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The_Equivocator · Jan 11, 2002, 05:13 PM

All right. I think the time has come that we put some effort into recruiting new team members. Really, the only advertising I see is the word "Team" at the top of the MacNN pages and the fact that we have a section of the forum dedicated to ourselves that people might glance at. We need to start finding new members!

If anyone has any ideas for advertising/recruiting... post here!

I have a few ideas...

1) Let's start making some nifty sigs (the one below is one that I threw together in a few minutes, but I bet we could make some really nice ones). Nice sigs will catch eyes on the other parts of the MacNN forums, and may make their heads turn this-a-way.

2) Team Phoenix Rising has a really nice idea on their thread. It involves a member getting a "lottery ticket" for each person that they recruit to the team. The person recruited has to post on the forum, saying who recruited them. The recruitee must stay active on whatever they are crunching as opposed to just joining and not crunching anything. After a designated period of time, we throw the lottery tickets into a hat (or random number generator) and pick one ticket. The winner gets something nifty. Team Phoenix Rising dedicates a nice computer to that person's SETI account for 5 days. We could do something similar... like maybe give the winner's account a week's worth of a DP/800 in whatever project they'd like (Scott? reader50? Either of you willing to part with a machine for a week?)

3) Advertising... Any way we could get the occasional mention on the main MacNN or MacNN:OS X pages? That might bring us some traffic.

Any ideas/comments?

reader50 · Jan 11, 2002, 05:30 PM

My one modern machine is a G4 350 (single processor). The old IIci that I recently laid hands on would not be too impressive on RC5, and there is no Seti client. I once promised Scott that if he could find an RC5 client for my even older ][GS, I would leave it running.

The last time we posted MacNN Front Page recruiting, it was a bit ugly.(it won't load just now, but I'm told it will be fixed)
We could certainly get something posted, but it should probably be "news-ish". Posting our loss to Phlump would likely not help...

The sig idea seems good. Scott's text sig does draw people in. I'll make up a sig myself perhaps.

cdhostage · Jan 11, 2002, 06:10 PM

That lottery idea is not bad. I'd be willing to put my name in that hat. Not exactly a big contribution on my part, but to get my Ubero ahead a hundred blocks would be nice. Now on my iMac I'm gettng about 5 blocks a day. At least I think so.

reader50 · Jan 11, 2002, 06:37 PM

This is not exactly a recruiting idea, more along the lines of efficient use of our existing power.

It would be possible to trade production across projects. For example, if you have a G4 (which is ideal for RC5) but are mainly interested in Seti, you could trade production with someone who wants higher RC5 units. That someone on RC5 with non-G4 boxes would give you more Seti units than you can crunch on your own, and you would give that person more RC5 units than they can crunch.

Scotttheking · Jan 12, 2002, 12:00 AM

I'll do the lottery thing.
I can put a 1.47GHz athlon xp on the winner's project of choice.

It may be time for some more front page recruiting, and we need some forum recruiting.

How about you people go out into the other forums and do some recruiting?

--Scott

kkneisley · Jan 12, 2002, 12:07 AM

reader50 is onto something, but I'm not sure if trading would actually happen.

I think we need to get the name and idea out for our projects. Which brings us to the number of different projects we are pushing. We need focus first. Three projects suited for three platforms:

1. Seti: any and all pre-G4 macs
2. RC5: G4s running OS9
3. Ubero: Anyone with the power of X and the CPU to spare. G3 owners may consider CLI forms of any of the above, as they might not push hard enough to pump the java for ubero.

Which brings us to this:

Complete dedication of your platform. If you are running X, then you *must* be runnning CLI., or don't bother. It's not that hard, and the benefits far outweigh the slight learning curve. Our installation notes on team.macnn.com are very good (thanks to those who did them) and in recent days, many of us have really pushed the ubero CLI envelope with major help. I have noticed a vast difference and stealth for where it counts (like at work).

