[emark]

Greetings:

I came here today, as someone long famiiar with the mac, who had done a little SETI work at the beginning and faded away.

I was frustrated with looking around on the pages I linked to from MacNN's main page.

The descriptions were paltry and didn't give me a good sense of why I'd want to invest time and $ in participating.

The new site (http://teamtest.the-depths-of-hell.c...html/index.php)

and the enhanced FAQ's for each sub group really do a better job!

CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU.

So, let me continue to edit my first post (before I saw the new site) and ask the following:


1) on the front page of the forums of MacNN, could the description of the Team MacNN be slightly more informative/descriptive/attention grabbing?


2) someone posted an idea about recruiting in other threads. I routinely answer tech questions at Tech TV in "the mac help board", and in the screen savers "mac board". There are so many people at a basic level, I would be interested in posting notes occasionally (and tastefully) there to help steer traffic here. BUT, this would be maximized when the new Team MacNN pages are up and running. There are probably other forums off the MACNN board where mac people just don't know, or, knew and kinda forgot this was available.


Also:
From the standpoint of a new/uninitiated user, I want to be assured that


1) the software is more mature then when I tried it--and won't be obtrusive.

2) The new FAQ's do a better job of communicating the value of possible research, but, is their evidence/suspicion/concern about commercial bastardization/abuse of these programs and the donated time?? Are there ever apps with spyware? Does the research done by public groups get locked up and used for private companies' benefit exclusively, or is it public domain info when done??

Anyway, sorry if this is redundant.

Now I need to decide where to hang my hat.

Thanks

[The_Equivocator]

First off, welcome to the Team, and thanks for posting!

Originally posted by emark:
1) on the front page of the forums of MacNN, could the description of the Team MacNN be slightly more informative/descriptive/attention grabbing?

Hmm... I have never given that one line describing our forums much thought, but I guess there is room for improvement. Do you have any suggestions?

2) someone posted an idea about recruiting in other threads. I routinely answer tech questions at Tech TV in "the mac help board", and in the screen savers "mac board". There are so many people at a basic level, I would be interested in posting notes occasionally (and tastefully) there to help steer traffic here.

Branching out to other boards is great. If you are truly interested in helping to plug this team, I would suggest sticking one of the Team MacNN images in your signature/avatar over there. Any mention you want to make of us over there would be great!

BUT, this would be maximized when the new Team MacNN pages are up and running. There are probably other forums off the MACNN board where mac people just don't know, or, knew and kinda forgot this was available.

Yeah, we are definitely waiting on the new Team page to go up before we do any heavy recruiting. We have routinely done controlled recruiting on other MacNN forums, but they have not always been appreciated.

Also:
From the standpoint of a new/uninitiated user, I want to be assured that

1) the software is more mature then when I tried it--and won't be obtrusive.

2) The new FAQ's do a better job of communicating the value of possible research, but, is their evidence/suspicion/concern about commercial bastardization/abuse of these programs and the donated time?? Are there ever apps with spyware? Does the research done by public groups get locked up and used for private companies' benefit exclusively, or is it public domain info when done??

These are all great concerns, and I think a lot of what you have talked about realy depends on the revamped Team website. Right now, we are just trying to get the thing up and running. Once it is, I think that getting more information/new pages up will be a higher priority. As always, all team members are encouraged to write up pages for the Team. Scott and reader do a great job as it is, but I know they would love some help writing up some of those static pages.


Again, welcome!

[reader50]

Originally posted by emark:
...
The descriptions were paltry and didn't give me a good sense of why I'd want to invest time and $ in participating.
...

The resource pages on team and teamtest are identical. On team, when you jump into a project section such as SETI, the FAQ / About / Etc links become project-specific. At least one person complained about this interface aspect when the team version was under development, but it did not seem an issue. The teamtest version uses text links, so it resolves this with links that are obviously project-specific.

The top-level pages were deliberately kept non-project-specific because I did not want it to appear that MacNN was favoring a particular DC project. Any ideas for improvement would be welcome.

Strictly speaking, coming up with reasons to participate are quite hard. The world is not going to end even if no one participated in DC projects. Even the projects that are aimed at "practical" results are currently in development mode, with the possible exception of Folding@home. Some people jump in for personal reasons, some for competition aspects, some for the potential future benefits, and most for reasons we never know - most participants do not end up posting their reasons.

How does one go about selling SETI for example? The chances of success are unknown, they depend heavily on values in the Drake equation that have not been established yet. Some people would not want to find or meet aliens. Personally, I was sold on SF before hearing about SETI@home.

Originally posted by emark:
...
1) on the front page of the forums of MacNN, could the description of the Team MacNN be slightly more informative/descriptive/attention grabbing?
...

I once suggested "Team MacNN - crush your enemies"

We can most likely get this changed. Suggestions welcome.

Originally posted by emark:
...
1) the software is more mature then when I tried it--and won't be obtrusive.
...

What version(s) did you try last? It remains unoptimized for Altivec. BOINC (the codebase for future SETI projects) may get optimized, but we are too close to the end of SETI-1 to hope for any client changes. To the best of my knowledge, my optimization and hiding tips remain accurate. The Screen Saver version cannot be totally hidden - though you can come very close. The CLI OSX version can be set up to be very unobtrusive assuming you have enough free RAM that the client's added 15-20MB does not cause paging to start.

