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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Completed Research
Forum: FightAIDS@Home
Thread: Worth a try or to leave alone? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 12
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Ever since distributing computer projects have started back in 1998 with seti@home i have been a member and kept a top of the line processor busy crunching for the better cause at hand.
I'm glad to see we can now apply some modest modern technology to real world problem solving that otherwise might not be done or at a great expense. I'm a student at ITT TECH here in Albuquerque, NM. We have an estimated 240 computers or so in our small school that are always turned on usually and idle plus networked. Most all these computer are Dell 2.8ghz p4 with 512mb ram. I have driven around at night and seen countless computer monitors on in corporations and buildings with the login screen showing and probably totally idle except for backup they do during the nights. I guess what i'm getting at is look at all these untapped resources. Albuquerque and the surrounding area has 1.6 million people and the economy here is growing at a rapid pace and very healthy. I could easily imagine turning out 250,000 results a day just from using computers in this city alone from just a modest effort. But, i have thought that how would you persuade or even talk to a company into run this program? How much bandwidth would it use on a few hundred to thousand computers? How much electricity? Any particular security risks? And does this run in the background no matter which user is or is not logged in? Due to all this i have made no attempts to persuade any company or business to run it. I know seti@home had a limited number of sponsor logo's on their website at one time. Would be nice to see some these wealthy corporations show some good corporate citizenship. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Have a look at the partner list. WCG is affiliated with a large number of companies and academic groups already.
So, don't worry about the failures - it can't hurt to ask. You may have more success with schools than with corporations, but whatever happens, it's worth trying. You could always start by contacting your local media. Good luck. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Even so...doesn't appear to be any option for a network install by the administrator like Symantec Corporate Edition Anti-virus.
That would be a huge and impossible task to install on many computers manually. Doubtful anyone would install manually onto each computer even if there were only dozen. Don't remeber seeing a remote "network install" during setup to automatically install on all network computers or selected ones. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
BOINC has. These days, network installs are done using Group Policy. All you need is a transform that sets up the WCG account information as part of the install.
Full instructions are in the FAQ. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thanks for info. BOINC was something i ignored for a while but just installed it today. Definately, more efficient and hopefully the future in distributed computing platforms. I can now run this entire project on my dual core system with 100% CPU efficiency.
Now the negative is that i had to create a new account in order to get a "key" to run BOINC. Also, during setup i wish i could have just clicked on the "project" i wanted from an available list in the program rather then pasting the link into the setup from a webpage. Also, there is no "eye candy" or graphics but that doesn't matter to me..long as i see a percentage and know it is working. I think BOINC is a bit more professional for schools and companies to run anyway without graphics or a description in the project that might make employees want to turn it off if they seen the words HIV. BOINC probably has a little more work and refinements to be done but great idea from what i see. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=4925#48401
This explains how to use your old account using http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ms/viewMyProfile.do?regBoinc=true |
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Dirk Gently
Senior Cruncher England Joined: Mar 1, 2005 Post Count: 153 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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.....I'm a student at ITT TECH here in Albuquerque, NM. We have an estimated 240 computers or so in our small school that are always turned on usually and idle plus networked. Most all these computer are Dell 2.8ghz p4 with 512mb ram. I have driven around at night and seen countless computer monitors on in corporations and buildings with the login screen showing and probably totally idle except for backup they do during the nights..... Idle Client PCs running overnight is a criminal waste of energy! Tell them they should switch them off or at least crunch for us! Strictly, the actual concept of our grid computing efforts is that it taps into "spare" computing power of PCs that are mainly doing other useful work. It was not meant to be an end in itself - but this is better than total waste! It is amazing - there are "switch off" and "save it" notices everywhere these days (at least there are in the UK - dont know about the US), but people seem to think this only applies to lighting and heating! I had noticed myself recently in my own company how many people abandon ship at 5pm each evening leaving desktop PCs (even the monitor) still switched on. Your 240 pcs there - at say 250W each - thats 60kW. Over 13 idle hours thats around 2.8 GJ of energy wasted. Spread across all those other corporations you mention - if these were switched off the US would probably happily sign for Kyoto   - or if used for crunching we might see a cure for Aids. I know this is a starkly exagerated oversimplification, but has truth in principle.As for persuading others to crunch - I use my company laptop and they do not object, but I have not had much luck in inspiring colleagues. Some ask what it is if they see the screensaver, and then when I exlain they seem indifferent to the idea. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 2 times, last edit by Dirk Gently at Mar 21, 2006 1:11:21 PM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I guess what i'm getting at is look at all these untapped resources. I think a lot of people have been conditioned to be skeptical of applications that connect to the internet. The virus, Trojan, spyware, and adware situation has exploded over the last several years, and I know many people who now resist putting things on their system that will go to an internet site completely automatically and “do things” without their intervention. I’ve had to convince people that even enabling the automatic Windows update isn’t such a “bad thing”. (ok, that’s not to say it’s always a “good thing”, but it sure beats going 6-12 months with no updates done on a Windows system!) When all people hear about is how bad PC security is, do you think it’s any wonder why people don’t want to install something like UD or BOINC? How many network admins already cringe when people add applications to their systems? It will take someone to not just install the client, but also to manage it and support it. I see a lot of companies and institutions that have reduced their IT and support staff and adding any work to their plate is not received very well. I’ve been able to install on systems under my direct control, but getting others to join meets at the least indifference, and more often a polite but firm “no thank you” form of resistance. Still…. I try. -J |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I hope the extra time Micro$oft is putting into Windows Vista for security upgrades will be worth it! Expected release date: Jan 2007
Maybe, if we had a more secure and trustable platform then these things wouldn't be as hard to get people to run...not taking into account self interests and ignorance of course :) I'm sure we will see more security patches and flaws then you can shake a stick at within the first 6 months :p ~~~ They need encrypted smart card/finger print login technologies or something. Maybe, borrow from DirectTV...been a while and hackers are still trying...more then Microsoft can say. http://politics.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060322/ap_on...qMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA-- |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I think WINDOWS need an active IMMUNE SYSTEM :P
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