Not moderator, not a person who knows a lot but the person who is part of the official team.

The guy who owns the buck ! ;-) (No offence Paul)

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

O.k. I see him...David Kim.....

We need an a Official announcement thread ...READ ONLY....to keep us updated on what you are addressing.

Not the odd news section posting but here where we come to direct.

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

Nope, it's not me.

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Not moderator, not a person who knows a lot but the person who is part of the official team.

The guy who owns the buck ! ;-) (No offence Paul)

David B is the project leader and chief scientist.

David K and Jack are the main programmers. I don't know of any other 'official' staff here.

In particular it is worth knowing that the Rosetta userids that start moderator (like moderator7, moderator8) are not paid members of the team but volunteers. There may also be other volunteer mods using more normal looking ids.

I am one of the volunteer mods, but most of the time prefer to use my 'normal' id, so that I am free to be as opinionated and biased as any other contributor. Only when I post as moderator8 do I make a strong effort to be even handed. How successful I am is for others to say

John Mc VII ('JM7') is closely connected with the BOINC project so his posts should be considered authoritative when it comes to behaviour and coding of the BOINC servers and clients.

Paul D Buck is not an official of BOINC or any BOINC project, but is the most knowledgeable volunteer across all the projects and in many cases has a better understanding of cross-project issues than any project's staff. His wiki is the single most valuable BOINC add-on.

Look in people's profiles for more info - if they have a profile there will be a silhouette of a face side on (ie a profile) next to their id - click on the silhouette to read what they want you to know about them.

Hope that helps
R~~

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River, the volunteers efforts are appreciated, you`ll find a lot us of will help too.

We do need some official feedback though and not just the news section which appears to be the public face and is not at present keeping the workforce updated on problems re the project from our point of view.

Persistent problems of no work, then massive downloads need addressing or at least an acknowledgement from official sources that these are being dealt with. If, as appears at present, the workforce is neglected they will become unhappy and dwindle away. We also put a lot of time and effort into projects at least give us some respect.It`s our money we spend not the UW`s.

There are things on our side that need addressing too. This is a partnership and I am the nagging wife.

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

River, the volunteers efforts are appreciated, you`ll find a lot us of will help too.

We do need some official feedback though and not just the news section which appears to be the public face and is not at present keeping the workforce updated on problems re the project from our point of view.

Persistent problems of no work, then massive downloads need addressing or at least an acknowledgement from official sources that these are being dealt with. If, as appears at present, the workforce is neglected they will become unhappy and dwindle away. We also put a lot of time and effort into projects at least give us some respect.It`s our money we spend not the UW`s.

There are things on our side that need addressing too. This is a partnership and I am the nagging wife.

There is another side to that.

If the announcements were writable only by the project team you would not be able to comment on them so easily.

Look at the threads started by David Baker for example - they are on both the science and the crunching boards. Each one is followed by many many comments from users - some supportative, some critical, and some even angry.

By posting such threads on a writable board David et al are making room for the nagging rather than adopting a post-and-run strategy.

I see the point of your suggestion, but I feel it would have the effect of reducing the close contact we all currently get with the team. I'd personally prefer them to keep to the current stategy of making 'sticky' postings that everyone can therefore see and anyone can reply to.

River~~

So where are the official stickies on the "no work" debacle ? The massive downloads ?

Finding official information on this board is often like looking for a needle in a haystack. Now imagine what it will be like to a new user in two years.

I don`t want to nag, I want to see my partner has listened to my initial grouse and is doing something or it is in the pipeline. If he aint listening I think divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences is reasonable.

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

Carl,

If you look closely, BOINC is a pretty large system. Yet the "staff" that does all of the work for this project fits comfortably on a single sheet of paper. BOINC is open source and as such does have a heavy dependence on volunteers that can lend expertise and time.

As mentioned, JM VII is the CPU scheduler guy. He is working on a problem I identified and he has what we hope will be a fix for that in work (so far my tests of the prototype have not been successful, but that is the nature of development).

In another thread there was the qustion about "No work" so I will not repeat my comments here except to say that I have worked with UCB in trying to isolate the issues and propose a fix.

We suffer from a lot to do and not many hands that are really willing to dig in and do something about it. We have lots of (sorry about this characterization because it is a little unfair) people willing to complain, very, very few willing to put in time to make things better.

