AMDave
04-11-2005, 08:50 AM
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AMD Users Forum Newsletter - 09-Apr-05
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Welcome to the first issue of the AMD Users Forum Newsletter. You are receiving this publication because you are a subscribed member of the AMD Users Forum (http://www.amdusers.com).
In recent months we have published a "Team Roundup" on the forum. The author would like to thank all contributing members who have assisted in putting the roundup together. This month we decided that the Roundup had outgrown itself as a simple summary and made the move to bring you this Newsletter.
CONTENTS:
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- TEAM NOTES
- SPRING CONTEST
- DASHBOARD SNAPSHOT
- PROJECT SUMMARY
- THE FORUM
- THANKS
TEAM NOTES:
===========
The Forum took another 28 membership registrations in March. To all the new members that have joined recently, welcome to the AMD Users Team. Your contribution to the forums and to the projects is most appreciated.
There were a number of noteable events in March. Here are some Team milestones:
We passed 1000 in RC5-72
In TKC we reached rank 50
We passed 400 in Whatpulse
The forum served more than 13,500 hits per day
and a few individual milestones:
vaughan took back 1st in 17 or Bust
bwhite grabbed 1st in RC5-72
DMMc achieved 1st in OGR-P2
AMDave made the top 500 in Project Gutenberg
Ototero smiled when we filled his daily dashboard with green on a number of occasions. :D
NeoGen broke the record of stats bugs pointed out on Ototero's sheets :lol:
Beerknurd finally got his AMD ! :shock:
Those of you who read the February Team Roundup on the Forum may recall the comments about the word association thread. It was astounding to see how fast that thread grew and great to see everyone getting involved. Thanks to Lagu and meckano we have a summary of just what has been going on in there...
Lagu reported:
"Not since Deviant_Kine created the topic “Word Association” 2004-12-11 has any thread been so active. Daily there are a few members who add to this list with new or previously used words, sometimes in a new context. It had been my intention for some time to make myself a dictionary of all these words and translate them to Swedish. However there have been words of peoples, actors, cars, and places that I won’t add to the wordlist. They have written words that are common in the USA and Canada but few from Europe can easily relate to them. Although Red Skelton is not forgotten, even for me! I have noticed the words added in march are more inspiring than those in jan and feb, thanks to AMDave and some others who came with new words and new fantasies.
I have now written 24 A-4 pages (1.301 lines) in Excel. I did it first by hand, and then typed every letter through the keyboard. While I was working on this, it came upon me to make some statistics known to you members.
I now present this material:
For jan there was a massive addition of new words; A full 33 frames were filled in the server. For feb there where 27 frames filled and in Marsh there were 19 frames.
The most common words were these, and oftenly used.
Dead and death 12 times, Dog and dogs 7, Cat 6, Drugs 6, Funny 6, Laugh and laughs 5, Beerknurd times 4, Bird 4, Camera 4, Hole and Holes 4, Money 4, Movie and movies 4, Music 4, Poop 4, Rock 4, Sad and sadness 4, Salt and salty 4, Sleep and sleepy 4, Stone and stoned 4, Woman 4
These words have been used 3 times:
Annoying, Ball, Black, Boat, Brain, Break, Car, Computer, Evil, Gates, Humor, Intel, Nightmare, Pirates, Power, Scary, Shoes, Soccer, Spice, Star and stars, Technology, Teeth and Traitor.
These words have been used twice:
Action, Actor, Airport, Art, Ass, Asimov, Banana, Band, Beach, Beef, Big, Birth, Black hole, Boring, Cartoon, Cheese, Chocolate, Circle, Cold, Comedy, Crocodile, Cry, Delete, Dentist, Digital, Dream, Dumb, Fad, Farts, Fast, Fat, Fiction, Food, France, Free, Fun, Ghost, God, Golf, Government, Grave, Great, Hair, Happy, Hardware, Head, High, Illegal, Liberated, Love, Mensa, Moon, Hotel, Mouse, mumbo Jumbo, Night, Nike, Nonsense, Old, Overclock, Phantom, Philosopher, Phone, Pictures, Piece, Planets, Pure, Race, River, Sick, Sorrow, , Space, Speed, Sphere, Sport, Swamp, Television, Theatre, Trinity, Wasted, Weed, White, Wood, Wool and work.
So in the end; for members who are interested, it comes in alphabetic order
Ahab3333 1 time, AMDave 160, Andrewdodd13 98, Beerknurd 387, Daddygeek 11, Deviant_Kine 27, Dmmc 188, Elez 2, Empty_5oul 50, Gamer007 176, Guests 12, Imortel 78, Jlangner 4, Lagu 6, Meckano 2, Ototero 2, Rrcrain 92, Spjeff69 12 "
Thanks Lagu and meckano for your work on that report. This was a difficult report for Lagu to compile as his native language is Swedish. meckano was a great support in helping with the translation. An excellent job, gentlemen !
SPRING CONTEST:
===============
NeoGen provided some information about the contest...
"The contest started on March 20th (first day of spring according to some astronomy sites because of the solstices and equinoxes and other things I don't understand... I just wanted the date) :lol: The contest was scheduled to end on June 7th (Summer starts around the 20th or 21st, but I thought better and chose to have 2 weeks of break for resting in case we organize some more competitions for the summer.)
This spring we decided to include 17 or Bust, Dnet OGR25, Dnet RC5-72, Folding@Home, Find-a-Drug, Grub and WhatPulse (keys only, no mouse clicks accounted for)
In my opinion it's been going well, no big problems happened so far, I've been developing and enhancing the system quite well here and every once in a while I present a new [feature]."
A special note of thanks from the Team to NeoGen for his hard work in setting up the Spring Contest and keeping the progress results updated. The results can be viewed through the Spring Contest thread in the "Members Lounge" forum where you will find the web link in the first post.
PROJECT SNAPSHOT:
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Here's the dashboard snapshot:
29 projects (1 archived, 3 added)
12 rank improved
08 rank slipped
09 rank maintained
PROJECT SUMMARY:
================
On to the summary...
17 or Bust - Rank 14 - slipped by 1
In 17 or Bust we started the month at 513.799 and finished at 595.9. The change of 82.1 was higher than the 6 month average of 70.67 by 11.43 points.
