IckesTheSane

To get it to run in dos box, you probably have to install it in dos box. Truthfully, I haven't really used it much, but I think there was a thread/tutorial on how to use it not too long ago. Another thing you could try is setting up a virtual PC. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx Pretty much, after you install the program, you start it up, and it is like you are booting another computer. Stick an older windows disk, like 98, and it will start to go through the installation process. That's the catch, is you need have the install disc whatever OS you want to run. But if you have a a 95/98 disc sitting around, or can find one, that might be something to look into. MS Virtual PC is free, by the way.

There was a good article at the Get Rich Slowly blog not to long ago: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/05/25/proper-care-and-feeding-of-your-credit-score/ The article has a little bit of "don't do anything dumb" information, but also some good information. It has links to some older articles that may have more general information about credit scores. Also, the forums there are very good, and filled with some very bright and knowledgeable people. Being almost 20, you're essentially at a point in you life where some good (or even just not bad) financial decisions will make your life easy. Similarly, bad financial decisions (like carrying big credit card debt) can screw you up for life. I would highly recommend reading over as much as his blog as you can: http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/ If you don't like his blog, read some of the ones that he links to.

There's definitely plenty of stuff out there that will do what you're trying to do, I think. What I think you're looking for, or at least a good place to start search-wise, is a Home Theater PC, or just HTPC. With the whole client/server thing, usually one computer is the server, and has the files actually saved on it. If it has a TV tuner card, it actually does the recording of the TV shows. The client end is what reads the files from the server, and displays them on your tv or computer monitor. The client/server can be running on the same machine (a single computer can do both parts), or be split up. For your example, usually the client will 'pull' the media off of the server, rather than using your laptop to 'push' it, if that makes sense. What you'll probably be able to do, is have the PC be the server, and use your xbox as the client, or Front-end. I've had pretty good luck with GBPVR. It's easy to figure out how to simply playback files you already have. Media Portal is also very highly regarded. Both of those are free, and for Windows, and I *think* they both have an xbox frontend; not sure, because I don't have an xbox. If you're familiar with Linux, MythTV is going to be the way to go. The only bad thing I've ever heard about it is that it runs on Linux; and that's only bad if you don't use Linux. Good luck!

I've had good luck with both AVG and Avira Antivir. Both have free flavors that work fine, and from the reviews I've seen are not the best, but still do very well in the ratings. They both are pretty lightweight when it comes to system resources, but the Avira update can be annoying; it leaves a pop-up box when it's done saying you should pay them money for the pro version. Yeah, stay away from Norton. Symantec is the company that owns Norton (or something like that), so it's really the same product. Don't pay to renew McAffee. I haven't had bad experiences with it, but there is just as good software for free elsewhere. No experience with NOD32, but I too have heard good things about it.

The PS3 client is available now, and it seems that it is pretty fast compared to standard CPU's; perhaps around 10x faster! There was a god article at www.dailytech.com recently: http://www.dailytech.com/PlayStation+3+Leads+All+at+Finding+Cancer+Cure/article6609.htm Quote from article: "According to the most recent Folding@home client statistics sorted by operating system, the PlayStation 3 leads all other platforms by a huge margin. The PS3 has 367 current TFLOPS, while the next closest is Windows with 151 TFLOPS and more than ten times more CPUs." The GPU client for some ATI cards seems even more impressive, with 700 GPU's providing 41 TFLOPS. One thing that was mentioned in the comments was that the standard CPU clients can be running on any 'clunker' of a computer, while the PS3 and ATI cards are all very new, so that may skew the average. I'm curious too: Anyone tried a PS3 or GPU client? Should work with ATI X1600, X1800, and X1900, last I checked.

I haven't checked the board or the video card, but all GDDR3 means is that it's DDR memory (I'm assuming you know what that means, ask if you don't) in it's third generation, and the G means graphic/graphical. Basically, it's the kind of memory on the video card itself, and doesn't matter what kind of system memory you have.

Wow, nope. The thought did cross my mind not too long after I posted it, though. I do have a question for you about the console version. Do you have to start it running everytime you restart the computer? Or is it more automatic like the graphic client? I think I messed around with it a little, but couldn't ever tell that it was running; the graphical one gave more feedback, so I went with that one... guess I'll mess around with it some more.

