AMDusers Internet stats

[Lagu]

I have searched after AMDusers on Internet because I was curious what was out there. I found a site as show the Internet hits and we have got down. Click on this link and watch the page. There is some statistic such where peoples is looking. 2% watch the stats and 98% our forum. I think it is bad we have got down in the stats. But it is no surprise. We all have for sure discovered a reduction of how frequently we use our forum. But even visitors must have decreased.

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/amdusers.com (http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/amdusers.com)

If you click on this link from Dec 22 2003 you can see how our homepage looked like. We had that time 88 members!

http://web.archive.org/web/20031228035911/http://www.amdusers.com/ (http://web.archive.org/web/20031228035911/http:/www.amdusers.com/)

When we had our old homepage we could watch the Internet stats month by month but not now I think.

[Steve Lux]

We have seen some pretty good and board active crunchers (Mitro and Opteron initially come to mind) leave us for some reason - no doubt there are many more.

[Brucifer]

Well here goes... :)

I do not believe that the problem is just here alone. If you go out gandering at the other team boards the one recurring theme you keep seeing is that of team membership. People leave for many reasons, but one that I've heard repeated to me by people that have left is that they resent being pushed into projects that they really either don't want to crunch, or just purely aren't interested in. I guess it just boils down to like in real life where people have their own agendas for one reason or another. And rather than get into a pi$$ing contest with others, it is just easier for them to keep their mouth shut and leave. That is one of *the* major points with Free-DC, people being able to crunch what they wanted, whether it was with FDC or another team, or any project. And every now and then, you will see posted in their threads on projects where some members have become a little too exuberant in their enthusiasm for a certain project and the *recommendations* of crunching it to mentioned members, that a team member jumps right in and reminds everyone that the members are free to crunch what they want and aren't to be pressured. And it's a fine line, cause everyone is different in this world, and what is meant as good natured fun to one person can easily be interpreted as being hassled to another person. And not to say that FDC is problem free, cause also in their forums you see comments in threads popping up regarding they need new members. So dwindling membership is definitely not a unique thing to this team, cause it's happening all over really.

I have noticed though that some of the larger teams are centered around something that provides avenues for stuff besides just crunching. XtremeSystems, BroadbandReports, and ARS for instance have pretty stong boards that deal with some hard core hardware support and associated items, and also have some support from a commercial end of things in one way or another. Then there are teams like Team Norway, DPC, some Russian, German, UK and Aussie ones that have some national pride basis wrapped into their membership and team spirit thing. The point being here that all those mentioned teams have something besides just crunching to maintain the team members interests. Crunching stuff along doesn't give much food for thought so to speak after a while cause things tend to be talking about the same old thing over and over. Go take a peek at XtremeSystems for instance, take a look at the whole spectrum of their board forums/threads. You will notice that the volume of message/posting traffic is much higher in their non-DC teams stuff than in just their crunching threads. In fact their crunching threads are fairly sparse and boring.

I am currently going through another one of those unenthusiastic about crunching periods that I think we all get into from time to time. It's an expensive hobby, but it's also a hobby that needs some other stuff to keep the activity interest going team wise, to help maintain interest in communicating and posting with others. The social aspect of DC teams can't be forgotten, because without it, the teams whither and die in a hurry.

Another thing to notice with the large teams is that they aren't "owned" by anyone. They are highly organized with a specific set of rules and behaviors that are strictly enforced to keep the recurring problematic issues from surfacing or resurfacing and causing dissension among members.

Just some thoughts that have floated through the brain while sitting here typing away. :icon_mrgreen:

[Frederic Brillouet]

Well here goes... :)

I do not believe that the problem is just here alone. If you go out gandering at the other team boards the one recurring theme you keep seeing is that of team membership. People leave for many reasons, but one that I've heard repeated to me by people that have left is that they resent being pushed into projects that they really either don't want to crunch, or just purely aren't interested in. I guess it just boils down to like in real life where people have their own agendas for one reason or another. And rather than get into a pi$$ing contest with others, it is just easier for them to keep their mouth shut and leave. That is one of *the* major points with Free-DC, people being able to crunch what they wanted, whether it was with FDC or another team, or any project. And every now and then, you will see posted in their threads on projects where some members have become a little too exuberant in their enthusiasm for a certain project and the *recommendations* of crunching it to mentioned members, that a team member jumps right in and reminds everyone that the members are free to crunch what they want and aren't to be pressured. And it's a fine line, cause everyone is different in this world, and what is meant as good natured fun to one person can easily be interpreted as being hassled to another person. And not to say that FDC is problem free, cause also in their forums you see comments in threads popping up regarding they need new members. So dwindling membership is definitely not a unique thing to this team, cause it's happening all over really.