During March we were overtaken by Free-DC. There was no question of when. But we put up the good fight and in the process drew ourselves up closer to the next team. 17 or Bust also became one of our Spring Contest projects and we have seen an exciting challenge take place for team rank 1. Vaughan recouped rank 1 in the Team, but Chaz has taken the blow-torch to his rear and now these two are really moving. I am pleased to say that since losing the rank last month we have since taken the position back.
Burp - Rank 5 - slipped by 1
In Burp we started the month at 138.95 and finished at 139.98. The change of 1.03 was lower than the 6 month average of 23.33 by -22.3 points.
Burp is a new addition to the dashboard. It is a BOINC project that renders graphics. It is still early in its lifecycle and it has been difficult to get work units so there has not been much movement here. NeoGen is in rank 1 and keeps checking in on the project for us. If it picks up he's ready for the challenge.
ChessBrain - Rank 3 - maintained rank
In ChessBrain we started the month at 7,450.27 and finished at 7,625.67. The change of 175.4 was lower than the 6 month average of 839.23 by -663.83 points.
A couple of membership changes caused the stats to vary significantly last month. Overall the production was down, possibly due to a lower number of games being played during the period. However, SlackPawn has the lead and is showing us how this project should be done. Thanks for the tips SP. As you can see from the author's own stats, its working well now.
Climate Prediction - Rank 51 - slipped by 1
In Climate Prediction we started the month at 724,004.06 and finished at 832,529.05. The change of 108,524.99 was lower than the 6 month average of 122,863.56 by -14,338.57 points.
The CP team continues to maintain a handsome level of output with only a small variation in the output this month. As predicted before March, we lost another position in CP. We saw them coming, but at their rate there was little that could be done. Something to keep in mind though is that there are often teams who get cracking on a project, get up in the ranks and then wander off to do something else. There are still slower teams ahead. We will catch them and take our positions back. This is happening in other projects too. Stay the course team. Thanks for your dedication.
D2OL - Rank 15 - maintained rank
In D2OL we started the month at 603,519 and finished at 615,251. The change of 11,732 was higher than the 6 month average of 11,112.17 by 619.83 points.
Empty_5oul has monitored our D2OL production and reports that we are going steady with an almost fixed production rate. He predicts, however, that there will be a changable period ahead with rank changes to go up as we pass slower teams, but also changes to lose rank to much more powerful teams. Vaughan maintains rank 1 again this month but KeithW1975 is not wasting any time.
DHEP - Rank 5 - maintained rank
In DHEP we started the month at 18,388.53 and finished at 18,803.44. The change of 414.91 was lower than the 6 month average of 3,133.91 by -2,719 points.
As reported by Vaughan, the AMD Users Team would like to thank the members of Free-DC who have saved this project from going off-line by hosting the site now. Big thanks to Free-DC, especially IronBits, Bok and Dyyryath. It is fantastic to see the project still up and running. This also makes Ototero very happy and he is leading the charge with his sights set on rank 1.
Dimes - Rank 2 - improved by 1
In Dimes we started the month at 700,618 and finished at 1,129,204. The change of 428,586 was higher than the 6 month average of 188,200.67 by 240,385.33 points.
Dimes, like Grub is an Internet analysis project. However, where Grub is checking the availability of the content on the internet, Dimes is analysing the infrastructure itself, mapping nodes and measuring transmission rates. At the start of March the client was very basic, but through the month the Project Team worked hard on their interface bringing several Beta versions up for testing. Thanks to a number of team members for helping the Project out on their bug tracking. The new client is a massive improvement over the old. The graphics are neater and faster and, being interactive, are fun to play with. The bandwidth useage is very small indeed. We like that. Thanks to our rank leader bwhite for introducing this project to us. At the end of the month the Project Team were bringing the database up to date after a series of changes. This includes collating mutiple clients created by the members. As a result we are seeing some significant changes in the stats, but these will bed down shortly and we will have a better picture fo the standings. Thanks also to Ohad from the project team for dropping in to the site and giving us the opportunity to help out. You have a great project on your hands.
Dnet OGR - Rank 409 - improved by 73
In Dnet OGR we started the month at 1,928,479 and finished at 2,353,276. The change of 424,797 was higher than the 6 month average of 392,212.67 by 32,584.33 points.
Two months ago we wanted to get OGR-P2 down below the 500 mark. We certainly did that. The contest last month has drawn some real crunch power to the project and we came close to passing 400 by the end of the month. Chaz and DMMc took their gauntlet over to OGR from FaH and we saw the numbers start to fly. DMMc finished the month ahead as Chaz saw an opportunity in 17 or Bust for rank 1. I should also add that grunt187 has made significant progress since joining the team and with his steady and consistent approach will be taking on Chaz and DMMc before long. Thanks to SB2 for dropping back in and helping us out and becoming a sneaker-net master in the process. We look forward to his next visit with anticipation.
Dnet RC5-72 - Rank 935 - improved by 128
In Dnet RC5-72 we started the month at 87,567 and finished at 115,506. The change of 27,939 was higher than the 6 month average of 13,038.17 by 14,900.83 points.
Since the start of the Spring Contest, interest in Dnet has shot up. The rank increases were happening fast and Empty_5oul was able to report that our goal to bring RC5 under rank 1000 is complete. DMMc and Chaz poured a lot into RC5-72 during their rounds of the projects. This grabbed us a large number of ranks whilst they were running at the same time. The Dnet team welcomed bwhite to this team last month and hasn't he gone for it ! Congratulations on taking team rank 1. The raw power that 72CJ5 is displaying since joining the team may lead to an exciting challenge before the end of the contest. There is still a lot of action here due to the contest and I'm sure there will be much more to report next month.
DPAD - Rank 19 - maintained rank
In DPAD we started the month at 4,826 and finished at 5,666. The change of 840 was higher than the 6 month average of 200.5 by 639.5 points.
Team [H] were getting a little close last month so he and vaughan dropped back into DPAD and gave it a quick nudge, raising the production rate to 5 times higher than it's usual level at one point to finish the month at 3 times higher than average. There are a couple of teams below them that we will be keeping an eye on.
Einstein@Home - Rank 11 - slipped by 3
In Einstein@Home we started the month at 296,080 and finished at 732,700. The change of 436,620 was higher than the 6 month average of 122,116.67 by 314,503.33 points.