The Rosetta@Home folks have been concentrating, and rightly so, on the places where the project has expertise, on the project's code. The no work is a BOINC problem, and, though slow, work is underway to solve that too ...

Massive downloads are partly the nature of the beast. Einstein@Home has a 10M, granted it can be used over multiple work units, but, that is still big. So is CPDN in both directions and potentilly getting worse. I think the Rosetta@Home people are looking into better compresion and also studying the ways that the application might be changed.

But, this is a NEW and recent issue. Heck, the project has not even been live that long and we have been making progress. But, changes will not happen overnnight, much as we would wish it so ...

As far as finding information, well, I have been an advocate of a single repository of information about BOINC for a long time. But even then, people complain they cannot find things ... Exactly how would you fix it? What would you do different? Taking the current problems, gather the information and actually write it up as to the way YOU would organize it ... maybe it is an unsolvable problem ...

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Paul, I appreciate your efforts...

A whole sheet ? FAD had one name....We helped each other but the info was there, it isn`t here. The information is appalling here and often hypocritical, we do not know the official view from the unofficial. In another thread River~~, God bless him, states don`t take BOINC from one machine to another. Bill Michaels FAQ say`s you can.....???

You say "in another thread " about the WU`s you obviously don`t know where it is, how will I.....

There are a whole bunch of us used to pitching in and helping but without a centralised info point we can`t...

"The no work is a BOINC problem "

How so ?

I think the Rosetta@Home people are looking into better compresion

Supposition on your part and no offical back up ?

Now you may think I`m a complainer, you can call it as you wish. I am not going to sit and watch everyone get fed up and leave without at least attempting to sort it out, if that`s complaining...tough live with it, cos our team will be the first on these forum as well as our own to help anyone. We can`t do so without the info...

If we are not kept upto date with current issues we will eventually feel neglected and superfluous.

Rosetta is on the virge of losing a vast number of crunchers, NO WORK IS A Rosetta problem if they go......Compression causing download trouble is another.

And what have these crunchers got...and this is not meant detrimentally ..Paul D Buck " The Wiki-man " saying I think, I`m testing, I`ve heard.....

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

carl.h

I am a project official. I understand your concerns and we are trying our best to communicate with participants. I'll try to cover some of the issues you brought up and are concerned about.

1. the "No work from project" issue is being actively worked on. Sometimes our servers, particularly the database server, just can't keep up with the demand. We are currently testing two new database servers which we hope will help resolve this issue. We also plan to add more scheduling servers to distribute the load (we added a new server recently). Are you currently having trouble getting work?

2. the download/bandwidth issue is also being worked on. Our project requires an initial large download (>30 compressed files ~10MB total) which are rosetta database files used by every work unit. These files get downloaded only once and then persist on the client. There are also a few work unit specific files that can range from ~2-7MB total (compressed) but usually on the lower end. We are working on reducing bandwidth by considering better compression methods. Also, results from recent experiments may give us an idea of how much input data is necessary for optimal results (we might be able to use less). In response to participant feedback, we are also going to add an option that allows users to increase the size of workunits, and thus decrease bandwidth.

One note, compression is not causing download problems. I do not know what you meant by this.

Also, from the FAD website:

Find-a-Drug .... was set up by Treweren Consultants, the company who developed the THINK software. ......The first internet based computing project which used the THINK virtual screening software was hosted by United Devices in collaboration with the Oxford University. ......Find-a-Drug has benefited from the experience of the earlier project. In part due to assistance from Intel, the latest version of THINK is approximately 40 times faster than version 1.03 used on the United Devices platform.

So it appears that many people were involved in FAD and it's software, not just one person.

We realize the message boards have become unweildy and hard to manage, so we ask for and greatly appreciate help and constructive feeback.

So it appears that many people were involved in FAD and it's software, not just one person.

Do some more homework before we get into an argument on that score.

Treweren Consultants was formed in 1988 by Keith and Cathy Davies shortly after they sold their controlling shareholding in Chemical Design to Oxford Molecular (now part of Accelrys).

Keith founded Chemical Design in 1983, gained the Queens Award for Export in 1988, and took the company public in 1996. In his role as Technical Director, his primary contribution was the strategic direction of Chem-X, including the innovative development and application of 3D database and pharmacophore technology. In addition to running Treweren Consultants, he has an Honorary Research Fellowship at the Oxford University where in collaboration with Professor Graham Richards he pursues more academic interests. These include the CAN-DDO project - which aims to computationally screen some 3.5 billion molecules against 16 protein targets of potential interest in cancer therapy.