Originally posted by emark:
...
2) The new FAQ's do a better job of communicating the value of possible research, but, is their evidence/suspicion/concern about commercial bastardization/abuse of these programs and the donated time?? Are there ever apps with spyware? Does the research done by public groups get locked up and used for private companies' benefit exclusively, or is it public domain info when done??
...

We have not had any problems or suggestions of spyware on the Mac cleints. So far, anyway.

SETI is currently (and openly) setting up for dedicated reobservation of the best candidates. If the government is covering up successful results in this project, they are doing a far better job than usual at keeping it secret.

Folding and Distributed Folding regularly post papers and results to their websites. I am not qualified to determine if these results are complete - but have heard nothing regarding the projects holding back good stuff for commercial use.

Distributed.net (RC5) publishes when they crack a project. RC5-64 got published late because a code glitch caused the successful key to not get called out. They spotted it a couple months later, and published/stopped the project. I do not see how this delay could be of commercial value, they had been crunching for years, and RC5-64 offered a fixed reward for the successful key.

Ubero has not posted detailed results of the UCIalignment project, but its' results were somewhat dissappointing - the UCI professor went on to attempt other research approaches. Once the project gets more work, we'll have a better track record to look over. Note, Ubero intends to persue both commercial and non-commercial work. The participants can choose which types to participate in. It is expected that participation in commercial work will result in (mostly small) payments to the participants.

D2OL appears to be seriously understaffed. They do have a project results page, but their forum has lots of posts about server problems - mostly over the weekend. It looks like only 2-3 people are handling this project currently. If they are ripping people off, they are doing it quietly and efficiently.

The greatest suspicions that have come to light involve accusations of cheaters not being aggressively persued in SETI, and a patent issue in Distributed Folding.

It is possible to submit duplicate results in SETI, along with a few other cheats. The project can readily detect such phoney results, and they do not compromise the scientific accuracy of the project. However, with SETI-1 winding down, the project would prefer to analyze the SETI-1 results and kick the cheaters after the project has completed. They kill a bunch of cheater accounts every now and then, but do not get excited about it full time unless there is a big outcry from the users.

In Distributed Folding, the project patented one of their client processing algorithms. They posted the news, but there was an unexpected arguement in the project forums. It turns out that anyone interested can obtain the algorithm source code without too much trouble, or even use it in their own clients. The project patented it to protect themselves from others stealing the algorithm, then denying Distributed Folding the right to use it.

----------------------

Hope these answers cover your questions. Like The_Equivocator said, welcome.

[emark]

I see now that the resource pages are the same. Well, the more I see the better I can try to express this.

when I click on the team tab (from MacNN), then one of the projects, i get a one or two sentence blurb.

It isn't immediately apparent that the "About" at the top of the page changes what it will link you two for each project - ot all looks the same.

When I first came here I didn't think it would be so hard to decide what to do.

So, as someone new to this, looking for somewhere to give it a shot, nothing is that compelling. Even though "About" is above, maybe having a "read more about this project here" link taking you to the about would be nice?

When it comes to reader interest, I thought I might see a thread with some people's reasons/debate as to why they run the DC they run. I want to meet ET, fold vs. dfold, I like the that their data is open to all universities, I like that RC5 really takes advantage of my Altivec potential...., whatever floats their boat.

I like the Tag line "crush your enemies" that gets reader's attention. Then, follow it up with, save a life, find an alien, create a clone....come in a find out more.....because believe it or not, there are people without a clue as to what DC projects are doing.

And then, maybe have a sticky thread with the debate of choosing which to run--or just a ne/two paragraph intro from each in a forum and close it??

And, I'm not suggesting I have any knowledge of problems, spyware etc., just trying to think of things that new folks might want to know.


The optimization page is excellent - thank you.

ps: I'm not trying to be critical, just convey what I saw first time through here. When you work with something all the time its easy to forget the learning curve. Case in point, getting my parents to use email....or understand the "Finder" vs. an "application"....aghhhhhh!

Thanks

[jarling]

Thanks for the help in making it more user friendly. And trust me, I understand the teaching your parents problem. I never knew that simply turning on a PC, which comes naturally to most, is a 13 step process (It is, she has it all written out!).

[Scotttheking]

Your comments are most appreciated. Our website definitely needs some updated content. Sadly, most people are busy, and reader50 is hard at work on stats. Perhaps you'd be willing to work on some new content?

[emark]

I recently quit my job and went back to school. I thought I would have more free time than when i worked, but it seems like I have less....thought it would be easier.

I have stalled a little in getting going due to lack of familiarity with the CLI in general -- but I am going to try and figure this out.

The instructions for install and starting are just that. Got a book and a text manual from another site, maybe this will translate into something useful.

Like how to appropriately quit, monitor (3rd party) diffs between GUI and CLI. etc.

don't know what it will amount to but willing to try.

thanks

[reader50]

Which project client are you trying to install?

...
When it comes to reader interest, I thought I might see a thread with some people's reasons/debate as to why they run the DC they run. I want to meet ET, fold vs. dfold, I like the that their data is open to all universities, I like that RC5 really takes advantage of my Altivec potential...., whatever floats their boat.
...

This sounds interesting, I'd like to read such threads myself. So what made you choose your current project over the others?

I usually run SETI because I'm sold on SF. Folding is running now because we have a real chance to pass a bunch of teams. Also, the project seems to be doing real research.

At different times, I've run all of our different projects, in order to write instructions, general curiosity, and to have a non-zero total in each project.