Since Einstein@Home opened publicly in February, our team numbers increased incredibly to over 150 members, and thus our production in March spiked to more than twice what it had been on February, but still we are losing ranks on it. In spite of keeping the production rate up, the Einstein team lost ground to a couple of powerful teams as their membership jumped in to the project as well. As with all new projects the stats should settle down over the next month and we will have a better idea of where everyone stands. Our stats for Einstein were not working well last month. Our statsmen assure us that this is now fixed and all active users should now be visible in the Active Users page. Well done lads.
eOn - Rank 9 - slipped by 1
In eOn we started the month at 74,138 and finished at 150,132. The change of 75,994 was higher than the 6 month average of 20,857.67 by 55,136.33 points.
It was pleasing to see the interest in eOn increase last month. Although we lost a rank there, it was just for a few days. Since the start of April a couple of new members have joined the eOn team and are really giving it some power. Welcome to 72CJ5 and bigdog. 72CJ5 is outperforming most people in eOn. We think he could even get to world rank 3 in the project. We know he can take rank 1 in this team in … oh probably by the time you read this :!:
Evolution - Rank 7 - maintained rank
In Evolution we started the month at 15,590 and finished at 15,590. The change of 0 was lower than the 6 month average of 2,598.33 by -2,598.33 points.
Well that sounds just plain odd, so I asked the members about it. NeoGen replied "Evolution is working, the thing is that until they finish their new client and automation system the stats updates only occur about once a month. I ran some of their simulations last month and sent them by email, as they say in the page, but they didn't show up on the last stats update because they had been corrupted by hotmails text file attach system. And I only found that out after the stats update because I wrote them an email asking why my credits hadn't appeared. The solution is to zip the results files before sending, which I will do this month when I start running some more simulations again."
Thanks for the explanation. We'll watch out for any testing of their automation and bring it to the forum if the opportunity arises.
Find-a-Drug - Rank 44 - slipped by 2
In Find-a-Drug we started the month at 99,127,664 and finished at 103,307,136. The change of 4,179,472 was lower than the 6 month average of 11,721,434.67 by -7,541,962.67 points.
KamaLEIGH, Elez and ahab continue to throw every thing into the FaD project. Before the Spring Contest though the number of active users dropped, mostly due to the pressure in other projects at the time. So the monthly output was down in the stats for March, however, it is very pleasing to see the numbers coming back up since the end of March. We see that SlackPawn is giving this project a good run in the contest and doing rather well.
Folding@Home - Rank 434 - improved by 7
In Folding@Home we started the month at 317,255 and finished at 349,764. The change of 32,509 was lower than the 6 month average of 41,843.83 by -9,334.83 points.
Another project in the Spring Contest, Folding@Home has benefited from the change in focus. Two months ago, attention had drifted slightly from this project whilst a couple of hard earned ranks were made in other areas. It is a relief to see some of the lost ranks come back again this month. DMMc has taken out rank 1 from chaz whilst new members Lagu and SlackPawn have found a niche for their AMD-64s and have shot up the ranks and will soon be putting some pressure on Ototero who is also on the march. The output was lower then the average, but the contest appears to be turning that around.
Grid Org - Rank 3,816 - improved by 74
In Grid Org we started the month at 895,301 and finished at 930,178. The change of 34,877 was lower than the 6 month average of 53,056.33 by -18,179.33 points.
I asked Ototero how things were going in Grid, with so much of the focus currently being elsewhere. "During the months of November 2004 to March 2005, we climbed 816 places." he said. "During the first 9 days of April, we've dropped 12 places." And he lamented "Lets hope this downward trend reverses soon". It has been difficult for us to generate interest from our AMD affiliated members in this project. I studied this a little while ago and found that there were a great many AMD owners crunching the project like blazes in a team called "AMD Zone". AMD Zone is a U.K. based PC magazine targetted at the AMD PC owners market and as a result of some articles they had captured almost all of the interest from affiliated AMD owners. This makes the job of our Grid Org team that much harder. However, whilst progress is slow, they have been steadily improving the rank positions now for 6 months straight. I am agog ! (What is agog? I don't know, but it seems that I am one :D )
Grub - Rank 23 - improved by 2
In Grub we started the month at 65,671,134 and finished at 76,904,634. The change of 11,233,500 was lower than the 6 month average of 12,817,439 by -1,583,939 points.
Empty_5oul reports that "grub is going steady, keep pushing and making up positions". The monthly production was down slightly whilst some of us took a look at Dimes and "kicked the tyres" so to speak. By the look of things we should be able to run them side by side. We are continuing to meet our targets here. Great effort.
LHC@Home - Rank 16 - improved by 4
In LHC@Home we started the month at 116,925 and finished at 136,279. The change of 19,354 was higher than the 6 month average of 19,241 by 113 points.
In the last summary we noted how the LHC Team were caught out somewhat when the project came back online late after the Christmas-New Year break. At that time we slipped 3 spots into 20th. However, it is a distinct pleasure to be able to report that the members of the LHC Team have done us proud sweeping up the 3 ranks that were lost and adding another rank to boot. Fantastic recovery there Team. Nicely done. DMMc maintains team rank 1 and is world rank 15.
Pirates@Home - Rank 5 - maintained rank
In Pirates@Home we started the month at 4,909.54 and finished at 6,957.17. The change of 2,047.63 was higher than the 6 month average of 1,159.53 by 888.1 points.
NeoGen reports that Pirates was planned to end in the Spring of 2005, by the time Einstein@Home would be open to public and in full production. We've reached April and the project seems even more active than in past months, which is good because that means more workunits for everyone. It is still a difficult project to get workunits for, but our Team has managed to maintain world rank 5 in spite of the difficulties and the fierce competition.
Predictor - Rank 42 - improved by 4
In Predictor we started the month at 82,345 and finished at 113,341. The change of 30,996 was higher than the 6 month average of 14,145.79 by 16,850.21 points.
"a very shaky project" says Empty_5oul, "but seems to have finally solved the majority of its problems. Again this is on BOINC but has been fine tuned with a improved website including a status monitor http://predictor.scripps.edu/ . they also completed a back log of work some up to 4 months old! A lot of points up for grabs and some easy positions but from its track record it has lost out with many of our team." Thanks for the follow up Empty_5oul. Perhaps the members will revisit along the way and find it more mature than their last visit. For those still working on it, well done! That makes three months of rank improvements in a row.