Cathy joined Chemical Design in 1984 and worked on Chem-X from its earliest days, both in customer support and in programming. She was responsible for implementing much of the pharmacophore technology, especially in receptor screening.

Treweren Consultants aims to work with a small number of companies who are interested in collaborative development of its innovative THINK software used for virtual screening and HTS data analysis. THINK is also used for the Find-a-Drug non-profit project run by Treweren Consultants.

We dealt directly with Keith, he ran the board, did the software, did the legwork etc., and when you`re 50% the man he was come back and talk to me....

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

One note, compression is not causing download problems. I do not know what you meant by this.

Probably the way I phrased it....The lack of compression is causing problems. If you`ve 30 machines on a WiFi network trying to download /upload.....and trying to get enough work because of the "No work" situation it causes problems. Seeing as you have stated that compression IS being looked at you have answered the question.

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

Paul, I appreciate your efforts...

You are welcome .. :)

A whole sheet ? FAD had one name....We helped each other but the info was there, it isn`t here. The information is appalling here and often hypocritical, we do not know the official view from the unofficial. In another thread River~~, God bless him, states don`t take BOINC from one machine to another. Bill Michaels FAQ say`s you can.....???

BOINC is not one project. At the moment it is more like 30. With totally a huge number of participants. I don't know how many people were in FAD, but, I don't think they/he/she had quite the breath of scope that does BOINC and the projects

"The no work is a BOINC problem "

How so ?

The link

I think the Rosetta@Home people are looking into better compresion

Supposition on your part and no offical back up ?

There is a fairly long thread discussing the possibilities of using a different compression system to improve the compression ratio.

And what have these crunchers got...and this is not meant detrimentally ..Paul D Buck " The Wiki-man " saying I think, I`m testing, I`ve heard.....

Though David Kim did jump in with an "official" answer ... when I read it I see that he did not say anything that I did not. I grant that I have no official position, and would have to turn it down if offerred. For the same reason I did not do all of your research and post direct links.

I am disabled and currently am on a very limited "energy" budget. So, I wimp out many times and try to only repeat myself once ... :) In this case, I did not look up the link to save my energy ... sorry about that ...

You are right to question and I wish I could help lay the doubts to rest better. But, what I do with my time is study BOINC. Not on just one project, but on many. I read code, I am on almost every active project's web site. I do this with many years experience as a systems engineer where I worked in relational database centric systems (I did logical design) and this gives me some insight that the project people are not likely to have. THey are too busy working on day to day issues and their project specific ones.

Also, *MY* experience says that you really want to understand a system, try to explain it to someone else. One of the reasons I am so hard on UCB because their explanations don't ...

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If you check our site you will see that all the information we glean and pester you for is put up for all to know so we can pass on our experience. I know that I come across as a pain in the ass, not that I care what you think, but there is good reason, it`s not just for it`s sake.

I appreciate your, River~~`s and Bill`s efforts they`re great it just needs more organisation to save you repeating things over. We also need to know that what we`re getting is good info from someone in the know so badges help.

http://stats.find-a-drug.biz/countries1.php That`s just members per Country not host`s..... and we`re here for Rosetta or are you saying we`re not ?

And please Paul feel free to answer can you take Boinc / Rosetta from one machine to another or not ? Bill Michaels FAQ on this board ? or River~~`s post on this board ? Not on the BOINC board...here at Rosetta..

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

So it appears that many people were involved in FAD and it's software, not just one person.

Do some more homework before we get into an argument on that score.

Treweren Consultants was formed in 1988 by Keith and Cathy Davies shortly after they sold their controlling shareholding in Chemical Design to Oxford Molecular (now part of Accelrys).

Keith founded Chemical Design in 1983, gained the Queens Award for Export in 1988, and took the company public in 1996. In his role as Technical Director, his primary contribution was the strategic direction of Chem-X, including the innovative development and application of 3D database and pharmacophore technology. In addition to running Treweren Consultants, he has an Honorary Research Fellowship at the Oxford University where in collaboration with Professor Graham Richards he pursues more academic interests. These include the CAN-DDO project - which aims to computationally screen some 3.5 billion molecules against 16 protein targets of potential interest in cancer therapy.

Cathy joined Chemical Design in 1984 and worked on Chem-X from its earliest days, both in customer support and in programming. She was responsible for implementing much of the pharmacophore technology, especially in receptor screening.