Preach to the masses that each and every CPU cycle counts, and it's one of the few ways to get back at the "dark side". (although plenty of us run PCs alongside our macs)

kkneisley · Jan 12, 2002, 12:26 AM

Originally posted by reader50:
The last time we posted MacNN Front Page recruiting, it was a bit ugly.(it won't load just now, but I'm told it will be fixed)
We could certainly get something posted, but it should probably be "news-ish". Posting our loss to Phlump would likely not help...

The sig idea seems good. Scott's text sig does draw people in. I'll make up a sig myself perhaps.

Instead of an article, ya think the mothership would give a low priority slot in the right side banners? Nothing to bump a paying customer, but hey, ya gotta advertise yourself too! Team MacNN brings in people that look around and see what we are, (The TPR thread is proof here) and eyeballs are eyeballs. Hits=Impressions=$$$, right?

As far as the sig, creativity is nice, but standardization helps the brand recognition. (Gee, am I a Graphic Designer, or what?) To rehash my last post above, macnn hosted sig graphics - one for each project.

Wear your badge loud and proud!

reader50 · Jan 12, 2002, 02:51 AM

I just made a recruiting post here. It seems unlikely to work, but what the heck.

Scotttheking · Jan 12, 2002, 03:27 AM

Make a banner that fits on that right bar and I'll ask if they'll put it up.
Feel free to make sigs for people also.

Go ahead and recruit in other forums, but keep it clean. Also, don't say run a certain project on a certain proc.
If they want to run SETI GUI on a dual 800, let them.
Any power helps, anywhere.
If they need any technical help for setting stuff up, refer them to me. I can help most anything, as long as it's not run at bootup stuff on OSX

(I can do everything but the .plist)

If you can, ask the boss if you can run it at work, ask coworkers, friends, family, etc

--Scott

The_Equivocator · Jan 13, 2002, 07:17 PM

Originally posted by kkneisley:


As far as the sig, creativity is nice, but standardization helps the brand recognition.

I had the same idea as kkneisley and I like it. If we all had the same sig with a really neat graphic, it would definitely grab attention. I may try to put a nice one together in the next week or so, but don't expect anything fabulous.

Anyone with actual talent want to try?

As for the lottery... are there any team members up for the task of recruiting with the possibility of having Scott's 1.47 Ghz Athalon crunching for them for a week?

Arkham_c · Jan 14, 2002, 10:41 AM

What would you guys thing about an "OSX CLI config" tool? I could pretty easily make one single "Team MacNN-branded" app that could configure SETI, RC5, and Ubero with a GUI that could install the startup item, start the client, and config it for our team. It would make getting "stealth" installs in place a lot more painless, but do you think it would help recruit new members? There's nothing in the actual configuration for RC5 to specify a team. You have to do it on their web site.

I guess I could make it easier to join our team by putting the "Join" URLs in the app.

Scotttheking · Jan 14, 2002, 11:20 AM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
What would you guys thing about an "OSX CLI config" tool? I could pretty easily make one single "Team MacNN-branded" app that could configure SETI, RC5, and Ubero with a GUI that could install the startup item, start the client, and config it for our team. It would make getting "stealth" installs in place a lot more painless, but do you think it would help recruit new members? There's nothing in the actual configuration for RC5 to specify a team. You have to do it on their web site.

I guess I could make it easier to join our team by putting the "Join" URLs in the app.

I was thinking the same thing, but wasn't sure how to do it.
I've got the app design all worked out if you can code it.
Just let me know.

Arkham_c · Jan 14, 2002, 11:32 AM

Originally posted by Scotttheking:


I was thinking the same thing, but wasn't sure how to do it.
I've got the app design all worked out if you can code it.
Just let me know.

I sent you an email to discuss it offline.

kkneisley · Jan 14, 2002, 11:39 AM

The setup app sounds great! Could someone take some time and digest the info in Few Ubero Questions topic for the install page as well?