Project Gutenberg - Rank 129 - improved by 11
In Project Gutenberg we started the month at 1,322 and finished at 1,883. The change of 561 was higher than the 6 month average of 313.83 by 247.17 points.
Thanks to those of you who have spared some time on the Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreading project. PG is a little different to the other projects in that it requires direct human attention and interaction. This means time, mostly. AMDave sold his soul to the PG project for the month and made it into the top 500, learning a lot more about the project along the way. For the team this meant a nice rank increase. Most of the teams in this rank grouping have at least one dedicated DP'er so the team rankings change often.
Seti (BOINC) - Rank 426 - improved by 30
In Seti (BOINC) we started the month at 210,679 and finished at 250,580. The change of 39,901 was lower than the 6 month average of 40,765.17 by -864.17 points.
In spite of keeping in touch with several projects, KeithW1975 has rank 1. This is a hotly contested project and keeps the Active Members stats lit up like a christmas tree with member rank changes happening almost every day. This competitiveness is great for the Team and has resulted in continuous rank improvements every month over the last 6. If there was ever a coincidental correlation it is with the OGR-P2 and Seti BOINC ranks. There is nothing whatsoever to link these two, but the rank changes have been matched so closely that it shows up on clearly the charts. Brilliant effort Team. Absolutley brilliant.
Seti (Classic) - Rank 2,455 - slipped by 116
In Seti (Classic) we started the month at 53,168 and finished at 51,650. The change of -1,518 was lower than the 6 month average of 2,200.5 by -3,718.5 points.
During the month off March we had the pleasure of SB2's company. An accomplished Seti Classic runner, SB2's results boosted our rank placings in the project whilst he visited with us. SB2 has returned to his passion of mathematics projects, consequently our ranking has returned to its normal level. Nonetheless, there's still 6 or 7 members crunching here on average and the author was strangely pleased to be pushed down 2 team ranks during March. However, allowing for the major stats adjustment, we have actually slipped 15 ranks compared to the results 2 months ago.
TKC - Rank 50 - improved by 8
In TKC we started the month at 17,734,771 and finished at 23,737,269. The change of 6,002,498 was higher than the 6 month average of 3,956,211.5 by 2,046,286.5 points.
Empty_5oul noted that we hit rank 50 last month. It was interesting to see the boost that TKC got last month. Whilst not actually in the Spring Contest, many of the members of the WhatPulse team also run TKC, so TKC appears to have increased as a direct result as well.
TSC - Rank 26 - maintained rank
In TSC we started the month at 294,481 and finished at 304,396. The change of 9,915 was higher than the 6 month average of 6,389.17 by 3,525.83 points.
Vaughan brought us this update on TSC. "We dropped several places earlier this year but are maintaining our rank now at 27th. Jeff Langner, Vaughan, daddygeek, petrel_PT and hyperspace are continuing to crunch in this project. Steady work required and we will eventually pass Lithuania."
Ubero - Rank 3 - maintained rank
In Ubero we started the month at 2,239,525 and finished at 2,259,173. The change of 19,648 was lower than the 6 month average of 20,023.83 by -375.83 points.
The Uber Project, (or "old friend" as someone we know well calls it), might have finished, but the "bragging rights" tally is still going up. We see now that the output is dropping. Thanks for bringing the power to the other projects gentlemen.
WhatPulse - Rank 358 - improved by 152
In WhatPulse we started the month at 14,311,463 and finished at 23,798,062. The change of 9,486,599 was higher than the 6 month average of 3,966,343.67 by 5,520,255.33 points.
Empty_5oul reported that we passed another milestone in March bring Whatpulse into the sub-500 class. WhatPulse is another project that has benefited with a points increase through the Spring Contest in the last month. In fact it was our best performer in March. Among other additions, we welcomed gamer007 into the team bring existing work done into the tally and taking team rank 1 at the same time. Nice entrance :D
World Community Grid - Rank 21 - slipped by 3
In World Community Grid we started the month at 4,240,552 and finished at 5,347,885. The change of 1,107,333 was higher than the 6 month average of 891,314.17 by 216,018.83 points.
The WC Grid team continue to amaze me with increase after increase in their production. It was unfortunate that we were overtaken last month. But we can expect that the continuing membership increase will allow us to keep up the fight. Excellent job Team. Keep at 'em.
Zeta - Rank 31 - maintained rank
In Zeta we started the month at 2,011.5 and finished at 2,022.9. The change of 11.4 was lower than the 6 month average of 15.32 by -3.92 points.
Yes, Zeta still continues to accept work units. It has been some time since the project objectives were realised, but for some the interest is still there.
Here ends the summary. As you can see, there has been a lot of action in the last month. The Spring Contest is on. It is never too late to throw your hat in the ring. I can almost predict which projects are going to get pulled out of the hat for the Summer Contest in about 10 weeks time.
THE FORUM:
==========
The forum now has over 300 membership registrations, the 300th coming just after the end of the month.
AMD Users welcome member#300, JackindBox to our Forum from Team Ninja.
And here are some Forum Facts from spjeff69...
The website uses 415mb on the server.
We had 420635 hits and used 4.37 GB of bandwidth last month.
So far this year:
We had 1,096,941 hits and used 15.39 GB of bandwidth.
Over 4,000 people came from Google.
Operating Systems:
Windows: 1,007,195
Linux: 29,533
Macintosh: 2,801
Browsers:
IE: 3,577,949
Firefox: 267,891
Top Keyphrase from search engine hits:
amd fx 55
This is the big one...
Top keyword from search engine hits:
AMD
You can support the AMD Users Forum by clicking on the those ads. They really do contribute to keep it going.
THANKS:
=======
That concludes this month's newsletter. I'd like to thank Empty_5oul, Ototero, NeoGen, spjeff69 and vaughan for their help in putting this newsletter together .
Thanks to our admins, moderators, team founders, statsmen, affiliates and of course all of you, our members, who make this all possible.
Thank you all for another fabulous month!
AMDave.
Copyright 2005 - AMD Users Forum (http://www.amdusers.com).