Treweren Consultants aims to work with a small number of companies who are interested in collaborative development of its innovative THINK software used for virtual screening and HTS data analysis. THINK is also used for the Find-a-Drug non-profit project run by Treweren Consultants.

We dealt directly with Keith, he ran the board, did the software, did the legwork etc., and when you`re 50% the man he was come back and talk to me....

Carl, by the time the THINK software was run under FaD it had been worked on by more than just Keith, all the work and setting up had been done at UD for initial DC style work, which is one thing Rosetta are trying to figure out [UD = BOINC in that part, a host DC software], so Keith had experience by the time the DC part of the software needed writing and so FaD could start. Once this initial software had been sorted out with lots of problems (just ask hob or vester as it was before I joined) it was generally just tweaks to the sotware. The BIG advantage Keith had was that the FaD client was purpose built software he knew how it worked and controlled it all. Rosetta do not control BOINC and afaik don't know exactly how it works or how to customise it to there own tasks.
Give them time, say 4 or 5 yrs and the almost certainly will do, they need to learn how BOINC works and how to alter boinc for themselves for their own means (we are talking the server side software here).

No Rosetta doesn't run smoothly but we do need to give them chance (and I know you will :-) to learn the ropes and take out feedback.

I do think Carl is right though in the fact there needs to be an announcement section on the board where we cannot comment to. Where they put current problems, help needed and jobs on their to-do list.

If we do feel the need to talk about the announcement we are clever enough to start a new thread up :-)

I also think the project staff need to make their titles more noticable under there name, at the moment they blend in.

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Team mauisun.org

And please Paul feel free to answer can you take Boinc / Rosetta from one machine to another or not ? Bill Michaels FAQ on this board ? or River~~`s post on this board ? Not on the BOINC board...here at Rosetta..

Not sure if the rest of the post was aimed at me or Dave ... :)

so,

Ok, you can. You shouldn't.

With care, and tinkering you can move work around and Bill detailed a method for doing so. I wish he hadn't ... :)

BOINC was designed to track the work to a computer and back. Though they do not yet do this, on any project as far as I know, this tracking can be part of the rigor of the investigation. If it were *MY* project, you darn well better bet I am going to be monitoring my "instruments" of investigation. You cannot do that without tracking and tracibility.

And that is why you shouldn't. More importantly on those projects where accuracy is critical such as LHC@Home and Predictor@Home this defeats the efforts they made to avoid the errors in computations that can come from mixing platforms. The work that is "contaminated" should fail validation, but even so, what the participant has done is to subvert the system for their own purposes.

That being said, *MY* feeling is that BOINC is weak in this area and there should be stronger mechanisms in place for non-forgibility, non-repudiation, etc. Then again, I also have a strong belief in the need for rigor in the science we pursue.

So ... you can. But you shouldn't.

Oh, and the "No work from project" is currently hitting me for SZTAKI DG ... :)

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Wasn`t being nasty Paul, just really felt it was something that needed clearing up as one of our team did try it on a machine that was having troubles.

Cheers mate ;-)

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Not all Czech`s bounce but I`d like to try with Barbar ;-)

Make no mistake This IS the TEDDIES TEAM.

I'll look into putting an "Official announcements" type thread that only project staff can post to. Keep in mind that we do not modify the boinc code much to make things easier for future version updates. Boinc is continually being developed and improved by the dev team lead by David Anderson.

I'll look into putting an "Official announcements" type thread that only project staff can post to.

Sounds like a nice idea, and you can be a little more chatty there than in the News section on the main project page. But we appreciate your other priorities and limited manpower in the meantime! :)

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Regards,
Bob P.

Since the topic of compression has been brought up several times, I found the following website with a useful comparison: http://www.maximumcompression.com/

Personally, I plan to stick with this project through any ups and downs, but I can sympathize with people who can't afford the telecom surcharges or are frustrated by 1% bug etc. I just checked and my Rosetta folder size was 26MBytes. In many countries there are usage quotas and surcharges even for ADSL (not to mention dialup users).

In my opinion, the real breakthrough in userbase numbers will happen when BOINC becomes more usable by the average person. Look at Boinc usability testing (BBC & CPDN).

Btw that list is good to find answers for obvious questions, which I was unable to find them discussed elsewhere (e.g. Make it possible for a host to run, attached to an account, without the host containing any info that would provide access to the account)

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