http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html news and updates for public distributed computing projects en-us Thu, 27 Oct 2005 06:36:17 GMT kpearson@distributedcomputing.info kpearson@distributedcomputing.info 180 http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#051026 <p> <ul> <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#sierpinski">Seventeen or Bust</a> discovered its 9th of 17 possible primes, 4847 * 2^3321063 + 1 (999,744 digits), while double-checking previously-tested primes, on October 19. <li>version 5.2.2 of the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/platforms.html#boinc">BOINC</a> manager client is available for Windows as of October 17. Version 5.2.4 is available for Linux as of October 19. This new version allows participants to attach to projects using their email addresses and passwords, rather than account keys. <li><a href="ap-science.html#setiboinc">SETI@home BOINC</a> participants with the new 5.X BOINC client and who had not chosen a password could not connect to the project servers. This problem was fixed today by prepopulating passwords for these users. If you have not chosen a password, you are encouraged to choose one in the project's <a href="http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/edit_passwd_form.php">change password</a> page. <li>the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-science.html#lhcathome">LHC@home</a> project server was upgraded to BOINC version 5 on October 24. After that, some of the new server code started writing bad data into the database, and the server was stopped until the problem could be fixed. The problem appears to be fixed as of today. Also starting on October 24, some participants' hosts were being corrupted in the database. This problem is also fixed as of today. <li>the official <a href="ap-math.html#15k2n1">15k Prime Search</a> discussion forum has <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/15kSearch/">moved</a> <li>the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-puzzles.html#chessbrain">ChessBrain</a> website has been redesigned as of September 11, in preparation for ChessBrain II. Also, an early version of ChessBrain II was demonstrated during the keynote presentation at the LinuxForum 2005 BoF conference on October 8. <li><a href="ap-human.html#mindpixel">Mindpixel</a> is temporarily <a href="http://www.mindpixel.com/?ref=25197">down</a>. Participants can see status updates in the <a href="http://www.mindpixel.com/chris">Mindpixel Blog</a>. <li><a href="upcoming.html#orbitathome">orbit@home</a> posted a news update on October 21. It is making good progress on its science application, and is collaborating with <a href="http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/">Pan-STARRS</a> researchers in order to be ready to analyze that group's observations when it starts its sky survey in early 2006. <li><a href="upcoming.html#burp">BURP</a> is testing <a href="http://sourceforge.net">SourceForge.net</a>'s compile farm to create new versions of the X86 Linux client as of October 23. Also, the project released tiny rendering session 138 on October 23. The session completed successfully by October 24. </ul> </p> http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#051026 Wed, 26 Oct 2005 00:00:00 MDT http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#051018 <p> <ul> <li>happy birthday <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-knowledge.html#imdb">Internet Movie Database</a> (IMDb)! The project celebrated its 15th anniversary yesterday. <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#xyyxf">XYYXF</a> has reduced the number of composites to 2,500 as of September 10 <li><a href="ap-math.html#rieselsieve">Riesel Sieve</a> has live User/Team/Country sieve scores on its <a href="http://stats.rieselsieve.com/">stats</a> pages as of October 15 <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#sierpinski">Seventeen or Bust</a> is "processing smaller tests that have slower rates" as of October 13. Participants may notice their client speeds drop dramatically with these smaller tests. This is ok. The processing rates will return to normal in a few weeks. Also, a participant reported on October 10 that there is a verification bug on the sieve posting page for factors above 32 million. The problem is being fixed. <li>the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#15k2n1">15k Prime Search</a> has found 21 primes since September 28 <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-internet.html#majestic12">Majestic-12</a> has indexed over 2.1 billion unique URLs as of today. Also, version 1.1.1 of the project client is available as of October 15. The new version fixes a number of bugs and uses a different compression method to use less bandwidth. Participants should upgrade to the new version as soon as possible. Participants running version 1.1.0 will see a notification about the upgrade. <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/upcoming.html#burp">BURP</a> completed an upgrade of its project servers to BOINC version 5 yesterday. This upgrade will allow the servers to support BOINC version 5.X clients. Also, the project completed rendering session 137 on October 6, in only 16 hours (2,400% faster than if the sessions had been rendered on one computer), with a total of 16 days of CPU time. <li>the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/upcoming.html#simapboinc">SIMAP BOINC</a> project servers are in the final stages of testing, and the project servers are being upgraded to BOINC version 5. The project should go live in the next 6 weeks. <li>new <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/news.html#051018">news article</a>: <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-knowledge.html#wikipedia">Wikipedia</a> co-founder Jimmy Wales "has acknowledged there are real quality problems with the online work" </ul> </p> http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#051018 Tue, 18 Oct 2005 00:00:00 MDT http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#051017 <p> <ul> <li>happy birthday <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-lsciences.html#foldingathome">Folding@home</a>! The project celebrated its fifth anniversary on October 1. Also, it passed the 200,000 active CPU mark on September 20. <li>all of the science results from <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-science.html#seticlassic">SETI@home Classic</a> were migrated to the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-science.html#setiboinc">SETI@home BOINC</a> science database on October 10. After these data are cleaned up and merged with the BOINC science results, the SETI@home Classic master science database can be shut down. Also, SETI@home BOINC's upload/download server began dropping connections with clients on October 13. The server was restored to normal by October 14. <li>a <a href="http://www.climateprediction.net/science/pubs/cpdn-computing.pdf">research paper</a> by <a href="ap-science.html#cpdn">climateprediction.net</a> was accepted on September 28 "for the 1st IEEE International Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing in Melbourne, Australia this December. It outlines the challenges of running a large-scale, long-term application via volunteer computing, compares CPDN with other volunteer computing projects, and shows how using BOINC has really helped out the project both obtain and retain users." <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-crypto.html#primegrid">PrimeGrid</a> released some work units using new version 4.05 of the RSA application on October 7. This version of the application is optimized to complete work units 20% faster. If the test work units produce the correct results, the new version of the application will be released publicly. <li>the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-lsciences.html#predictor">Predictor@home</a> scheduler was turned off for several hours on October 6 to allow a database replication server to be configured. The new server was turned on on October 7, and the scheduler was turned back on on October 10. <li><a href="ap-lsciences.html#rosetta">Rosetta@home</a> posted results for its 1cfyA_abrelax and 1pvaA_abrelax projects on October 12, and for its 1acf_abrelax and 1btn_abrelax projects on October 13. Project participants can see their own results on the results graphs. The project is no longer in beta testing as of October 6 and is generating "very interesting scientific <a href="http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=169">results</a>." </ul> </p> http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#051017 Mon, 17 Oct 2005 00:00:00 MDT http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#051005 <p> <ul> <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#rieselsieve">Riesel Sieve</a> found prime 417643 * 2^1800787 - 1 (542,097 digits) today. The project is now more than 25% complete, having found 26 of 101 potential primes. Also, the riesel.dat file was updated today. <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#nfsnet">NFSNET</a> completed the factorization of 2^736 + 1 today <li>the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#prefactor">100 Million digits prefactor project</a> is under new ownership and is active again as of today. The project currently only has 5 participants; please consider joining it if you're interested. <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-lsciences.html#rosetta">Rosetta@home</a> upgraded its BOINC project server today to support BOINC version 5+ clients. The project website was unavailable during the upgrade. <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-science.html#einsteinathome">Einstein@Home</a> upgraded its project website to the latest BOINC version today <li>as of October 2, <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#sierpinski">Seventeen or Bust</a> has temporarily stopped its first-pass work (testing new prime candidates) and is putting only second-pass, or double-checking, work in the project server. The project needs to catch up on double-checking prime candidates, and participants currently have as much chance to find a prime in the second-pass work as in the first-pass work. <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/upcoming.html#burp">BURP</a> began render sessions 137 today, "to test recent changes in the mirror software and compare this to previous results." Part of the test will be a system load test, which will run the project server at full speed and which may slow down the project website. Also, on October 3, the project reached its current limit of 3000 participants. Account creation will be disabled until the project reaches Alpha stage. Also, the project upgraded the mirror software to version 1.92 on September 30 to fix several issues related to PHP compatibility. <li>as of October 1, the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#primesierpinski">Prime Sierpinski Project</a> has tested all n below n=1600000 at least once <li>new <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/news.html#051005">news article</a>: the current state of searches for extraterrestrial radio signals, and speculation of what the discovery of those signals would mean to humanity </ul> </p> http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#051005 Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:00:00 MDT http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#050928 <p> <ul> <li><a href="ap-math.html#rieselsieve">Riesel Sieve</a> began a <a href="https://www.fundable.org/groupactions/rieselsievebounty">Riesel Sieve Prime and Sieve Bounty</a> donation fund at <a href="http://fundable.org/">fundable</a> today. This fund will be used for rewards for project participants who find primes and sieve factors for the project's new <a href="http://www.rieselsieve.com/bounty.php">Prime Bounty Contest</a>, which began on September 26. Also, the riesel.dat file was updated on September 25. <li><a href="ap-math.html#factoring">Factoring</a> achieved a new P - 1 <a href="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=4755">record</a>, 2,2098M c281 = p58 * c224, today. <li>the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#15k2n1">15k Prime Search</a> found primes 801095295 * 2^249235 - 1 and 627830775 * 2^235359 - 1 on September 25, 3045 * 2^298790 - 1 yesterday, and 3045 * 2^299373 - 1 and 973197225 * 2^240421 - 1 today <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-lsciences.html#proteome">Human Proteome Folding</a>'s results database was first accessed by researchers (who are studying pathogenic microbes and yeast) on September 26, 2005. The project expects to be completed by November, 2005, with only 6 of 104 batches remaining to be processed. <li>version 4.77 of the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-lsciences.html#rosetta">Rosetta@home</a> application is available for Windows and Linux as of September 22, and version 4.76 is available for Mac OSX as of September 24. 4.77 is optimized for Windows and is much faster than the older versions. </ul> </p> http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#050928 Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:00:00 MDT http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#050924 <p> <ul> <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#rieselsieve">Riesel Sieve</a>'s US$100 prize may be claimed by project participant NeoLogic, who discovered possible prime 357659 * 2^1779748 - 1 today. The candidate prime is being double-checked. This will be the fourth prime NeoLogic has discovered for the project. Anyone who finds another prime for the project in the next 30 days will receive a US$50 prize. <li>a 64-digit factor was found for <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#factoring">Factoring</a>'s R311 project on September 5. This is the second-largest factor ever found using ECM. <li><a href="ap-crypto.html#primegrid">PrimeGrid</a> passed 1 million cobblestones yesterday. Also, the project has a new URL <a href="http://primegrid.com/">http://primegrid.com/</a>. <li><a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#nfsnet">NFSNET</a> completed sieving 2^719 + 1 and began sieving 2^761 - 1 on September 19. Yesterday the project owners determined that not enough relations had been collected for 2^719 + 1, so they temporarily suspended sieving of 2^761 - 1 and began sieving 2^719 + 1 again. They will switch back to 2^761 - 1 when enough relations have been collected to build a smaller matrix for 2^719 + 1. Also, the replacement project server for the main project server has also failed, and all project clients should be transferred to a project server in Austin, Texas. This server could be affected by Hurricane Rita. If the Austin server fails, participants will have to wait a few days until one of the project servers is back online. <li><a href="ap-math.html#GIMPS">GIMPS</a>, a.k.a. <a href="http://mersenne.org/">mersenne.org</a>, has a <a href="http://mersennewiki.org/">wiki</a> as of September 16 <li>the <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-math.html#15k2n1">15k Prime Search</a> has found 20 primes since September 1 <li>new <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/news.html#050921">news article</a>: a short overview of current progress in protein folding studies, and a mention of <a href="http://distributedcomputing.info/ap-lsciences.html#rosetta">Rosetta@home</a> </ul> </p> http://distributedcomputing.info/updates.html#050924 Sat, 24 Sep 2005 00:00:00 MDT