AMD Users Forum Newsletter - 09-Apr-05
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Welcome to the first issue of the AMD Users Forum Newsletter. You are receiving this publication because you are a subscribed member of the AMD Users Forum (http://www.amdusers.com).
In recent months we have published a "Team Roundup" on the forum. The author would like to thank all contributing members who have assisted in putting the roundup together. This month we decided that the Roundup had outgrown itself as a simple summary and made the move to bring you this Newsletter.
CONTENTS:
=========
- TEAM NOTES
- SPRING CONTEST
- DASHBOARD SNAPSHOT
- PROJECT SUMMARY
- THE FORUM
- THANKS
TEAM NOTES:
===========
The Forum took another 28 membership registrations in March. To all the new members that have joined recently, welcome to the AMD Users Team. Your contribution to the forums and to the projects is most appreciated.
There were a number of noteable events in March. Here are some Team milestones:
We passed 1000 in RC5-72
In TKC we reached rank 50
We passed 400 in Whatpulse
The forum served more than 13,500 hits per day
and a few individual milestones:
vaughan took back 1st in 17 or Bust
bwhite grabbed 1st in RC5-72
DMMc achieved 1st in OGR-P2
AMDave made the top 500 in Project Gutenberg
Ototero smiled when we filled his daily dashboard with green on a number of occasions. :D
NeoGen broke the record of stats bugs pointed out on Ototero's sheets :lol:
Beerknurd finally got his AMD ! :shock:
Those of you who read the February Team Roundup on the Forum may recall the comments about the word association thread. It was astounding to see how fast that thread grew and great to see everyone getting involved. Thanks to Lagu and meckano we have a summary of just what has been going on in there...
Lagu reported:
"Not since Deviant_Kine created the topic “Word Association” 2004-12-11 has any thread been so active. Daily there are a few members who add to this list with new or previously used words, sometimes in a new context. It had been my intention for some time to make myself a dictionary of all these words and translate them to Swedish. However there have been words of peoples, actors, cars, and places that I won’t add to the wordlist. They have written words that are common in the USA and Canada but few from Europe can easily relate to them. Although Red Skelton is not forgotten, even for me! I have noticed the words added in march are more inspiring than those in jan and feb, thanks to AMDave and some others who came with new words and new fantasies.
I have now written 24 A-4 pages (1.301 lines) in Excel. I did it first by hand, and then typed every letter through the keyboard. While I was working on this, it came upon me to make some statistics known to you members.
I now present this material:
For jan there was a massive addition of new words; A full 33 frames were filled in the server. For feb there where 27 frames filled and in Marsh there were 19 frames.
The most common words were these, and oftenly used.
Dead and death 12 times, Dog and dogs 7, Cat 6, Drugs 6, Funny 6, Laugh and laughs 5, Beerknurd times 4, Bird 4, Camera 4, Hole and Holes 4, Money 4, Movie and movies 4, Music 4, Poop 4, Rock 4, Sad and sadness 4, Salt and salty 4, Sleep and sleepy 4, Stone and stoned 4, Woman 4
These words have been used 3 times:
Annoying, Ball, Black, Boat, Brain, Break, Car, Computer, Evil, Gates, Humor, Intel, Nightmare, Pirates, Power, Scary, Shoes, Soccer, Spice, Star and stars, Technology, Teeth and Traitor.
These words have been used twice:
Action, Actor, Airport, Art, Ass, Asimov, Banana, Band, Beach, Beef, Big, Birth, Black hole, Boring, Cartoon, Cheese, Chocolate, Circle, Cold, Comedy, Crocodile, Cry, Delete, Dentist, Digital, Dream, Dumb, Fad, Farts, Fast, Fat, Fiction, Food, France, Free, Fun, Ghost, God, Golf, Government, Grave, Great, Hair, Happy, Hardware, Head, High, Illegal, Liberated, Love, Mensa, Moon, Hotel, Mouse, mumbo Jumbo, Night, Nike, Nonsense, Old, Overclock, Phantom, Philosopher, Phone, Pictures, Piece, Planets, Pure, Race, River, Sick, Sorrow, , Space, Speed, Sphere, Sport, Swamp, Television, Theatre, Trinity, Wasted, Weed, White, Wood, Wool and work.
So in the end; for members who are interested, it comes in alphabetic order
Ahab3333 1 time, AMDave 160, Andrewdodd13 98, Beerknurd 387, Daddygeek 11, Deviant_Kine 27, Dmmc 188, Elez 2, Empty_5oul 50, Gamer007 176, Guests 12, Imortel 78, Jlangner 4, Lagu 6, Meckano 2, Ototero 2, Rrcrain 92, Spjeff69 12 "
Thanks Lagu and meckano for your work on that report. This was a difficult report for Lagu to compile as his native language is Swedish. meckano was a great support in helping with the translation. An excellent job, gentlemen !
SPRING CONTEST:
===============
NeoGen provided some information about the contest...
"The contest started on March 20th (first day of spring according to some astronomy sites because of the solstices and equinoxes and other things I don't understand... I just wanted the date) :lol: The contest was scheduled to end on June 7th (Summer starts around the 20th or 21st, but I thought better and chose to have 2 weeks of break for resting in case we organize some more competitions for the summer.)
This spring we decided to include 17 or Bust, Dnet OGR25, Dnet RC5-72, Folding@Home, Find-a-Drug, Grub and WhatPulse (keys only, no mouse clicks accounted for)
In my opinion it's been going well, no big problems happened so far, I've been developing and enhancing the system quite well here and every once in a while I present a new [feature]."
A special note of thanks from the Team to NeoGen for his hard work in setting up the Spring Contest and keeping the progress results updated. The results can be viewed through the Spring Contest thread in the "Members Lounge" forum where you will find the web link in the first post.
PROJECT SNAPSHOT:
=================
Here's the dashboard snapshot:
29 projects (1 archived, 3 added)
12 rank improved
08 rank slipped
09 rank maintained
PROJECT SUMMARY:
================
On to the summary...
17 or Bust - Rank 14 - slipped by 1
In 17 or Bust we started the month at 513.799 and finished at 595.9. The change of 82.1 was higher than the 6 month average of 70.67 by 11.43 points.
