Oh my aching wallet!

[Maxwell]

Max why not Pirates? How could you skip it?

http://pirates.spy-hill.net/ work is rare and sporadic that if your not connected to it you might miss the whole set before its posted to the board. As a MM I would think that would be on top because the only way to get an MM in it is to crunch it for Years. Its also a low resource credit.

You're right. Pirates falls off my radar some times since I've been crunching it for 2 years and still only have 7k. But yes - always be attached to pirates. It never hurts...

And I agree with CBS.

[Crazybob]

That is one sweet card! Go for the gold!

[spingadus]

You want to help us at PrimeGrid? Oh you are my new hero!

I have been building up my systems for the June 20th PG challenge. Hope to see you there!

http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/challenge.php

Sorry for the late response, busy day.

Yes! I finally decided to join a team because I didn't just want to build credits, I wanted direction and to be part of something. I'll help in any way I can.

But, I"m going on a geology field trip for a couple of weeks during that time. I don't think I could leave my machines on during that time without supervision. I could have someone I know do it for me though. Is it as simple as having my machines setup to crunch PG at that date? Or do I need to be around?

[spingadus]

You have me so excited now...

Maxwell's intro to MM chasing: Get on the list.
What do I mean by that? Well, in order to keep the size of the tables down, there is a set minimum number of milestones you need to attain in order to show up on the list. Once you reach that minimum, your rank will show up on the "Mega Milestone" table on your stats page on Free-DC. My first goal when I was starting was just to get on the list.

You have four 250k projects, and the minimum there to make the list is 4. Yay! Congrats! You're close on several others, too.

Strategies:
- Disable CPU crunching on any project that has a good GPU app. No sense using the CPU for something the GPU could knock out in a few minutes. (DNETC, PG, MW, Moo, SETI, SETIbeta).
- FreeHAL: I see you're on it, make sure you have 1 WU/core (NCI) checked, and credits will trickle in. It's awesome.
- WUProp: Always run this. Free credits.

I'll stop talking now. If you want more MM chaser strategery, let me know. And if you want to truly be a badass, add the suffix "[MM]" to your name on every project (brackets included, quotes are not). That will get you to show up on this stats page.

Wow, nice info. There should be a strategy section of the forum for MM with this as a sticky. I'm going to make the changes you mentioned.

Some concerns:

1) Is there a way to change my name all at once or do I need to actually go to each project one by one.
2) I use boincstats currently to manage my projects. Is Free-DC basically the same thing? and do I need to use that instead?
3) Is there a list of which projects I should be running first, once I slim down my active project list? Perhaps some of the projects are at the end of their lifecycle and I should get on those first?

Anyways, great info.

/sping

[joker]

Are you corrupting our youth again Max!?!

[zombie67]

1) Is there a way to change my name all at once or do I need to actually go to each project one by one.

They have to be changed individually at each project. But you have it pretty easy compare to some of us...

2) I use boincstats currently to manage my projects. Is Free-DC basically the same thing? and do I need to use that instead?

What do you mean exactly? You use BOINCstats to monitor your credits? Or you use BAM to manage projects? Free-DC is a stats site (the best!), but it does not have an account manager. So I use BAM for managing projects, and Free-DC for monitoring stats.

[spingadus]

They have to be changed individually at each project. But you have it pretty easy compare to some of us...

So true

What do you mean exactly? You use BOINCstats to monitor your credits? Or you use BAM to manage projects? Free-DC is a stats site (the best!), but it does not have an account manager. So I use BAM for managing projects, and Free-DC for monitoring stats.

Yes, that's what I meant BAM! and you answered my question, thanks.

[spingadus]

- Disable CPU crunching on any project that has a good GPU app. No sense using the CPU for something the GPU could knock out in a few minutes. (DNETC, PG, MW, Moo, SETI, SETIbeta).

Changed... except for PG. I like the idea of getting badges, so I want to keep running the LLR stuff. Sharing the gpu with projects other than PG will lessen my credit output for the team, but I guess there is no way around that.

- FreeHAL: I see you're on it, make sure you have 1 WU/core (NCI) checked, and credits will trickle in. It's awesome.

Hmm, apparently FreeHAL only has '1 WU/core' settings for home/work/school. My main box is using the 'default' preference for all my projects. Will need to change that.

[Fire$torm]

Sorry for the late response, busy day.

Yes! I finally decided to join a team because I didn't just want to build credits, I wanted direction and to be part of something. I'll help in any way I can.

But, I"m going on a geology field trip for a couple of weeks during that time. I don't think I could leave my machines on during that time without supervision. I could have someone I know do it for me though. Is it as simple as having my machines setup to crunch PG at that date? Or do I need to be around?

There are several ways to administrate your systems.
BAM: BOINC Account Manager (BAM) is a fairly useful method of managing one or more systems running BOINC. There is no direct connection to a users computer with BAM. Everything is done via the BAM website. For me the two biggest issues using BAM are

*The more systems you need to manage with BAM the more convoluted it becomes since to fully manage even one system requires moving between several web pages.

*Any changes made on the website are not immediately realized on the managed system(s) until the next time it/they are scheduled to contact the BAM website.

BOINC Manager(s): All BOINC account manager apps use the RPC network protocol for communicating with the BOINC Daemon a.k.a. Boinc.exe. The major concern is that RPC is a very insecure protocol which makes any system connected to the internet with it vulnerable. There are methods to make it more secure like "wrapping" the RPC connection in a VPN Tunnel or some other Tunneling Protocol.

VNC: Virtual Network Connection (VNC) is an established method for controlling a PC remotely. There are many different versions available. Some have a free license for use and others are commercial and require payment for use. Unfortunately VNC shares the same vulnerability as a BOINC manager, RPC. Most VNC apps have incorporated some form of security but can be problematic to implement. Some of the more popular VNC apps include TeamViewer and UltraVNC among others.

[spingadus]

Administering my meager farm of 2 machines has been relatively simple so far and boincstats BAM is pretty effortless. All of my machines are going to be at my home, so that makes it easier on me. I plan on using a combination of vnc and ssh in a mix of windows and linux (cuz it's free!).

The point I was trying to make about being on vacation was that the only way I can add my machines to the competition would be to let a friend or family come in and turn my boxes on for that duration. I will be incommunicado with no connectivity to my home network at all.

I'm not setup yet to allow for 24/7 running due to the summer heat unfortunately. I was going to either try a separately AC'd room or the garage. Not sure yet. When I crunched in the past, I just left a bunch of machines at work where it was nice and cool. Doing this at home takes a lot more planning. It makes me feel like such a newb.