I have noticed though that some of the larger teams are centered around something that provides avenues for stuff besides just crunching. XtremeSystems, BroadbandReports, and ARS for instance have pretty stong boards that deal with some hard core hardware support and associated items, and also have some support from a commercial end of things in one way or another. Then there are teams like Team Norway, DPC, some Russian, German, UK and Aussie ones that have some national pride basis wrapped into their membership and team spirit thing. The point being here that all those mentioned teams have something besides just crunching to maintain the team members interests. Crunching stuff along doesn't give much food for thought so to speak after a while cause things tend to be talking about the same old thing over and over. Go take a peek at XtremeSystems for instance, take a look at the whole spectrum of their board forums/threads. You will notice that the volume of message/posting traffic is much higher in their non-DC teams stuff than in just their crunching threads. In fact their crunching threads are fairly sparse and boring.

I am currently going through another one of those unenthusiastic about crunching periods that I think we all get into from time to time. It's an expensive hobby, but it's also a hobby that needs some other stuff to keep the activity interest going team wise, to help maintain interest in communicating and posting with others. The social aspect of DC teams can't be forgotten, because without it, the teams whither and die in a hurry.

Another thing to notice with the large teams is that they aren't "owned" by anyone. They are highly organized with a specific set of rules and behaviors that are strictly enforced to keep the recurring problematic issues from surfacing or resurfacing and causing dissension among members.

Just some thoughts that have floated through the brain while sitting here typing away. :icon_mrgreen:
cant be f'ed reading all of it, but I never heard of our team pushing people to participate in projects. anyway, I ike it here (completely irrelevant of course, but still)

[moderna]

This team is hardware based in its orientation. I wonder how the hit stats would look against the prominence of AMD as the leader in the CPU wars.

[Brucifer]

cant be f'ed reading all of it, but I never heard of our team pushing people to participate in projects. anyway, I ike it here (completely irrelevant of course, but still)

Like I said, it's easier to just not say anything than post offering comments or suggestions rather than get into sessions. Lagu was just wondering why people were leaving. Sorry I mentioned anything.

[Frederic Brillouet]

Like I said, it's easier to just not say anything than post offering comments or suggestions rather than get into sessions. Lagu was just wondering why people were leaving. Sorry I mentioned anything.
Bruce I'm not blaiming anyone. I'm just not having the best days of my life at the moment. Chill.

[Steve Lux]

Brucifer made a few good points. There are quite a few projects that I'm simply not interested in. If I don't see any human or scientific value in a project, well, I simply don't care about it. Even when we have a Team push I'm only half hearted about my contribution if the project seems to have little human or scientific value. If the team simply jumps from project to project then resources are taken from another project and then the first project will lose production and will have to be made up later. I tend to wonder what was gained. I'm not saying to stop the team pushes, it's just that not all of us may be interested in any particular project - just as I have noticed that not everyone is interested in the projects that I support. While I suppose it's natural that I'd want many others to have the same values that I do, it's become obvious to me that such an expectation is unrealistic. In the end what is important is that we are all contributing to what we think is important in our own way, and the team benefits from our unique efforts.

Another point Brucifer made is the one about having strong topics other than crunching. Personally I'd like to see more overclocking hints and advice without having to go to another team site to get information. This is one thing that I miss Mitro for, but it takes more than just a few people interested in a topic to keep it alive. Myself, I don't know enough about overclocking to attempt it without worrying about frying one of my few crunching resources. Thermal transferance and heat dissipation I can handle, the actual five dozen memory, clock and other settings and the tools to perform such are where I have little knowledge. While I cannot afford to go out and purchase the components to build a new system every month, I would be interested in learning how to squeeze some additional WU's from the systems I do have.

A last thing... AMD is presently getting it's CPU and GPU tails handed back to them by Intel and Invidia. It's always a difficult thing when your home team is being pummled, whether from the outside or the inside - or both. However, in the longer-term I think that the AMD/ATI combo can eventually lead to an integrated system that can exceed the the singular efforts of either.

[Frederic Brillouet]

I do agree we could use some other small talk or things besides crunching alone indeed. The short stories and the humor section sparks life, yet those alone are not sufficient to sustain a forum life. The Chat is an awesome tool for chit chat and stuff though. But indeed some (ex-)members used to bring some life here, yet I wouldnt want to live a day without Nflight's companionship, Ototero's stats, Lagu's humor, Vaughan's trips, Poorboy's continuous steam rolling force, Bender10's bbq'ing stories, Beerknurd's ehh Beerknurdness and all the other things our other team members do!

