I had a thought about this same subject today. I know that sone corporations like to donate/give resources to good causes that fit there corporate agenda. Take a company like Target. They have gift registry computers that are connected to the internet. Most of the time these computers are just burning electricity. I wonder if there is a company like Target or maby Target its self that would use computers of this nature to compute Rosetta. The only obsticle is that the coporate philosophy matches with what Rosetta has to offer.


Just a thought. Maby I will send some emails out to test the waters.

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last year you talked of rosetta bumper stickers ..still a good idea ...............http://www.customizedstickers.com/bumper-stickers.php

The BOINC newsletter points out there is an 'email a friend' feature in the new server version. see:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ffmail_form.php

The Rosetta volunteers were already working on such a feature, and so have developed a needed text for the EMail that would be sent. Should just need to dust it off a bit.

Are there any plans to enable this feature on the Rosetta web site?

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

The bumper sticker idea didn't really get much traction. Still only 5 votes. Far short of the 30 I'd set as a target to try and assure I can recover my costs.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

The bumper sticker idea didn't really get much traction. Still only 5 votes. Far short of the 30 I'd set as a target to try and assure I can recover my costs.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.how about a revote???

Optimized "no-nonsense" clients that would increase the efficiency of the project client on older computers would be nice.

No graphics, optimized for different CPUs, less RAM usage

My Athlon boxes run fine on Einstein, SIMAP and other less challenging projects like that but if credits/hour is a valid measure for efficiency, their performance here is poor.

There are lots of people who do not need the latest CPU and the latest video card.

Optimized "no-nonsense" clients that would increase the efficiency of the project client on older computers would be nice.

No graphics, optimized for different CPUs, less RAM usage

My Athlon boxes run fine on Einstein, SIMAP and other less challenging projects like that but if credits/hour is a valid measure for efficiency, their performance here is poor.

There are lots of people who do not need the latest CPU and the latest video card.

I agree. There are plenty of computers available in my house. Some of them are now old but it was kind of frustrating when yesterday I noticed that several of them were not receiving any WUs from Rosetta project due to memory requirements. These old computers are equipped with P4 2-3 Ghz and 512MB of memory and they are used as a download server and/or mp3 storage unit.

The WUs released yesterday required about 487MB of exclusive memory from the system when mine had about 460 available. I bet there are other BOINC clients around the world installed in system with/or no more than 512MB system memory.

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I'm going to start contacting different organisations (e.g. electrical companies) to see if the idea of running R@H appeals to them. Also, My Place Of Study currently has 60+ computers, most of which are always running simultaneously. I will contact the administrator in the next few days to see if he fancies lending a hand...

;)

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Its a very long thread, apologies if this ground has been covered before. It seems that our efforts to find future Rosetta users have to deal with:

The Global Warming Survival Guide: #30. Shut off your computer

...a computer that is in use four hours a day and turned off the rest of the time would save you about $70 a year. The carbon impact would be even greater. Shutting it off would reduce the machine's CO2 emissions 83%, to just 63 kg a year.

As well as:

Notebooks pass desktops in U.S. retail

...Notebooks accounted for 50.9 percent of personal computers bought at retail in 2005, while desktops accounted for 49.1 percent...

Report: Notebooks to take lead over desktops by 2011

As worldwide desktop shipments continue to slow, notebooks are expected to represent more than half of all client PCs by 2011, according to an IDC report released Tuesday...

Certainly all the laptops I have convinced to crunch for Rosetta underperform desktops, both in models per hour while running (at tolerable heat & noise levels) and in operating hours per day. Even if newer Core 2 Duo laptops close the gap some on crunching performance, the second factor seems a given from the number of hours a laptop spends each day living inside a case at standby/hibernate/off and time operating on battery.

The carbon reduction argument will just make it harder to sell keeping desktop machines running 24x7, while also making it less likely that laptops carried home at night come out of the case and spend the entire evening crunching?

