Team MacNN and the best stats anywhere and getting better.

unregistered · Dec 14, 2002, 11:22 AM

Running a team is sort of like running a business or accepting donations for a charity. One has to come up with a system for which to entice people to join the cause.

One or two people doing most of the work without much payoff / appreciation from the team as a whole can be quite common. Only a few people from my team are stll interested in any distributed computing challenge, no matter how significant the cause. It's painful when 8 people on a 12 person team decide to call it quits. As for approaching new people, the response has often been reminiscient of cold callers. I'm sorry, we don't want any (click). If you do it on irc, get ready to be kicked/banned.

So to the person interested in starting their own team, here's my 2 cents. I've been the leader of a distributed computing team since 1996. In my opinion, what will be crucial is that you find a core group of people (preferably ones that you know person in addition to those you know from an online basis only) with a natural curiosity in the areas of science & technology.

Have I failed with that plan? Can't say so for sure. Success ia a relative term. Plenty of ups and downs.

Good luck, it's tough for one person to do. Then again, I guess that's why they call it a team..

l008com · Dec 15, 2002, 10:50 AM

I think you missed the point, I'm creating my own team so I can have each of my OWN machines with their OWN email addresses join it and be united. This is a one man team. There will be no recruiting or anything like that.

Shaktai · Dec 15, 2002, 02:46 PM

Originally posted by l008com:
I think you missed the point, I'm creating my own team so I can have each of my OWN machines with their OWN email addresses join it and be united. This is a one man team. There will be no recruiting or anything like that.

Ahh! That explains it. I am guessing you want to be able to track each computers individual progress and performance in the stats, rather then have them all lumped together?

l008com · Dec 15, 2002, 05:14 PM

Exactly, which for some reason, most people think is a waste of time? If I'm going to bother running RC5 on so many machines, I atleast wanna know what each machine is doing. My setup is pretty simple and easy to add to, and if stats every come back up, it will be working fine.

Shaktai · Dec 15, 2002, 08:22 PM

Originally posted by l008com:
Exactly, which for some reason, most people think is a waste of time? If I'm going to bother running RC5 on so many machines, I atleast wanna know what each machine is doing. My setup is pretty simple and easy to add to, and if stats every come back up, it will be working fine.

Not a waste of time if it meets YOUR needs. What others think is inconsequential. Maybe one of these days you can share some performance differences between machines. Good luck!

l008com · Dec 15, 2002, 08:54 PM

Right now a 900 Mhz Celeron at work is beating my dual 533 G4 here at home :-( X86 already has a few optimized cores, PPC is still running on the generic cores. Some nice PPC cores and my G4 will be doing circles around the Celeron