I will try to come up with some sig graphics tonight, but no guarantees about timing. I'll try to post them in the next day or two.

Arkham_c · Jan 14, 2002, 01:37 PM

Originally posted by kkneisley:
[QB]The setup app sounds great! Could someone take some time and digest the info in Few Ubero Questions topic for the install page as well?
QB]

Since I wrote most of the scripts on that page, I'll do what I can to incorporate them into the client configuration software.

I assume I can rely on you guys to help me test it?

Scotttheking · Jan 14, 2002, 01:44 PM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:


Since I wrote most of the scripts on that page, I'll do what I can to incorporate them into the client configuration software.

I assume I can rely on you guys to help me test it?

As long as the rm -rf command is never used

Sure I can test it.

Arkham_c · Jan 14, 2002, 05:22 PM

Originally posted by Scotttheking:


As long as the rm -rf command is never used

Sure I can test it.

Heh, I would not ever do that, even as a joke. I'll be happy to pass the source out with the app if you guys don't trust me, or if you're curious what it does.

ism · Jan 14, 2002, 07:19 PM

Hey to entertain myself this evening these are my attempts:

and

They are pngs so if they don't display, well arse, I've wasted my time.
Was going to put one in my sig, but on my profile it says image UBB code not allowed. Is this cus I'm a newbie? Or is it just a lie?

I bet I have to edit this post ten times to get it to work.

(Edit 1 and counting, will I never learn not to use capitals in anything I want to link to???)

[ 01-14-2002: Message edited by: ism ]

kkneisley · Jan 15, 2002, 01:19 AM

Originally posted by ism:
Hey to entertain myself this evening these are my attempts:

I like it. Ya beat me to the banners. Maybe you can remove the project logos, and make TeamNN larger?

The_Equivocator · Jan 15, 2002, 02:32 AM

I'm also a fan of this one. The other one is a little too "busy". Maybe make the words a little crisper and bigger... drop the project names... spread the stuff out a little, and you've got a pretty nice sig! It's pretty nice as it is, too... just a couple of suggestions... take em or leave em.

If a bunch of people make some, we can have a nice voting thread started in which we can pick the "official" Team MacNN sig. That would be fun.

[ 01-15-2002: Message edited by: The_Equivocator ]

Scotttheking · Jan 15, 2002, 12:38 PM

Originally posted by The_Equivocator:


I'm also a fan of this one. The other one is a little too "busy". Maybe make the words a little crisper and bigger... drop the project names... spread the stuff out a little, and you've got a pretty nice sig! It's pretty nice as it is, too... just a couple of suggestions... take em or leave em.

If a bunch of people make some, we can have a nice voting thread started in which we can pick the "official" Team MacNN sig. That would be fun.

[ 01-15-2002: Message edited by: The_Equivocator ]

or have a selection of sigs. We should be able to host them for you guys, also.

cdhostage · Jan 15, 2002, 05:46 PM

How is this lottery gonna work?

\I'm running Ubero on my OS X iMac. I run SETI whenever I boot into OS 9. Which is rare.

ism · Jan 15, 2002, 07:56 PM

Still playing...

Scotttheking · Jan 15, 2002, 08:15 PM

Originally posted by cdhostage:
How is this lottery gonna work?

\I'm running Ubero on my OS X iMac. I run SETI whenever I boot into OS 9. Which is rare.

I don't know.
Why don't you guys all decide how to do it and what the rules are, and I'll see what I can do. Keep in mind that I want my 1.47 for myself every here and there too

cdhostage · Jan 15, 2002, 09:20 PM

Hokee dokee you want some rules. Every one post their affirmation and a number in this thread within the next seven days. Or til next Sunday, whatever, whichever is easiest for the judge.
The judge (Scott, probably) on Sunday runs a random number gnerator from 1-whatever the top # mentioned is. The person who named the numbergenerated gets one day running on the Team's fastest box.