[PoorBoy]

Poorboy's continuous steam rolling force

Lead, Follow, or get the Hell out of the way is my Contribution to the Team I guess ... :icon_lol: ... Don't Post too much but I do monitor the Forum Board quite often to at least keep up with any new things going on with the Team.

I don't do Chat Rooms either mainly because I like to think first then Type my response and by the time I do that nobody knows what the heck I'm talking about anyway ... :icon_rolleyes:

[Lagu]

Guys

It must have been a misunderstanding. What I said was there has been a little decreace of how frequent we members are posting or use our forums. I have never said anything about lost of members. We all know the more members as join our forum the more active our forum will be. One other thing was I wanted to chow our hits on Internet nothing more. I’m sorry if any of you interpret my message different. :)

[Steve Lux]

No problems Lagu. We are simply discussing what has changed and how we can improve.

[Lagu]

That´s good Steve Lux.:icon_thumright: All ideas is appriciated. I too miss a member as have a lot of knowledge as he can chare with us. We have had 2 good members but unfortunately both leave us and both times it was a trifle. They both was very sensible. It is difficult when we not really knov each other to well.

Our forum will be more attractive if we can discuss various things and got helpful answers. It is a problem when members are forced use other forums to get knowhows but I can understand that.:icon_wink:

[gatekeeper53]

I think that what you might be seeing is the period that we were in the race for Pi Segment. I have a feeling that our stats had a serious spike during that and that if you check to either side of that period you will find that our forum has had a slow and steady growth. As you will remember we had many people posting several times a day and not from just our team. There were people from other teams and even project admins that joined and posted during that time.

[Lagu]

Yes, your observation can be right. It could be a period of great interest due to a special event.:icon_wink:

[Nflight]

I actually have been following this thread since its inception. I like what everybody is saying and can agree with a large percentage. I went searching the web looking for answers as to what forums offer what compared to our forum and what works for us. There are a lot of forums out there in the DC forum area. A lot more Forums at the fringes of what you might call interested parties, and 10's of millions of gabby people all around the world chatting about everything. What makes this place special is by no means explainable, in any simple language terminology.

I have made many friends around this globe all because of this site, I have many more friends through my work, but thats work! My friendships here have strengthened into ever evolving helpful benefits. I reach out to the people of this team in not just pm's to each other but through email, and to a very few direct contact on the phone. We are spread out over a wide berth of territory and therefore making direct person to person contact can be difficult.

Many different people express there pleasures and displeasures daily, some of us retort quickly and angrily when irritated, others take it with a grain of sand. As many have found out I am a animal lover and am irritated by spiteful death of the animal world. Sure I eat meat of all kinds, It just isn't macho to kill something only 1/20th our size!

On the forums like Steve Lux quoted I too miss some of the real Over Clockers and truly appreciate those of us who explain some of the details. People really do come here to learn how to over clock on AMD users, and all I hear about is that one complete explanation from Mitro, yes I miss him. He has left our team now more then 16 months ago. NO one has stepped up to discuss OCing with AMD processors. I would love to read about, and be proud of, anyone who would step up and help the world see that AMD's rule and why! I am not a real Hardware knowledgeable Computer geek, I admit I am not into that realm as much as others.

I must admit something I really have been trying to perfect my skills as a leader/management type. I have been encouraging others to continue there points value climbs and giving them a thrill to know that the Team really does care by announcing to the world that they have achieved another goal, for themselves and at the same time for the team effort. I do not do it for self acclamation I do it because people want to see they are appreciated. You tell someone they are worth great things and they will walk on water for you if you ask them. I just felt in the last year to try and be civil most of the time - except when I am online in FlashChat intoxicated. You people make this world a lot nicer when we put our minds together and accomplish remarks from other teams as to our output being overwhelming like in Cosmology.

We can do Great Things Team.

[Danish Dynamite]

i guess since i am only new here i shouldn't really make a post about this however i do find that the forum is a little slow

as for over clocking some of the site that are about o/c'ing that i go to are a little thin on this topics as well but amd has come up with amd over drive which will let you oc (auto clock) your comp as long as in has a phenom in it and all you have to do is slide a slider or let it do its own thing as for doing it manually memory settings page is a little scary lol

heres a link to memory settings page (http://s117.photobucket.com/albums/o75/yuchup/?action=view&current=memtiming.jpg) from AMD overdrive

[Brucifer]

I don't know about internet usage over this weekend, but posting wise this has sure been a dead weekend! Everybody take a trip to Shanghai or something? :icon_mrgreen:

[vaughan]

B:- Busy with RL, sorry.