While we may be successful some of the time with the argument that Rosetta is good work that is worth the costs, I think becoming available or even preloaded (and really easy for the end user to enable) for PS3s, XBoxes, Media Center PCs, Squeezeboxes, SOHO NAS boxes, TiVO/PVRs, and anything else that:

• has the resources to crunch Rosetta
  
• will be using a network interface
  
• consumers expect to be always-on, even while they become more "green"
  

is the only hope of keeping crunching power level or growing in the future.

Another recruiting failure I've had recently was for a friend with a modern desktop. Is a small-form-factor Dell box, and it turned out to only be quiet enough when the box is loafing along at idle/user speed. With Rosetta running the fan speed came up and overall noise went beyond what was tolerable.

When he has time we'll take another shot at that machine with Threadmaster, but if there is a trend for desktops away from ATX boxes with slow-spinning 120mm fans to small packages which won't cool quietly at load, we'll lose ground there as well.

Off my soapbox and back to the grind!

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Good points Alan. I always find it interesting that when I want someone to crunch Rosetta, arguments like the CO2 emmissions come up... but when the same individual goes to buy a new vehicle, it doesn't enter the picture at all!

One way to dodge that bullet is to emphasize and encourage people just to run Rosetta when their machine would normally be powered on anyway. Rosetta will not produce work as efficiently as a 24x7 cruncher, but it would mean more TFLOPs to the project. And makes it hard to say you are expending any additional electricity (you are a little, but hey, the machine is on anyway).

On your other point about heat and Threadmaster, I just wanted to point out that the current version of BOINC allows you to control the % of CPU used (see the General Preferences). This would generally be easy to utilize and configure then Threadmaster... assuming that BOINC is the only application you wish to throttle back.

Again, the machine won't crunch as many models and etc. but it's more then if you just crunch during your use of the machine.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

A Pentium 4 draws probably what a 100W lightbulb draws. Replace the most used rooms with 26W curly-cue bulbs and usage is offset.

Future computers will draw less power per thread than today's machines, increasing energy efficiency.

There are a number of other ways to check carbon footprints and lower elecrtic bills. A tankless waterheater is a great step foward as it only heats what is used instead of what is stored.

That's a way to at least counter the environmental concerns.

Feet1st:

... encourage people just to run Rosetta when their machine would normally be powered on anyway. Rosetta will not produce work as efficiently as a 24x7 cruncher, but it would mean more TFLOPs to the project ...

Exactly what the laptops I've recruited (press-ganged into service?) do, but in one case (so far) a former desktop user is now laptop-only. Thus I didn't have his Rosetta contribution drop to zero, but there was a net loss.

... I just wanted to point out that the current version of BOINC allows you to control the % of CPU used ...

Thanks for reminding me. At one point the discussion about the BOINC mechanism was around pretty coarse control. If you set for 60% CPU, you'd do 6 seconds on, and 4 seconds off. Did it end up implemented that way? This would result in fan speed spinning up and then dropping back down on the small Dell box, which I suspect would be equally irritating.

I'll give it a try, if they changed the implementation to something with finer control and I could end up with constant fan velocity, it would certainly be less trouble than ThreadMaster.

Keith:

... Replace the most used rooms with 26W curly-cue bulbs and usage is offset...

Yes, I'll make that argument (to give credit to the article I linked to, #3 on their list was replacement with CFLs, and #4 was, "LED bulbs real soon now").

Since it just became the rage with US media to be on carbon footprint campaign, I think we have at least a minor bout of, "run around and do everything" to get past while trying to minimize loss of crunchers.

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... the BOINC mechanism was around pretty coarse control. If you set for 60% CPU, you'd do 6 seconds on, and 4 seconds off. Did it end up implemented that way?

Yes, I believe so. But the fan speed is based on detected heat in the case, not on the % of CPU used in the past second. By being inactive for those 4 seconds, not as much heat is produced. I just set my hyperthreaded CPU down to 75% and the fan dropped right down to a much lower level. I think you'll be happy with it.

