Posts by Nothing But Idle Time

1) Message boards : Questions and problems : Boincfaq mundayweb a malicious site? (Message 20572)
Posted 29 Sep 2008 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
Ageless/Jord often refers to the faq service at mundayweb. Well, I just installed the newest 2009 edition of Norton Internet Security. It included something new, some kind of beta websafe product that scans/scanned various websites and through AI(?) has concluded that mundayweb is malicious and unsafe. When I try to go to mundayweb it blocks my access though I can override it. Here is a link to one of the reports. At the bottom of the webpage is reference to a direct link to a threat. I don't know what to make of this exactly but I know it is annoying to have the munday website blocked. Maybe Munday can remove the referenced link and avoid the website's nefarious status?
2) Message boards : Promotion : The 'set it and forget it' school of BOINC participation (Message 18526)
Posted 16 Jul 2008 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:



...

The thing that is missing is an auto update function for the core client. I still see tasks returned from 4.45 clients that I have never gotten back to update from time to time.


I agree. Does any one know if the BOINC Developers think an auto update function for the core client is possible in the near future or distant future?

Auto-update should be optional. I don't trust BOINC developers to decide for me when is the right time to update my client -- I don't let Microsoft or Norton/Symantec auto-update their software either. I prefer to be notified and I'll decide when. All too often the latest-and-greatest release still has bugs in it and I prefer to lag behind with respect to upgrading.
3) Message boards : Promotion : The 'set it and forget it' school of BOINC participation (Message 18478)
Posted 15 Jul 2008 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
As a matter of historical evolution BOINC probably was more-or-less install and forget. But that approach is naiive in everyday practice; life is not that simple. The first thing that happens is people start complaining that BOINC is uncooperative and inflexible, it doesn't allow them to customize its operation to fit their own particular needs. So BOINC gets a few enhancements allowing individuals to set their own parameters of operation; but that's not enough we need more! Alas, what goes around comes around...

Eventually we get guys like you who say that BOINC is too complicated and is not "install and forget it". The best DC system is one that is customizable to the user's needs and the best DC user is one who reads up and understands how the DC software works before installing it (and more importantly these are the individuals who are likely to stay for the long haul). Too many people sign up for a project on a whim because it sounds like a noble thing to do, but soon lose interest -- like they do with many facets of their life -- and move on to something else. Frankly we don't need those kind of people anyway since they contribute very little but expect a lot.
4) Message boards : Projects : News on Project Outages (Message 17869)
Posted 14 Jun 2008 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
Seeing all the errors at Einstein@Home, I think they're now technically off line. No news from anyone on what is happening though.

Einstein is working fine for me, didn't notice any complaints on the msg boards; what are the "errors" to which you refer?
5) Message boards : The Lounge : The Speling and Grammaticle Advise thread (Message 15795)
Posted 11 Mar 2008 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
This thread proofs (proves) that Dec 21, 2012 is a real possibility.
6) Message boards : BOINC client : Warning: Symantec AV blocks downloads (Message 15458)
Posted 16 Feb 2008 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
Hey, I've used Norton Internet Security (which includes AV) for 6 years and never experienced a download problem with Boinc. I use Norton's default installation without any tinkering. Therefore, it may be something about your particular installation, or maybe you blame Norton unjustly.
7) Message boards : BOINC client : Won't do next task at time limit. (Message 14502)
Posted 24 Dec 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
It sounds as if you may be getting more work for your computer than it can easily handle. You may want to go to the Projects tab of BOINC manager, select certain projects and them click No New Tasks once only for each of them. After they've finished their current task they won't request any more until you click the button again.

There's only so much a computer can handle.

The easiest to alleviate is to change the 'connect' to a default frequency of 0.1 days and set the Local Pref 'additional buffer X days' option to a more reasonable number like 4 days or less. BOINC learns and will start with NOT fetching work and tune the buffer accordingly until normality is restored. After that it will drop out of hi priority crunching and fetch work again and switch projects as per their weights.
That's good advice and works well. Some people just don't understand how to use their settings (global & local), or they abuse the settings until everything reaches an "adversarial or conflict" status.
8) Message boards : BOINC Manager : My Wish List - 2 (Message 14501)
Posted 24 Dec 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
Assigning percentage of resources has been possible for years. But I can't find how to change it on WCG website...

Device Manager, Device Profiles, Default, Custom Profile, Change Project Weight (at the bottom).
This topic has arisen before, so why make resource allocation so difficult to find? Don't want anyone changing the defaults?
9) Message boards : BOINC client : 5.10.20 - uploading but not reporting (Message 13170)
Posted 20 Oct 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
My concept of helping is to let them tell me what they want me to do and then doing it. I don't try to tell them what or how.


Sometimes by-passer's idea of helping is not acceptable to the one asking for help. It is quite understandable to me that in those cases help offered gets rejected. Most of times it's nothing personal.