During March we were overtaken by Free-DC. There was no question of when. But we put up the good fight and in the process drew ourselves up closer to the next team. 17 or Bust also became one of our Spring Contest projects and we have seen an exciting challenge take place for team rank 1. Vaughan recouped rank 1 in the Team, but Chaz has taken the blow-torch to his rear and now these two are really moving. I am pleased to say that since losing the rank last month we have since taken the position back.
Burp - Rank 5 - slipped by 1
In Burp we started the month at 138.95 and finished at 139.98. The change of 1.03 was lower than the 6 month average of 23.33 by -22.3 points.
Burp is a new addition to the dashboard. It is a BOINC project that renders graphics. It is still early in its lifecycle and it has been difficult to get work units so there has not been much movement here. NeoGen is in rank 1 and keeps checking in on the project for us. If it picks up he's ready for the challenge.
ChessBrain - Rank 3 - maintained rank
In ChessBrain we started the month at 7,450.27 and finished at 7,625.67. The change of 175.4 was lower than the 6 month average of 839.23 by -663.83 points.
A couple of membership changes caused the stats to vary significantly last month. Overall the production was down, possibly due to a lower number of games being played during the period. However, SlackPawn has the lead and is showing us how this project should be done. Thanks for the tips SP. As you can see from the author's own stats, its working well now.
Climate Prediction - Rank 51 - slipped by 1
In Climate Prediction we started the month at 724,004.06 and finished at 832,529.05. The change of 108,524.99 was lower than the 6 month average of 122,863.56 by -14,338.57 points.
The CP team continues to maintain a handsome level of output with only a small variation in the output this month. As predicted before March, we lost another position in CP. We saw them coming, but at their rate there was little that could be done. Something to keep in mind though is that there are often teams who get cracking on a project, get up in the ranks and then wander off to do something else. There are still slower teams ahead. We will catch them and take our positions back. This is happening in other projects too. Stay the course team. Thanks for your dedication.
D2OL - Rank 15 - maintained rank
In D2OL we started the month at 603,519 and finished at 615,251. The change of 11,732 was higher than the 6 month average of 11,112.17 by 619.83 points.
Empty_5oul has monitored our D2OL production and reports that we are going steady with an almost fixed production rate. He predicts, however, that there will be a changable period ahead with rank changes to go up as we pass slower teams, but also changes to lose rank to much more powerful teams. Vaughan maintains rank 1 again this month but KeithW1975 is not wasting any time.
DHEP - Rank 5 - maintained rank
In DHEP we started the month at 18,388.53 and finished at 18,803.44. The change of 414.91 was lower than the 6 month average of 3,133.91 by -2,719 points.
As reported by Vaughan, the AMD Users Team would like to thank the members of Free-DC who have saved this project from going off-line by hosting the site now. Big thanks to Free-DC, especially IronBits, Bok and Dyyryath. It is fantastic to see the project still up and running. This also makes Ototero very happy and he is leading the charge with his sights set on rank 1.
Dimes - Rank 2 - improved by 1
In Dimes we started the month at 700,618 and finished at 1,129,204. The change of 428,586 was higher than the 6 month average of 188,200.67 by 240,385.33 points.
Dimes, like Grub is an Internet analysis project. However, where Grub is checking the availability of the content on the internet, Dimes is analysing the infrastructure itself, mapping nodes and measuring transmission rates. At the start of March the client was very basic, but through the month the Project Team worked hard on their interface bringing several Beta versions up for testing. Thanks to a number of team members for helping the Project out on their bug tracking. The new client is a massive improvement over the old. The graphics are neater and faster and, being interactive, are fun to play with. The bandwidth useage is very small indeed. We like that. Thanks to our rank leader bwhite for introducing this project to us. At the end of the month the Project Team were bringing the database up to date after a series of changes. This includes collating mutiple clients created by the members. As a result we are seeing some significant changes in the stats, but these will bed down shortly and we will have a better picture fo the standings. Thanks also to Ohad from the project team for dropping in to the site and giving us the opportunity to help out. You have a great project on your hands.
Dnet OGR - Rank 409 - improved by 73
In Dnet OGR we started the month at 1,928,479 and finished at 2,353,276. The change of 424,797 was higher than the 6 month average of 392,212.67 by 32,584.33 points.
Two months ago we wanted to get OGR-P2 down below the 500 mark. We certainly did that. The contest last month has drawn some real crunch power to the project and we came close to passing 400 by the end of the month. Chaz and DMMc took their gauntlet over to OGR from FaH and we saw the numbers start to fly. DMMc finished the month ahead as Chaz saw an opportunity in 17 or Bust for rank 1. I should also add that grunt187 has made significant progress since joining the team and with his steady and consistent approach will be taking on Chaz and DMMc before long. Thanks to SB2 for dropping back in and helping us out and becoming a sneaker-net master in the process. We look forward to his next visit with anticipation.
Dnet RC5-72 - Rank 935 - improved by 128
In Dnet RC5-72 we started the month at 87,567 and finished at 115,506. The change of 27,939 was higher than the 6 month average of 13,038.17 by 14,900.83 points.
Since the start of the Spring Contest, interest in Dnet has shot up. The rank increases were happening fast and Empty_5oul was able to report that our goal to bring RC5 under rank 1000 is complete. DMMc and Chaz poured a lot into RC5-72 during their rounds of the projects. This grabbed us a large number of ranks whilst they were running at the same time. The Dnet team welcomed bwhite to this team last month and hasn't he gone for it ! Congratulations on taking team rank 1. The raw power that 72CJ5 is displaying since joining the team may lead to an exciting challenge before the end of the contest. There is still a lot of action here due to the contest and I'm sure there will be much more to report next month.
DPAD - Rank 19 - maintained rank
In DPAD we started the month at 4,826 and finished at 5,666. The change of 840 was higher than the 6 month average of 200.5 by 639.5 points.
Team [H] were getting a little close last month so he and vaughan dropped back into DPAD and gave it a quick nudge, raising the production rate to 5 times higher than it's usual level at one point to finish the month at 3 times higher than average. There are a couple of teams below them that we will be keeping an eye on.
Einstein@Home - Rank 11 - slipped by 3
In Einstein@Home we started the month at 296,080 and finished at 732,700. The change of 436,620 was higher than the 6 month average of 122,116.67 by 314,503.33 points.