Another approach, with multi-CPU systems is to limit the number of processors BOINC is allowed to use. So, if you were thinking 50% was about what you wanted to be anyway, I believe you can get more then half of the crunching out of using just one of the CPUs. At least for a hyperthreaded CPU where the two are sharing a floating point unit anyway.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

What does SETI@Home have that we don't? Their userbase remains quite high. Maybe we need to run some alien DNA.

Seti had the jump on the other projects. After crunching the old version, the team/pack mentality had already set in and is now firmly entrenched. I have suggested many times that members of my team switch more cycles to other projects, but they don't. I have even had memebrs say they would like to support other projects, but don't want to risk losing their place in the team stats.

With the "low energy" products, I always wonder about the total global saving. After all, the "low energy" products invariably are much more complicated, contain a lot of exotic parts all of which had to be mined, transported, refined, transported, constructed, transported, assembled, transported, and sold.

I had an instantaneous water heater fitted in place of my tank system. The heat exchanger needed replacing after 15 months as the hard water had calced it up. Big component with a lot of intricate parts.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

Who wants to take credit for recruiting ESL ?

This European based gamers club is now the number one team contributor.

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WoW !!! <sound of penguin clapping his wings>

Who wants to take credit for recruiting ESL ?

This European based gamers club is now the number one team contributor.

This F@H story was on the BBc website today. I recall seeing Einstein on there before.

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Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

I still think one of the best ways to recruit new people into the project is having a more user friendly page. The main page at the moment, although simple for us users who have been on the project for some time an d know where everything is, may be too cluttered and complicated for some users. I’m thinking or redesigning the web page to make it much simpler yet still as effective. And maybe if it is possible, some way to show how much GOOD Rosetta@Home is doing for protein research. I’m not sure how to complete this but i feel that it will be a big drawer in to the project. Once new users/people browsing the internet see how much GOOD they can do for the world, they may be influenced to join.

Also, one of the big draw ins of the whole BOINC system, was the competition between people. It may not be the same with other people, but I’m forever on BOINCstats trying to increase my overall position. So as part of this maybe there should be a script (PHP) that makes competitions. E.g. People joined on a certain date running a certain computer… or even just a certain Computer. I’m sure that this will bring a bit in to the project as it creates a sort of Competition between participants, making them want to process more work units to have their name in lights in the WINNERS section.

I can try writing the script, but I’m not sure if I can, as I am not familiar with the scripting of any of the BOINC stat sties or anything like that. If anyone does please drop me a line to give me a hand or just do it yourself 

Edit: Is it possible to make the client (or any similar client that will ONLY run Rosetta) run in Java or Flash using ActiveX or something similar. If this can be done, people may simply log into a website and run the project.

This will increase how much is computed, but it may be necessary to make sure that there are sufficient SMALL workunits available to make sure that there is always something to process. And if it can be done, let the user log into his profile so that what he computes will go into his points category (therefore they can run it from anywhere)

Edit: Edit: If anyone with any sort of imaging capabilities, can i ask your help, as i stated above im thinking of redesigning the site as a sort of BETA. So if anyone has some images then please get into contact with me. If anyone has any objections to me redesigning the new site then please contact me also. I just think that a good way to get people to join the project is by having a very simple and clearly defined page with lots of useful information.. .

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Thunderbox,

I'm sure no one would object to a better looking, less cluttered site, as long as the functionality is not reduced. If you take a look at the boinc php code (you can download it from their web site), the project specific, look and feel, code is in the form of header and footer functions and css. Keep in mind, much of the text has been translated by volunteers and we'd like to keep the translation functionality and of course the other nice boinc features like UOTD, the News items, etc. Some of the other boinc project web sites look great in my opinion.

Your idea of the comptetion scripts would be great for all projects using boinc. It would be nice to generalize it and work with the boinc developers to include it with boinc.