So here's mine:

cdhostage
1

Next person will be #2, and so on.

Scotttheking · Jan 15, 2002, 09:34 PM

Originally posted by cdhostage:
Hokee dokee you want some rules. Every one post their affirmation and a number in this thread within the next seven days. Or til next Sunday, whatever, whichever is easiest for the judge.
The judge (Scott, probably) on Sunday runs a random number gnerator from 1-whatever the top # mentioned is. The person who named the numbergenerated gets one day running on the Team's fastest box.

So here's mine:

cdhostage
1

Next person will be #2, and so on.

Uh, wasn't it you have to recruit people to get entered?

cdhostage · Jan 15, 2002, 10:39 PM

No. (?) <checking text of thread> Oh, yes. The very first thread. Doh! Hmm.

Ok, forget my idea.

How does one go about this then? Does every extra computer added to the MacNN Team, for SETI, RC5, or Ubero count as a single ticket in the great Bingo machine?

kkneisley · Jan 15, 2002, 11:06 PM

Originally posted by ism:
Still playing...

nnnnniiiiiiiiiiicccccccccceeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

Works for me. Truly mac inspired.

Scotttheking · Jan 15, 2002, 11:16 PM

Originally posted by cdhostage:
No. (?) <checking text of thread> Oh, yes. The very first thread. Doh! Hmm.

Ok, forget my idea.

How does one go about this then? Does every extra computer added to the MacNN Team, for SETI, RC5, or Ubero count as a single ticket in the great Bingo machine?

You guys decide.
I'll look at what you decide

reader50 · Jan 16, 2002, 12:09 AM

Some Team Sigs ...

thanks to DocWest

All are within the 140 x 40 x <10K sig size limits. If anyone wants to make a variation, the reference PICT file is here. It's double size and 32-bit.

When I investigate the Ubero client to write the Resource pages, I'll try to spot graphics for a snazzier version of the Ubero sig.

[ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: reader50 ]

The_Equivocator · Jan 16, 2002, 03:28 AM

Originally posted by reader50:
Team Sigs ...

All are within the 140 x 40 x <10K size limits. If anyone wants to make a variation, the reference PICT file is here. It's double size and 32-bit.

[ 01-15-2002: Message edited by: reader50 ]

Very nice, reader.

I may have to use one of those and drop the one I've got now...

reader50 · Jan 16, 2002, 03:55 AM

Oh, for anyone interested. I made my sig pic into a link to Team MacNN. The way to do that is to enclose the IMG references inside URL tags.

Like so:

It's handy info to know, it will let you post thumbnails in the Forums, linked to full-sized versions of pics. Or in this case, to really cool and interesting websites.

Scotttheking · Jan 16, 2002, 02:34 PM

testing

cdhostage · Jan 16, 2002, 03:59 PM

Cool effect with the link in the Team Picture.

I'll keep my own sig though.

ism · Jan 16, 2002, 07:14 PM

Gonna go with you guys then...

(If i've managed to edit my profile correctly ;-) )

Which i haven't arse!

[ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: ism ]

3rd time lucky...

[ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: ism ]

malson · Jan 16, 2002, 11:43 PM

Just testing it out baby....go sig go...

Edit: blah blah blah...

[ 01-16-2002: Message edited by: malson ]

Arkham_c · Jan 17, 2002, 01:04 AM

Nice sigs.

I posted some screenshots of the configuration client I'm working on. Take a look here and let me know if you think I'm on the right track. I still have a lot of work to do, since it doesn't actually configure the apps yet, but we're getting there.

kkneisley · Jan 17, 2002, 01:13 AM

Arkham , it looks good! Can't wait to see it mature into a great utility.

chris v · Jan 18, 2002, 10:00 PM

testing the new sig/link
??

I made it look more like a button. Nice and push-able!