DD:- Do you know how the black edition Phenom 9600 compares to other quads? Have you seen any comparisons? Have any new AM2+ motherboards come out yet that are TRULY compatible with the Phenom quad?

[Lagu]

I don't know about internet usage over this weekend, but posting wise this has sure been a dead weekend! Everybody take a trip to Shanghai or something? :icon_mrgreen:

Yes, Brucifer, I did notice that. When I checked our homepage yesterday it was only 2 new messages there. It must have been the lowest posting since AMDusers was created.
Yes perhaps peoples had ben there and missed the flight?:icon_wink::)

[Brucifer]

Yep, was a really strange one. I was beginning to think that maybe the *real* forum had been moved or something.............. and I had missed it. :new_sleeping:

[Steve Lux]

I was else-wise entertained. My eldest son introduced me to WoW. Kinda fun, but I don't know if thats how I want to spend my time.

[Brucifer]

So what's WoW......... not that I'm totally clueless.............. :icon_wink:

[Steve Lux]

World of Warcraft. The world's largest online game.

[Brucifer]

ah so..... thanks. :icon_mrgreen: I guess if I was a gamer I'd have known that. :)

[drezha]

Eve Online is more to my taste ;)

[Steve Lux]

ah so..... thanks. :icon_mrgreen: I guess if I was a gamer I'd have known that. :)

I don't game much myself any more - at least I hadn't been for years. But as a parent sometimes we need to go where our kids are to be a part of their lives - if spending your hours slaughtering Moonkin and other mean kritters can be called a "life".

[vaughan]

I don't game much myself any more ...
Same here Steve. I have been "promoted" to LAN manager also known as the guy who fixes the hardware for the LAN party. Multi-tasking is also a prerequisite for this role as it includes cooking and waitering functions too. :icon_wink:

[gamer007]

Eve Online is more to my taste ;)

EVE Online is coming to Steam
(http://steampowered.com/) and I'm curious to trying the 21 day trial they're giving away for all Steam users. :)

How's the game?

[Frederic Brillouet]

So what's WoW......... not that I'm totally clueless.............. :icon_wink:
WoW is the thing you say when you look at PoorBoy deploying his pharm :icon_lol:

[Steve Lux]

Same here Steve. I have been "promoted" to LAN manager also known as the guy who fixes the hardware for the LAN party. Multi-tasking is also a prerequisite for this role as it includes cooking and waitering functions too. :icon_wink:

Back in '88 I started playing GemStone II, then GemStone III and later GemStone IV (Owned by Simutronics - you can find them at http://www.play.net/). I started working for Simutronics around '92 - helping to write the game code. I worked for them for six years (as GameMaster Romulus) developing background system maintenance, load balancing and system auto-recovery assistance utilities. I developed their first GSL-based creature auto generation and outfitting utilities and I developed the first tools for storing, manipulating and sorting data in 3-D cells - and I was their Sorcery class guru/developer for the last few years. The coding and development was far more fun than the playing, until the politics and other issues got between me and my doing a good job.

To be blunt; the pay was dismal. A couple hundred $$ per month for 150 - 200 hours work each month. Coding was, for me, more about the opportunity to learn and see what I could do with the code. When it got to where I had to answer for every single thing I did and to clear everything through a list of approvers I decided it was time for me to move on. I don't work well with a politically-correct big brother breathing down my back.

[Brucifer]

They aren't the only place though that let the politics basically shoot the goose that laid the golden egg. Seems to be an all to common problem anymore.

[Beerknurd]

I don't know about internet usage over this weekend, but posting wise this has sure been a dead weekend! Everybody take a trip to Shanghai or something? :icon_mrgreen:

Well I was in Austin, TX all weekend, so that will explain the lack of meaningless posts I normally leave while sitting at home on the weekends doing nothing... :icon_mrgreen:

[Dee]

I don't think you should all beat yourselves up about fluctuations in forum usage...I think it comes with the territory! If I don't come back very often it's either because my pc is going well...or it's not!:icon_twisted:

I came here because of the Weather project, which I believed in, and found easy to get started, but a bit of a PITA to finish!