Since Einstein@Home opened publicly in February, our team numbers increased incredibly to over 150 members, and thus our production in March spiked to more than twice what it had been on February, but still we are losing ranks on it. In spite of keeping the production rate up, the Einstein team lost ground to a couple of powerful teams as their membership jumped in to the project as well. As with all new projects the stats should settle down over the next month and we will have a better idea of where everyone stands. Our stats for Einstein were not working well last month. Our statsmen assure us that this is now fixed and all active users should now be visible in the Active Users page. Well done lads.
eOn - Rank 9 - slipped by 1
In eOn we started the month at 74,138 and finished at 150,132. The change of 75,994 was higher than the 6 month average of 20,857.67 by 55,136.33 points.
It was pleasing to see the interest in eOn increase last month. Although we lost a rank there, it was just for a few days. Since the start of April a couple of new members have joined the eOn team and are really giving it some power. Welcome to 72CJ5 and bigdog. 72CJ5 is outperforming most people in eOn. We think he could even get to world rank 3 in the project. We know he can take rank 1 in this team in … oh probably by the time you read this :!:
Evolution - Rank 7 - maintained rank
In Evolution we started the month at 15,590 and finished at 15,590. The change of 0 was lower than the 6 month average of 2,598.33 by -2,598.33 points.
Well that sounds just plain odd, so I asked the members about it. NeoGen replied "Evolution is working, the thing is that until they finish their new client and automation system the stats updates only occur about once a month. I ran some of their simulations last month and sent them by email, as they say in the page, but they didn't show up on the last stats update because they had been corrupted by hotmails text file attach system. And I only found that out after the stats update because I wrote them an email asking why my credits hadn't appeared. The solution is to zip the results files before sending, which I will do this month when I start running some more simulations again."
Thanks for the explanation. We'll watch out for any testing of their automation and bring it to the forum if the opportunity arises.
Find-a-Drug - Rank 44 - slipped by 2
In Find-a-Drug we started the month at 99,127,664 and finished at 103,307,136. The change of 4,179,472 was lower than the 6 month average of 11,721,434.67 by -7,541,962.67 points.
KamaLEIGH, Elez and ahab continue to throw every thing into the FaD project. Before the Spring Contest though the number of active users dropped, mostly due to the pressure in other projects at the time. So the monthly output was down in the stats for March, however, it is very pleasing to see the numbers coming back up since the end of March. We see that SlackPawn is giving this project a good run in the contest and doing rather well.
Folding@Home - Rank 434 - improved by 7
In Folding@Home we started the month at 317,255 and finished at 349,764. The change of 32,509 was lower than the 6 month average of 41,843.83 by -9,334.83 points.
Another project in the Spring Contest, Folding@Home has benefited from the change in focus. Two months ago, attention had drifted slightly from this project whilst a couple of hard earned ranks were made in other areas. It is a relief to see some of the lost ranks come back again this month. DMMc has taken out rank 1 from chaz whilst new members Lagu and SlackPawn have found a niche for their AMD-64s and have shot up the ranks and will soon be putting some pressure on Ototero who is also on the march. The output was lower then the average, but the contest appears to be turning that around.
Grid Org - Rank 3,816 - improved by 74
In Grid Org we started the month at 895,301 and finished at 930,178. The change of 34,877 was lower than the 6 month average of 53,056.33 by -18,179.33 points.
I asked Ototero how things were going in Grid, with so much of the focus currently being elsewhere. "During the months of November 2004 to March 2005, we climbed 816 places." he said. "During the first 9 days of April, we've dropped 12 places." And he lamented "Lets hope this downward trend reverses soon". It has been difficult for us to generate interest from our AMD affiliated members in this project. I studied this a little while ago and found that there were a great many AMD owners crunching the project like blazes in a team called "AMD Zone". AMD Zone is a U.K. based PC magazine targetted at the AMD PC owners market and as a result of some articles they had captured almost all of the interest from affiliated AMD owners. This makes the job of our Grid Org team that much harder. However, whilst progress is slow, they have been steadily improving the rank positions now for 6 months straight. I am agog ! (What is agog? I don't know, but it seems that I am one :D )
Grub - Rank 23 - improved by 2
In Grub we started the month at 65,671,134 and finished at 76,904,634. The change of 11,233,500 was lower than the 6 month average of 12,817,439 by -1,583,939 points.
Empty_5oul reports that "grub is going steady, keep pushing and making up positions". The monthly production was down slightly whilst some of us took a look at Dimes and "kicked the tyres" so to speak. By the look of things we should be able to run them side by side. We are continuing to meet our targets here. Great effort.
LHC@Home - Rank 16 - improved by 4
In LHC@Home we started the month at 116,925 and finished at 136,279. The change of 19,354 was higher than the 6 month average of 19,241 by 113 points.
In the last summary we noted how the LHC Team were caught out somewhat when the project came back online late after the Christmas-New Year break. At that time we slipped 3 spots into 20th. However, it is a distinct pleasure to be able to report that the members of the LHC Team have done us proud sweeping up the 3 ranks that were lost and adding another rank to boot. Fantastic recovery there Team. Nicely done. DMMc maintains team rank 1 and is world rank 15.
Pirates@Home - Rank 5 - maintained rank
In Pirates@Home we started the month at 4,909.54 and finished at 6,957.17. The change of 2,047.63 was higher than the 6 month average of 1,159.53 by 888.1 points.
NeoGen reports that Pirates was planned to end in the Spring of 2005, by the time Einstein@Home would be open to public and in full production. We've reached April and the project seems even more active than in past months, which is good because that means more workunits for everyone. It is still a difficult project to get workunits for, but our Team has managed to maintain world rank 5 in spite of the difficulties and the fierce competition.
Predictor - Rank 42 - improved by 4
In Predictor we started the month at 82,345 and finished at 113,341. The change of 30,996 was higher than the 6 month average of 14,145.79 by 16,850.21 points.
"a very shaky project" says Empty_5oul, "but seems to have finally solved the majority of its problems. Again this is on BOINC but has been fine tuned with a improved website including a status monitor http://predictor.scripps.edu/ . they also completed a back log of work some up to 4 months old! A lot of points up for grabs and some easy positions but from its track record it has lost out with many of our team." Thanks for the follow up Empty_5oul. Perhaps the members will revisit along the way and find it more mature than their last visit. For those still working on it, well done! That makes three months of rank improvements in a row.