Very true. Even if all my computers stopped folding, it would take a while for eveyone to catch up... I was just trying to add some more computers because the bulk of my folding computers I no longer have control over. They were where I used to work, and could be turned off or have f@h uninstalled at any time, and I couldn't do anything about it. Fortunatly, the guy in charge there is less than observant and probably hasn't noticed the computers are on all the time. That, and the other guy I worked with think folding's dumb, but humors me and leaves the cpu's running Wow. That's pretty significant for a couple of those projects. Now we just need a multi-threaded version of the f@h app to make use of the new multi-core chips. My main PC never get above 50% when it's only folding... all in good time, I suppose. Also, check this out about using your video card to fold. They actually released a beta for ATI X1900 and X1950 cards. I'd be interested if anyone on our team has any of those and how they do.

It's not all about the number of frames, but how long it takes to fold each one. You can get a 20k frams WU that will take 8-9 seconds for each frame, and a 500 frame WU that will take several minutes for each frame on the same CPU. Probably has something to do with the complexity of the protein, but that just speculation on my part. Welcome to all our new members! I also added my parents computer to my army last weekend to make sure you young whippersnappers don't take over my first place

Well, maybe in a year or so, after I get comfortable at the job..... or start to hate it and wouldn't mind getting fired That, and in the meantime I have to figure out how to put stuff on them.... I mean, there's no keyboards or monitors or anything... what good are they? Who can use a computer like that? And if they're usless, why do we have so many of them?

Would it be worth it to create another forum page just for OCR teams? There's our folding team, and it periodically pops up with teams for games and such,: Team OCRemix [Halo2 Clan] That was just the one I happened to find first, but I know there are more... Just thinking it might be better the having a ton of stickes at the top of the page... I also added my computer at work, but sadly it is about a 500MHz CPU, so it's hardly going to be cranking out the WU's... There are some other computers around, and quite a nice server room, but I think they have more important things to be doing...

Well, I don't know that I can recruit any actual people, but I am starting a new job tomorrow and may be able to get a few computers there folding, but we'll have to see... The computers I'm using at my current job (technically 3, but one is super slow and isn't on much) will still be folding, but I don't know how much they'll stay on, or if the folding program will be removed. Oh, I did have a question to ask. Does the folding program disable the screen saver for anyone else? On my new computer at home the screen saver never comes on while it's working on a WU. Once it's done, before I connect to get a new packet (dial-up), the screen saver has come on then... any thoughts? The screen saver is just a generic windows screen saver, not the folding one.

For anyone thinking about getting a PS3, you might be able to fold on it. There's also some comments about folding using GPU's, though it looks like only ATI. I was checking out a tech forum that had a folding team and read a few of their threads (spying on the enemy, I suppose). One thing that was mentioned was that they had stopped issuing, or had run out, of 'deadlineless' work packets. I have one computer that is set up to do the deadlineless work packets since it's a little slow, and it has been unable to download any new WU's. It's an easy option to change in the configure menu, under advanced, at the bottom. Might fix it for you, if you're still having problems.

Yeah, I ran BOINC for a little bit before I joined this one. I did like how it made it easier to manage multiple projects, but there were still a few things that bugged me about it. I think they should have made it where you joined BOINC, and then worked on whatever projects you like, instead of having to register with every individual project... Should have been more like an all you can eat buffet, instead of a food court, if you can figure that analogy out I guess my other complaint is along those same lines... there wasn't any way to have a team do multiple projects, you created a team for each project... While I was looking around the Folding site, I found a thread that said they were considering moving to the BOINC client, but the thread was old, from '04 I think, so I wouldn't hold my breath... and bump.

Well, my new computer is stable, and it turned in its first WU this past weekend! We're closing on the top 800, and I've nearly done 200 WU's!

I just built a nice new computer for myself at home. Dual core and whatnot Once I get some stability issues resolved, it'll be folding away! Though, not all the time, since I have to pay the electric bill...