In practice there are various forms of volunteerism. Some do so without asking for anything in return (the purists), others want more of a partnership with give-and-take on both sides. The purists may disdain the latter, but there is nothing wrong with either form of volunteerism and they are not mutually exclusive. If the purists were to have their way then most projects would have a much smaller collection of computers at their disposal and that would not be as productive. So I don't see any harm in having a little something for everybody who participates in BOINC. The dilemma is determining where to draw the line and who gets to decide.
10) Message boards : BOINC client : Dangerous: boinc.exe (Message 13024)
Posted 12 Oct 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
I was looking at web pages from the boinc combined stats. At the top was a google ad with a url entitled "Dangerous: boinc.exe". Clicking on it I was taken to a PC repair tool called RegCure. At the top of RegCure webpage was again "Fix Now: boinc.exe", and "Potentially Dangerous: boinc.exe". "Free download to repair or remove .exe files".

This company is (IMO) openly implying that boinc.exe is dangerous and should be removed. Rhetorically speaking, how many people see this and become scared into thinking that boinc is dangerous and should not be downloaded, and if it is, should be removed?

I would think that BOINC ought to contact RegCure and lodge a complaint and demand that it remove its reference to boinc as being dangerous.
11) Message boards : The Lounge : Really, who likes the new BOINC logo? (Message 12093)
Posted 15 Aug 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
I believe the new logo to be a poor choice. ... The other group will look at it and see B Inc.
Good eye. I didn't notice this until you mentioned it; "B.INC " is quite visible. Not to mention that BOINC has traditionally been slaughtered by typing it as "BIONIC" or other mis-spellings. I previously expressed my opinion that this logo -- although professional looking -- does not inspire "distributed computing". However, the world will not be impaired by this logo or any other.

12) Message boards : The Lounge : Really, who likes the new BOINC logo? (Message 11827)
Posted 27 Jul 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
Don't like either logo. IMO neither logo conveys anything that relates to distributed computing or its objectives. However, I'm artistically challenged so I couldn't offer up an alternative design.
13) Message boards : BOINC Manager : BOINC 5.10 has now been released to public. (Message 11811)
Posted 27 Jul 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
Switched from 5.8.15 to 5.10.13 on windows xp. Rosetta task names are super long -- well beyond the associated column width. I used to be able to cursor over the Rosetta task name and have the full name pop up, but it doesn't seem to do that anymore with 5.10.13. I'm getting no pop-ups at all on any label that exceeds column width. Is this a known problem or is my computer mis-behaving?
14) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Deleting project files upon RESET (Message 11751)
Posted 21 Jul 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
First, just because deleting old files is no importance to you is no reason to infer that I am "moaning" about it; that is a negative inference. Perhaps you have presented or will present an issue of importance to you but not to me, should I reply to you and tell you to stop "moaning" about it?

Second, my moniker "Nothing But Idle Time" is a reference to the idle time on my computer, not to my life-style.

Third, BOINC v5.8.15 is not an OLD version, it is fairly recent.

Fourth, the newest version is often buggy and I choose not to help with the de-bugging process.
15) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Deleting project files upon RESET (Message 11733)
Posted 20 Jul 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
I'm using 5.8.15 Look, I know that E@H deletes its data files when no longer needed but I don't accept that a project (any project) is immune from forgetting to delete some files from time-to-time through omission or just sloppy programming. That's why I posted here and why I think that BOINC should delete all project files if asked to do so. Suppose I choose to suspend a project for a couple of months and return later -- must I leave 60MB of files lying around for a month or two? The project can download whatever files it needs when I return to get new tasks.

And if a project is sloppy about deleting its own files should I not have the ability -- via my BOINC interface -- to get rid of them? I loan my computer and its resources for free and expect the projects to use those resources wisely, not frivolously.
16) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Deleting project files upon RESET (Message 11714)
Posted 19 Jul 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
Is it the responsibility of a project or of BOINC to identify and delete files upon project reset? I RESET Einstein@Home and only the executable was deleted, while 60MB of files remained, some of them dating back to 2005 when I joined; I would like to get rid of these old files since I assume they aren't needed anymore. When cursoring over the RESET button in the projects tab the pop-up description says "Delete ALL files...." which is apparently misleading. E@H has said in its forums that they have a problem of cleaning up older files -- something they are working on. Still, I wonder if Boinc should delete all files in the project folder and leave it to the project to download files again only IF needed?
17) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Problems with 5.8.8 (Message 7972)
Posted 4 Feb 2007 by Nothing But Idle Time
Post:
Just installed 5.8.8 and discovered that it reports to a project that my cpu type supports [fpu,tsc,sse,sse2,mmx], while a CPU-Z software report lists [mmx,sse,sse2,sse3]. Why the discrepancy with sse3? What is tsc?



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