Project Gutenberg - Rank 129 - improved by 11
In Project Gutenberg we started the month at 1,322 and finished at 1,883. The change of 561 was higher than the 6 month average of 313.83 by 247.17 points.
Thanks to those of you who have spared some time on the Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreading project. PG is a little different to the other projects in that it requires direct human attention and interaction. This means time, mostly. AMDave sold his soul to the PG project for the month and made it into the top 500, learning a lot more about the project along the way. For the team this meant a nice rank increase. Most of the teams in this rank grouping have at least one dedicated DP'er so the team rankings change often.
Seti (BOINC) - Rank 426 - improved by 30
In Seti (BOINC) we started the month at 210,679 and finished at 250,580. The change of 39,901 was lower than the 6 month average of 40,765.17 by -864.17 points.
In spite of keeping in touch with several projects, KeithW1975 has rank 1. This is a hotly contested project and keeps the Active Members stats lit up like a christmas tree with member rank changes happening almost every day. This competitiveness is great for the Team and has resulted in continuous rank improvements every month over the last 6. If there was ever a coincidental correlation it is with the OGR-P2 and Seti BOINC ranks. There is nothing whatsoever to link these two, but the rank changes have been matched so closely that it shows up on clearly the charts. Brilliant effort Team. Absolutley brilliant.
Seti (Classic) - Rank 2,455 - slipped by 116
In Seti (Classic) we started the month at 53,168 and finished at 51,650. The change of -1,518 was lower than the 6 month average of 2,200.5 by -3,718.5 points.
During the month off March we had the pleasure of SB2's company. An accomplished Seti Classic runner, SB2's results boosted our rank placings in the project whilst he visited with us. SB2 has returned to his passion of mathematics projects, consequently our ranking has returned to its normal level. Nonetheless, there's still 6 or 7 members crunching here on average and the author was strangely pleased to be pushed down 2 team ranks during March. However, allowing for the major stats adjustment, we have actually slipped 15 ranks compared to the results 2 months ago.
TKC - Rank 50 - improved by 8
In TKC we started the month at 17,734,771 and finished at 23,737,269. The change of 6,002,498 was higher than the 6 month average of 3,956,211.5 by 2,046,286.5 points.
Empty_5oul noted that we hit rank 50 last month. It was interesting to see the boost that TKC got last month. Whilst not actually in the Spring Contest, many of the members of the WhatPulse team also run TKC, so TKC appears to have increased as a direct result as well.
TSC - Rank 26 - maintained rank
In TSC we started the month at 294,481 and finished at 304,396. The change of 9,915 was higher than the 6 month average of 6,389.17 by 3,525.83 points.
Vaughan brought us this update on TSC. "We dropped several places earlier this year but are maintaining our rank now at 27th. Jeff Langner, Vaughan, daddygeek, petrel_PT and hyperspace are continuing to crunch in this project. Steady work required and we will eventually pass Lithuania."
Ubero - Rank 3 - maintained rank
In Ubero we started the month at 2,239,525 and finished at 2,259,173. The change of 19,648 was lower than the 6 month average of 20,023.83 by -375.83 points.
The Uber Project, (or "old friend" as someone we know well calls it), might have finished, but the "bragging rights" tally is still going up. We see now that the output is dropping. Thanks for bringing the power to the other projects gentlemen.
WhatPulse - Rank 358 - improved by 152
In WhatPulse we started the month at 14,311,463 and finished at 23,798,062. The change of 9,486,599 was higher than the 6 month average of 3,966,343.67 by 5,520,255.33 points.
Empty_5oul reported that we passed another milestone in March bring Whatpulse into the sub-500 class. WhatPulse is another project that has benefited with a points increase through the Spring Contest in the last month. In fact it was our best performer in March. Among other additions, we welcomed gamer007 into the team bring existing work done into the tally and taking team rank 1 at the same time. Nice entrance :D
World Community Grid - Rank 21 - slipped by 3
In World Community Grid we started the month at 4,240,552 and finished at 5,347,885. The change of 1,107,333 was higher than the 6 month average of 891,314.17 by 216,018.83 points.
The WC Grid team continue to amaze me with increase after increase in their production. It was unfortunate that we were overtaken last month. But we can expect that the continuing membership increase will allow us to keep up the fight. Excellent job Team. Keep at 'em.
Zeta - Rank 31 - maintained rank
In Zeta we started the month at 2,011.5 and finished at 2,022.9. The change of 11.4 was lower than the 6 month average of 15.32 by -3.92 points.
Yes, Zeta still continues to accept work units. It has been some time since the project objectives were realised, but for some the interest is still there.
Here ends the summary. As you can see, there has been a lot of action in the last month. The Spring Contest is on. It is never too late to throw your hat in the ring. I can almost predict which projects are going to get pulled out of the hat for the Summer Contest in about 10 weeks time.
THE FORUM:
==========
The forum now has over 300 membership registrations, the 300th coming just after the end of the month.
AMD Users welcome member#300, JackindBox to our Forum from Team Ninja.
And here are some Forum Facts from spjeff69...
The website uses 415mb on the server.
We had 420635 hits and used 4.37 GB of bandwidth last month.
So far this year:
We had 1,096,941 hits and used 15.39 GB of bandwidth.
Over 4,000 people came from Google.
Operating Systems:
Windows: 1,007,195
Linux: 29,533
Macintosh: 2,801
Browsers:
IE: 3,577,949
Firefox: 267,891
Top Keyphrase from search engine hits:
amd fx 55
This is the big one...
Top keyword from search engine hits:
AMD
You can support the AMD Users Forum by clicking on the those ads. They really do contribute to keep it going.
THANKS:
=======
That concludes this month's newsletter. I'd like to thank Empty_5oul, Ototero, NeoGen, spjeff69 and vaughan for their help in putting this newsletter together .
Thanks to our admins, moderators, team founders, statsmen, affiliates and of course all of you, our members, who make this all possible.
Thank you all for another fabulous month!
AMDave.
Copyright 2005 - AMD Users Forum (http://www.amdusers.com).