I think all you need is your original user name. However, any work that you did for another team (or no team) can't be added to a new team that you join (ours, I'm assuming ). So to get back all your original stats, you have to join the same team. (I think that's how it works.. might be worth a cruise through the FAQ's) If it was uninstalled form your computer, or you're installing it on a new computer, it won't update those offline stats. When you open up the program display it shows your name, team number, work units completed, etc. That work units completed is only the work units that that computer has done. For example, when I open it up on my current computer, it says I have done 60 WU's, but my online stats are 180. The remaining WU's were done by a different computer (or three )

It only takes up bandwidth when you download or 'turn in' a project. Most of the time the program just sits there computing and doesn't use any bandwidth. First, you have to download the program (less than half a MB), then once it's running it download what's called a core; a small chunk of data that's usually less than 5 MB's. When it's done computing, it uploads the results. I don't know how big the result is, but it never takes very long on my dial up connection (less than a minute). The program is only CPU intensive, and really does not take up much HDD space or RAM (currently its 20MB of RAM on this computer). It's nice though, because FAH gives itself the lowest priority possible in Windows (you can bump it up, if you like) which means that if you're doing anything else, it gets full priority until it's done. When it says it uses spare CPU cycles, it really ONLY uses those spare or unused cycles. Give it a try, and if you don't like it, uninstall it. Also, it gives you an estimate of how long it will take until the unit is done. It will take a little bit to get an accurate measurement of your machine, so it may say something like several hundred days; just be patient and it will come down. It should be around a day or two to a week, depending on your CPU's speed and how much you leave your computer on.

Any changes to your firewall? Maybe its being blocked now? Try uninstalling and reinstalling it? I dunno... just some thoughts

You can have a chance to catch up this weekend if you can get connected... there was a thunderstorm as I was leaving work today, so we had to turn off the 3 computers I had running it.. they won't be back on til monday morning. I just checked, and it says we're in the top 1,000 teams, 998 to be specific, so now its official!

Ok, I've just got a few questions for LionTamer, or whoever else has a good answer... I was thinking of making a few avatars from some old old IBM PC Jr. games (like a Commadore, but different). In particular, Jumpman and Kings Quest... So three questions. I know the picture has to be 32x32, but can it be smaller? one picture I have is 31x12, would it work to 'turn it in' like that? Also, being that old, if the references are to obscure, would they still become avatars? And finally, anything from a system that old is going to look grainy unless it was totally redone (which I think looses some of its character).. would they be rejected because they're grainy/pixelated? Thanks in advance! LT: 1. Pictures can be smaller. I'd prefer they were generally square/rectangular, even if smaller than 32x32, but I'd have to see the image you're thinking of just to be sure. 2. Obscurity isn't too much of a factor as long as the image looks appealing and it's from a game. If it's not from a game, obscurity hurts the chances. 3. Well, it really all depends on how the images look. If they're not appealing, I'm just not gonna take 'em. There were some old icons of Windows games like Solitare and whatever that I rejected for that reason. You might not have seen me mention way back, but I was asking for someone to get an image of Munch-Munch from Number Munchers for the Apple IIe. If that's not simple, I dunno what is. So, repeating myself, it's all in how the image looks. Post what you have and I'll give you my honest opinion. Edit: Awesome, thanks! I'll hopefully be able to get something up before too long, though I'm hardly a Photoshop / Gimp expert so it might not be too soon. and Still need to crop them down, and make the background transparent, but those are the images I was going to get them from. Transparency test: LT: First one could be a go, if you actually get the transparency working on it. The second one looks like nothing; it's too abstract! EDIT: Now that you have the transparency working though, the image seems no good unfortunately. The skin color is so light that it blends too much with the background, making the image hard to see.

100 WU's! yay! and bump.

2 million and 50 million frames? I must have glanced over a few zeros... or 5 ... I never looked very closely at them...anyway, it finished the WU, so I don't know how much it actually was... ahh well, does it really matter?

So one of my computers downloaded a new WU yesterday that is 50,000 frames It's only 8-10 seconds a frame, but it's still going to take about 5 days to finish. The largest I've seen before was 20k. Anyone else ever gotten one that big? Majin, might be a chance to get closer to the lead. (until I turn the results in anyway )

Hehe, you and I are just going back and forth for 2nd and 3rd. I'm adding a new PC soon, as soon as the motherboard gets delivered, which should be early this week. Nothing fancy, just an Athlon XP 2800+. My score would be a bit higher, but my P3 system was out of commission for a couple days . Really, I'm surprised I've been in the lead this long. I have three solid computers at work that stay on all the time (well, because I leave them on ) and a 1Ghz laptop at home that's only on in the evening... Majin, I think you've pretty consistently been about 3,000 points behind me; you'll probably take the lead once you got that Athlon going. I'm also looking for a new job, and once I do, good bye three computers But then I'll be making enough money to build a screamer at home