[ 01-18-2002: Message edited by: chris v ]

[ 01-18-2002: Message edited by: chris v ]

thjonas · Jan 19, 2002, 09:24 AM

Testing the signature..
And Arkham, your app looks great.

Scotttheking · Jan 19, 2002, 04:07 PM

The_Equivocator: how about I make you head of recruiting?

You come up with recruiting ideas, including being in charge of this thing to use my box.

That ok with you?

cdhostage · Jan 19, 2002, 04:18 PM

Great utility there Arkham. Things I suggest:

Whenever the program is run, have it check in at your server, wherever the newest versions of MDC3 ar eavailable. You can update the links and sofware every time RC5, SETI, or Ubero comes out iwth a new client .

Include a page of buttons for performance-increasing options, along with how much each option might increase crunching, and what dangers it poses.

For RC5, have the distributed.net set to crunch only RC5. (of course). On the other hand, the RC5 project might be completed sometime soon and distributed,net will switch to a new porject.

The_Equivocator · Jan 20, 2002, 04:36 AM

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
The_Equivocator: how about I make you head of recruiting?

You come up with recruiting ideas, including being in charge of this thing to use my box.

That ok with you?

Sure, I can come up with ideas and try to run this contest-thingie. I'm just not sure members are up for the challenge of finding people to join Team MacNN.

Come on guys, I know we're Mac users... but we must have some friends!

Scotttheking · Jan 20, 2002, 04:45 AM

Originally posted by The_Equivocator:


Sure, I can come up with ideas and try to run this contest-thingie. I'm just not sure members are up for the challenge of finding people to join Team MacNN.

Come on guys, I know we're Mac users... but we must have some friends!

Ok, good.

You will be in charge of recruiting in other forums and coming up with ideas for how to do it, and also with writing blurbs for the macnn front page, which have to be (thinly) disguised as news, but are meant for recruiting.
You can also figure out any stuff for this contest.
Write up some publicity for it and send it to [email protected], and it will be put up on the front page.
For all site news stuff, send it to [email protected]. If it's meant for macnn.com, say it in there, and it will be forwarded.

Good luck, have fun.
Any questions, just ask.

G4ME · Jan 24, 2002, 01:41 AM

lets see if it works

G4ME · Jan 24, 2002, 01:44 AM

trying again

Arkham_c · Jan 24, 2002, 12:47 PM

I've made quite a lot of progress on the configuration client. I still need to add a few things, but RC5 install and config works end to end, and Ubero seems to work to me also (although I am ubero-ignorant). The UI is a little rough still, but you guys can help me with that. I'm not a UI expert.

I have a very early pre-beta release that I am willing to let people download under a couple of conditions.

1) You will not distribute it outside of the team. It's not ready for consumption yet.

2) You won't complain or sue me if it messes something up. I don't think it will, but Caveat Emptor (buyer beware).

3) You are willing to provide some meaningful feedback, constructive criticism, suggestions, etc.

4) Someone will make me a nice OSX icon. I'll give you credit in the about box if you do. The one I am using now was stolen from Xreader.

If you've read all this and are still interested, you can download it here:

MacNN Config

I have some new screenshots as well, but our crappy firewall won't let me access itools.apple.com so I can update the screenshots.

Particle Man · Jan 24, 2002, 02:56 PM

Just trying out the new .sig. I don't post much in the forums but ever little bit helps.

Edit: Hopefully it'll work now.

[ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: Particle Man ]

reader50 · Jan 24, 2002, 03:26 PM

Particle Man, you copied a private sig link, and the file does not appear to be there at the moment. You may get better results by using the team's hosted sig files, I do not expect to mess with their URLs at any time.
http://team.macnn.com/pics.phtml

[Edit]Never mind, it loaded now for me.

[ 01-24-2002: Message edited by: reader50 ]

JoeG4 · Jan 24, 2002, 07:56 PM

I've casually crunched both a unit on RC5 and one on seti, time to join the team and do that 24/7