I am willing to join more projects, but have not found a Janet &John reader to get me safely attached to one...and it's taken me this long to say so!:icon_redface:
Also had router problems....which you guys helped me sort out! (Ta!)

One of the other reasons I come back is that you guys make me feel at home...don't talk down to me, even though I am often lost in the finer details of computing! I have used one for a long time, and obviously picked up quite a lot...strictly on a 'need to know' basis...but some of you will have guessed that already? Yes? No, really guys...I know I'm not the most clued up...but then, lots of you couldn't have done what I did!:icon_razz:

So...yes...my visits are sporadic...but that's probably a good thing!:icon_lol: But you are building the reputation for welcoming all comers...regardless of PC knowledge....so the fluctuations will lessen! It doesn't matter what business you're in...fluctuations are a way of life...don't worry!

[Nflight]

I don't think you should all beat yourselves up about fluctuations in forum usage...I think it comes with the territory! If I don't come back very often it's either because my pc is going well...or it's not!:icon_twisted:

I came here because of the Weather project, which I believed in, and found easy to get started, but a bit of a PITA to finish!

I am willing to join more projects, but have not found a Janet & John reader to get me safely attached to one...and it's taken me this long to say so!:icon_redface:
Also had router problems....which you guys helped me sort out! (Ta!)

One of the other reasons I come back is that you guys make me feel at home...don't talk down to me, even though I am often lost in the finer details of computing!

So...yes...my visits are sporadic...but that's probably a good thing!:icon_lol: But you are building the reputation for welcoming all comers...regardless of PC knowledge....so the fluctuations will lessen! It doesn't matter what business you're in...fluctuations are a way of life...don't worry!


I highlighted the best things Dee pointed out in BOLD. Thank you for the kind words, There are many of us who can help you attach to another project in any Operating System you run. Let us lead you to another challenging adventure in crunching work units using your computer. Tell us what your desire would be, and we will walk you through step by step.

Again Thank You for the kind words Dee. :)

[Dee]

:icon_wink: You could come to regret these words!
Tell us what your desire would be, and we will walk you through step by step.

OK...I have family illness, Mum's having another batch of RT soon, which means short projects for the time being...and my background leans me towards the medically based projects...and I only have one computer hooked up at the moment...what do you recommend?:icon_wink:

[vaio]

Hi Dee :)

Not a member of your team but may I recommend Poem@home.
Is a promising little project with reliable servers etc.

AMD Users has a team already so just a case of attaching to the project in boinc manager and then joining your team.

If you like work with short work units may I suggest Malaria Control?

Of course there are other choices-I am sure your team mates will guide you well :)

[vaughan]

Dee, the Medical Projects are all in our Forum with links on how to get to them with most (all?) having instructions on set-up, joining AMD Users team etc. If you get stuck ask us a question or three. :icon_wink:

Non-BOINC:
D2OL Searches for cures for human diseases like Malaria, Anthrax, SARS, Smallpox and Ebola using the Sengent software

and

TSC Searches for a cure for children with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex, a genetic disorder that leads to benign tumors in multiple organs using the Sengent software

Folding@Home Analysis of protein folding and conformational change in the tertiary structure of proteins. This runs very well on the Sony PS3 console and can also be run on some graphics (video) cards as well as your standard PC

BOINC:
World Community Grid
A Distributed effort in several areas. 1. Fight AIDS at Home 2. Human Proteome project 3. Muscular Dystrophy 4. Genome Comparison 5. Help Defeat Cancer

Malaria Control.Net
The MalariaControl.net project computes stochastic modelling of the clinical epidemiology and history of Plasmodium falciparum malaria

Poem@Home
POEM@HOME is a research project that uses Internet-connected computers to research and predict protein structure

Rosetta@Home
Protein folding, design and docking

SIMAP
SIMAP - SImilarity MAtrix of Proteins - is a database of protein similarities that are computed using the FASTA algorithm which provides optimal speed and sensitivity. Has work occasionally, usually near the end or beginning of each month.

Spinhenge@Home
Support the research of nano-magnetic molecules. In the future these molecules will be used in local tumor chemotherapy and to develop tiny memory-modules

Superlink@Technion
Superlink@Technion helps geneticists all over the world find disease-provoking genes causing some types of diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), cancer, schizophrenia and many others. This project has very short tasks - a few minutes each. :)

Tanpaku
Protein folding project from the Tokyo University of Science. We were recently bumped from 2nd to 3rd placed team in the world in this project by Ars Technica, one of our friendly rival teams. :icon_neutral: