Mersenne Digest Thursday, April 19 2001 Volume 01 : Number 841 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 19:25:45 -0400 From: vincent mooney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Juno Warning Someone on this list earlier warned about Juno using subscriber's computers. Here is a portion of the current Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project data. "The idea behind the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project is simple. Today, researchers who have large, computationally demanding problems to solve often tackle them by running them on a "supercomputer," which is a computer facility that might be as powerful as several thousand separate personal computers. Juno plans to offer such researchers an even more powerful tool, by dividing such problems into a number of smaller, simpler problems, then downloading each small problem to a Juno member's computer (in much the same way that we currently download e-mail and advertisements to our members' computers) to solve. The member's computer will work on solving the small problem by running various mathematical calculations during time when the computer would otherwise be idle. These calculations will be performed only when the computer's screen saver program is running, and never when the member is using the machine. Once the problem is solved, the solution will be stored temporarily on the member's computer, then delivered to Juno during the member's next connection to our central computers (much as Juno currently stores and delivers your responses to the ads you see on the service). "I use Juno's free basic service�do I have to participate in the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project?" Participation in this initial phase is strictly voluntary. At some point in the future we may require some or all users of our free service to participate as a condition of using the service for free, but we expect to use volunteers to supply the computational power required for the project's initial activities. If we do make participation mandatory for free subscribers in the future, we will notify any affected subscribers by e-mail, and would expect to offer them the alternative of upgrading to one of our billable premium services if they prefer not to participate in the project. "I'm a paying subscriber to one of Juno's premium services�do I have to participate in the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project?" No. Even if we decide at some point to require some or all users of our free basic service to participate in the project, we do not expect such a requirement to apply to our paying subscribers, whose participation is expected to remain strictly optional. "Should I be worried about Juno downloading data and software to my computer?" No. Juno has been downloading data and software to your computer since the day you first subscribed. Ads, for example, are already temporarily stored on your hard drive in preparation for display at times when you're not connected to Juno's central computers, just as scientific problems and data would be temporarily stored on your hard drive if you decide to participate in the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project. Software is already downloaded for execution on your machine to allow you, for example, to respond to a promotional offer by one of our advertisers, and such responses may then be uploaded to our central computers the next time you connect to the service, in a manner analogous to the downloading of scientific problems and the uploading of results as part of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project. >From time to time, we also download new versions of the Juno software to bring your version up to date, and we expect to download new scientific software from time to time as part of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project. In short, we have downloaded data and software to literally millions of people over the past five years, and have consistently done so successfully, without causing problems to our users' computers. If you decide to participate in the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project, the main difference will be that the software and data downloaded to your computer will be used not only to support the Juno service and ad system, but also to allow your computer to perform its share of the calculations involved in various scientific problems, and to save the results of these calculations so they can be reported back to our central computers. "If I participate in the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project, will my computer have to stay connected to the Internet all day? Will I have to be online for my computer to contribute to the project's supercomputing activities?" No. To participate in this project, your computer will only have to connect to Juno's central computers for relatively short periods of time, roughly comparable to the connections you currently make when you send or receive e-mail. The actual work of solving the problem can take place even when you're not connected to the Internet. "Do I have to leave my computer on all day?" No, but the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project can make use of your computer only if it is turned on, so the longer you keep your computer turned on, the more you'll contribute to the project. At some point in the future, we may begin requiring people who participate in the project to leave their computers turned on for some minimum amount of time (or possibly all the time), but there is no such requirement at the present time. One other note: If you'd like to maximize your contribution to the project while conserving energy, you may want to consider leaving your computer on, but turning off your monitor when it's not in use, since monitors frequently account for the majority of the power consumed by a personal computer system. "Will the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project cause my computer to connect to the Internet when I'm not around?" Definitely not during the first phase of the project, and probably not thereafter. The only time your computer might initiate a connection is if a computational problem is downloaded to your computer when you establish one connection to Juno's central computers, then don't dial in again for a long time. Even in that case, your computer would only dial one of the access numbers you've previously selected, connect to Juno's own central computers (not to the open Internet), and stay connected long enough to deliver the results of its computations (and any e-mail you may have received since your last connection, etc.). We don't expect this sort of "automatic connection" to occur frequently, if ever, but it is possible that we might at some point use this feature under certain circumstances (for example, if we believed the results of an important computation might otherwise be likely to go unreported indefinitely). "Will Juno be paid by the companies who use the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project?" Yes. In general, we expect to charge for (or perhaps to derive other forms of commercial benefit from) the use of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project, and hope that any fees derived from such use will help us cover the cost of providing our services to you and the millions of other people who use them. _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 17:30:38 -0700 From: Monte Westlund <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning >"Should I be worried about Juno downloading data and software to my >computer?" > >No. Juno has been downloading data and software to your computer since the >day you first subscribed. Gotta give 'em credit for being honest. Monte _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 17:49:49 -0700 From: "Aaron Blosser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning > >"Should I be worried about Juno downloading data and software to my > >computer?" > > > >No. Juno has been downloading data and software to your computer since the > >day you first subscribed. > > Gotta give 'em credit for being honest. Dang, I shoulda thought of that. :( _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 22:48:27 -0400 From: Nathan Russell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 17:49:49 -0700, Aaron Blosser wrote: >> >"Should I be worried about Juno downloading data and software to my >> >computer?" >> > >> >No. Juno has been downloading data and software to your computer since >the >> >day you first subscribed. >> >> Gotta give 'em credit for being honest. > >Dang, I shoulda thought of that. :( No, no, no, you just don't understand! Yes. In general, we expect to charge for (or perhaps to derive other forms of commercial benefit from) the use of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project, and hope that any fees derived from such use will help us cover the cost of providing our services to you and the millions of other people who use them. And, to think - all that money that all the other 'free' ISPs are losing by not selling time on the CPUs of their customers! Maybe you should have looked for a job with them back in the day? Forget 3,000 machines - there's "millions of other people" out there who won't even notice their computers being used in liu of nineteen dollars a month for dialup access, usually capped at 28K and very flakey, accourding to the folks I know who use such ISPs. _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 22:56:22 -0400 From: Nathan Russell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning [Somewhat OT] On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 19:25:45 -0400, Vincent Mooney wrote: >Someone on this list earlier warned about Juno using subscriber's >computers. Here is a portion of the current Juno Virtual Supercomputer >Project data. (BIG snip) >No. Juno has been downloading data and software to your computer since the >day you first subscribed. Only a truly professional ISP would discuss - in an official webpage - their techniques for "downloading to" a computer. >From time to time, we also download new versions of the Juno software to >bring your version up to date, and we expect to download new scientific >software from time to time as part of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project. NO mention of security, NO mention of encryption, targeted to Windows 9x users - truly impressive. >"Do I have to leave my computer on all day?" > (snip) >At some point in the >future, we may begin requiring people who participate in the project to >leave their computers turned on for some minimum amount of time (or >possibly all the time) I wonder how the costs connected with doing so (electricity, air conditioning in the summer, possible damage to extremely overclocked systems) compare with the cost for a minimal dialup account - or for that matter with switching to excite, bluelight, ifree, netzero, or one of the other adware ISPs. >The only time your computer might initiate a connection is if a >computational problem is downloaded to your computer when you establish one >connection to Juno's central computers, then don't dial in again for a long >time. Fourth mention of "downloading to" client computers. I doubt this is just confusion - 'downloading' is usually something web users do voluntarily. >Even in that case, your computer would only dial one of the access >numbers you've previously selected, connect to Juno's own central computers >(not to the open Internet), and stay connected long enough to deliver the >results of its computations (and any e-mail you may have received since >your last connection, etc.). We don't expect this sort of "automatic >connection" to occur frequently, if ever, but it is possible that we might >at some point use this feature under certain circumstances (for example, if >we believed the results of an important computation might otherwise be >likely to go unreported indefinitely). Or, more accurately, when we feel that it will cost us less to dial in than to wait on payments from those we are selling computer time to. Nathan _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 20:25:04 -0700 From: "Aaron Blosser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning [Somewhat OT] > >From time to time, we also download new versions of the Juno software to > >bring your version up to date, and we expect to download new scientific > >software from time to time as part of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Project. > > NO mention of security, NO mention of encryption, targeted to Windows > 9x users - truly impressive. This also begs an interesting question of what happens if the "scientific software" conflicts with something on your system. As much as I just love GIMPS, there is one interesting little bugaboo that I don't know if it's been mentioned: Anyone else out there use Netmeeting to do videoconferencing? If so, have you noticed that if NTPRIME (the NT service version) is running, your video will go REALLY REALLY slow? I don't know of Prime95 has the same effect or not, but I'd guess so. So whenever I'm in a videoconference, I have to stop the prime service and remember to start it later. I know, I know, it's an idle priority thread, and I've verified that the thread spawned by the service is indeed running at priority 1. But for some reason, the codec used by Netmeeting or whatever must also run in idle time, leaving the two to compete for resources perhaps? So again, what happens if Juno's software starts interfering with your other apps, even when your not connected? Is it even fair that your free internet connection would actually use your computer even when you're not using your free connection? Even the Juno banner ads only show up while you're actually online. Imagine if Juno said those ads would now show up all through the day whether you're dialed in or not. > >At some point in the > >future, we may begin requiring people who participate in the project to > >leave their computers turned on for some minimum amount of time (or > >possibly all the time) > > I wonder how the costs connected with doing so (electricity, air > conditioning in the summer, possible damage to extremely overclocked > systems) compare with the cost for a minimal dialup account - or for > that matter with switching to excite, bluelight, ifree, netzero, or > one of the other adware ISPs. Well, electricity costs and what not are still likely to be less than even the cheapest ISP on a per-month basis. > >The only time your computer might initiate a connection is if a > >computational problem is downloaded to your computer when you establish one > >connection to Juno's central computers, then don't dial in again for a long > >time. > > Fourth mention of "downloading to" client computers. I doubt this is > just confusion - 'downloading' is usually something web users do > voluntarily. They should call it a "push install" or something, whereas you're right, downloading is more of a pull (user initiated). Besides various incidents in the past, I am in the biz of doing software installs on large networks, and that's the general terminology we'd use for a server based install being forced on clients: a push. If it's advertised to workstations but not mandatory, pull is appropriate. And even then, we have to be careful. Some installs require a reboot. If they update your "scientific software" and it needs to reboot, that could be annoying. And then software compatibility issues... eech. At least the GIMPS software is simple enough to deal with those things, but not all programmers are as savvy as dear George. Aaron _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 00:38:48 -0400 From: Nathan Russell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning [Somewhat OT] On Tue, 17 Apr 2001 20:25:04 -0700, Aaron Blosser wrote: >> >From time to time, we also download new versions of the Juno software to >> >bring your version up to date, and we expect to download new scientific >> >software from time to time as part of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer >Project. >> >> NO mention of security, NO mention of encryption, targeted to Windows >> 9x users - truly impressive. > >This also begs an interesting question of what happens if the "scientific >software" conflicts with something on your system. > >As much as I just love GIMPS, there is one interesting little bugaboo that I >don't know if it's been mentioned: Anyone else out there use Netmeeting to >do videoconferencing? If so, have you noticed that if NTPRIME (the NT >service version) is running, your video will go REALLY REALLY slow? I don't >know of Prime95 has the same effect or not, but I'd guess so. I wouldn't know, not having a need to do videoconferencing. However, many other projects (not GIMPS) have a need to write to disc at fairly frequent intervals; this can require stopping those projects (and, in my case, starting GIMPS - I run it 90% of the time, but not always) when you need to defragment or run another utility that demands full access to the disc. >So again, what happens if Juno's software starts interfering with your other >apps, even when your not connected? That's a very good question. If nothing else, on a system with, say, 32 MB of memory, even the memory footprint of the Juno program might become a problem. It would be possible, I imagine, to engineer the Juno program in such a way that any attempt to stop it with a task management utility hangs the system; I believe some of the web-filtering programs now use that trick. >Is it even fair that your free internet connection would actually use your >computer even when you're not using your free connection? Even the Juno >banner ads only show up while you're actually online. Imagine if Juno said >those ads would now show up all through the day whether you're dialed in or >not. To be fair, many consumer programs now remain running (albeit using minimal CPU) by default. AIM, Realplayer and ICQ are only the first examples to come to mind, and in some cases it took me half an hour to figure out how to stop the automatic starting. I know many people who just leave those things running out of ignorance. >> >The only time your computer might initiate a connection is if a >> >computational problem is downloaded to your computer when you establish >one >> >connection to Juno's central computers, then don't dial in again for a >long >> >time. >> >> Fourth mention of "downloading to" client computers. I doubt this is >> just confusion - 'downloading' is usually something web users do >> voluntarily. > >They should call it a "push install" or something, whereas you're right, >downloading is more of a pull (user initiated). Besides various incidents >in the past, I am in the biz of doing software installs on large networks, >and that's the general terminology we'd use for a server based install being >forced on clients: a push. If it's advertised to workstations but not >mandatory, pull is appropriate. I don't know the terminology usually used in the industry. That said, most consumer programs that I know of don't automatically update themselves. Many programs (AIM, Napster, Realplayer, Winamp and some games in my personal experience) connect, and pop up a window suggesting an upgrade, but don't force it on the user (never mind get online specifically to carry out a scheduled upgrade!) The one exception that I know of is AOL; some weeks ago, a friend of mine and I were talking over IM when she suddenly stopped responding; as it happened, she was home for the weekend and her AOL client suddenly decided to lock up its main window, download an upgrade, get offline, install said upgrade and then inform my friend that she needed to reboot before getting back online. I don't know to what extent the purpose of the upgrade was explained to my friend, and you can imagine how she felt. Now imagine how she would have felt if she was, say, typing a 3-page email through ssh at the time the upgrade was shoved down her throat. >And even then, we have to be careful. Some installs require a reboot. If >they update your "scientific software" and it needs to reboot, that could be >annoying. And then software compatibility issues... eech. At least the >GIMPS software is simple enough to deal with those things, but not all >programmers are as savvy as dear George. Also, a lot of programs require far more registry support that GIMPS does. >Aaron Nathan _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 07:45:06 -0000 From: "Brian J. Beesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning [Somewhat OT] On 17 Apr 2001, at 20:25, Aaron Blosser wrote: > > This also begs an interesting question of what happens if the > "scientific software" conflicts with something on your system. Now I don't want to be seen to be supporting Juno's terms of service, but you do have a choice: Either you live with the conflict, or you find a different ISP. > > As much as I just love GIMPS, there is one interesting little bugaboo > that I don't know if it's been mentioned: Anyone else out there use > Netmeeting to do videoconferencing? If so, have you noticed that if > NTPRIME (the NT service version) is running, your video will go REALLY > REALLY slow? I don't know of Prime95 has the same effect or not, but > I'd guess so. Well, I try _very_ hard to avoid using Microsoft applications, and in any case I find I have no use for videoconferencing, but ... Did you try changing the priority of Netmeeting, or at least its codec thread? The problem may well be that, to avoid VC running away with system resources & making the whole system unresponsive, it could run its codec thread at idle priority. In this case it would be unable to get CPU resources until the prime service expires its time allocation, but might then have to give up its own time slot early pending the availability of data to process. Result, Netmeeting runs slowly. If I'm right about this, then another application requiring access to the video would operate normally even whilst Netmeeting is crawling. If you were to raise the priority of the Netmeeting codec thread to one above the prime service, the problem would go away. But DON'T go above 4, you might start to impact your control of the system through the console! > > So again, what happens if Juno's software starts interfering with your > other apps, even when your not connected? Caveat emptor. So long as you can get rid of it reasonably easily if you decide you want to transfer to another ISP, or even Juno's charged service. > > Is it even fair that your free internet connection would actually use > your computer even when you're not using your free connection? Even > the Juno banner ads only show up while you're actually online. > Imagine if Juno said those ads would now show up all through the day > whether you're dialed in or not. This has been said many, many times in the past. But, to mix metaphors, you should definitely look a gift horse in the mouth before you try to carve a free lunch off it. If it has teeth, it will probably try to carve a free lunch off you! However I'd be amazed if there wasn't some free-to-use software in existence for preventing the display of those ads - either suppressing their download by fooling the upstream server that a local copy already exists, or removing the files after they've been downloaded, or replacing them with something harmless like a transparent 1x1 GIF. > > Well, electricity costs and what not are still likely to be less than > even the cheapest ISP on a per-month basis. Here in the UK energy is much more expensive than it is in the US. My local utility charges 9.40 pence per KWh net, i.e. 9.87 pence after applying VAT at 5%. A typical system running 24 hours per day consumes about 100 KWh per month, i.e. the electricity costs around 10 pounds. The local utility is a monopoly supplier, I have no alternative. I can get a decent ISP service not dependent on advertising for 25 pounds a _year_ (plus connect charge of 1p per minute, off-peak, paid to the telephone utility). Also, I need only one ISP, however many systems I'm running. > > They should call it a "push install" or something, whereas you're > right, downloading is more of a pull (user initiated). Besides > various incidents in the past, I am in the biz of doing software > installs on large networks, and that's the general terminology we'd > use for a server based install being forced on clients: a push. If > it's advertised to workstations but not mandatory, pull is > appropriate. Right. And, even if you're pushing software upgrades with the consent of your users, you should only do so during system downtime, or at least only during advertised "service at risk" periods. > > And even then, we have to be careful. Some installs require a reboot. Nice design, Microsoft. Thank you! To give them their due, Win 2K seems to be a lot less demanding of reboots following application installs than Win 9x was, though many installers still seem to demand system reboots following completion. Maybe this is as much the fault of the installer as it is of the OS. However I still fail to see why anything other than a replacement of the OS kernel code should require a reboot. Even loadable modules (DLLs) should be upgradable on a running system. Linux manages, why can't Windows? Regards Brian Beesley _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 09:15:52 -0400 From: "Brian Last-Name" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning [Somewhat OT] >From: Nathan Russell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <SNIP> > >From time to time, we also download new versions of the Juno software to > >bring your version up to date, and we expect to download new scientific > >software from time to time as part of the Juno Virtual Supercomputer >Project. > >NO mention of security, NO mention of encryption, targeted to Windows >9x users - truly impressive. Lets face it, the average juno user is no techno guru. They just want net access for free. I doubt this was intended to be a technical overview, and if it was, it would just blow away the intended audience. I think it is kinda neat to see distributed computing breaking into the world of the layman. > > >"Do I have to leave my computer on all day?" <snip> > >I wonder how the costs connected with doing so (electricity, air >conditioning in the summer, possible damage to extremely overclocked >systems) compare with the cost for a minimal dialup account - or for >that matter with switching to excite, bluelight, ifree, netzero, or >one of the other adware ISPs. Waitaminute. All of us here do this voulentarily, and for free. Don't even think about justifying that with the prize money, I know how long you have been around! Also, how many people do you know that have extremely overclocked systems but cannot, or do not, afford a decent net account? > > >The only time your computer might initiate a connection is if a > >computational problem is downloaded to your computer when you establish >one > >connection to Juno's central computers, then don't dial in again for a >long > >time. > >Fourth mention of "downloading to" client computers. I doubt this is >just confusion - 'downloading' is usually something web users do >voluntarily. > Not to mention calling banner ad images programs! Brian Peltzer [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 20:04:48 +0200 From: "Bjoern Hoffmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Prime under Linux/Win2K Hi *, I am running Prim95 mostly under a Win2K, but sometimes I use the dualboot option for a red hat 7 system on the same machine. Then I start the mprime out of the win2k directory. Is there any problem with it? The system mostly says then something like this: Error reading intermediate file: pC362401 Renaming intermediate file qC362401 to pC362401. Any comments? Bjoern _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 11:09:53 -0700 From: "Aaron Blosser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning [Somewhat OT] > Now I don't want to be seen to be supporting Juno's terms of service, > but you do have a choice: > > Either you live with the conflict, or you find a different ISP. Very true. Unfortunately, alot of the free-isp's are going out of business. Near where I live (near Seattle...), there's still a big "For Lease" sign on the free-inet building. Sigh... But, I guess we can't blame Juno for trying to maximize it's revenue in new, creative ways, while still offering "free" Internet service. On a weird side-note, has anyone else noticed that alot of those free services actually use the same dialup lines? I guess that's one way to cut costs... outsource your dialups to someone else who can maximize their investment by having multiple free-net customers on their modem banks. > Did you try changing the priority of Netmeeting, or at least its > codec thread? The problem may well be that, to avoid VC running away > with system resources & making the whole system unresponsive, it > could run its codec thread at idle priority. In this case it would be > unable to get CPU resources until the prime service expires its time > allocation, but might then have to give up its own time slot early > pending the availability of data to process. Result, Netmeeting runs > slowly. If I'm right about this, then another application requiring > access to the video would operate normally even whilst Netmeeting is > crawling. If you were to raise the priority of the Netmeeting codec > thread to one above the prime service, the problem would go away. > But DON'T go above 4, you might start to impact your control of the > system through the console! I'm sure it's something like that. Next time I do a vidconf, I'll find which thread it's running under and give it a boost. Now where did I put that copy of PSLIST? (www.sysinternals.com) > > So again, what happens if Juno's software starts interfering with your > > other apps, even when your not connected? > > Caveat emptor. So long as you can get rid of it reasonably easily if > you decide you want to transfer to another ISP, or even Juno's > charged service. While waiting for my DSL service to be hooked up following my move to WA, I tried a variety of freenet services... Netzero ended up being the one, not because it was the best, but simply because they all are equally annoying and I just happened to stop with NZ. Just proves the time tested axiom "you get what you pay for" > > Well, electricity costs and what not are still likely to be less than > > even the cheapest ISP on a per-month basis. > > Here in the UK energy is much more expensive than it is in the US. My > local utility charges 9.40 pence per KWh net, i.e. 9.87 pence after > applying VAT at 5%. A typical system running 24 hours per day > consumes about 100 KWh per month, i.e. the electricity costs around > 10 pounds. > > The local utility is a monopoly supplier, I have no alternative. Most utilities in the US are "monopolies" although many are regulated to some degree or another. Witness the horrible situation in California where utilities were capped as to how much they could charge the end user, but the suppliers of the electricity to the utilities were not regulated. Electricity costs in some parts are pretty bad. Right here in the Puget Sound area (Seattle, Tacoma, etc), there have been quite a few price hikes, thanks to the fact that CA refuses to supply their own power and came begging for more from us. :) VERY fortunately, I run in a small town that supplies the power for us, and they had the foresight to buy electricity futures at a very low price, so I haven't seen any hikes. It's fortunate because I'd hate to see what my bill would look like with my behemoth Compaq server (and external drive array) and my 6 or 7 other machines all sucking up power. On the other hand, with all those computers, I rarely needed to turn on the heat this entire winter. :) > To give them their due, Win 2K seems to be a lot less demanding of > reboots following application installs than Win 9x was, though many > installers still seem to demand system reboots following completion. > Maybe this is as much the fault of the installer as it is of the OS. > > However I still fail to see why anything other than a replacement of > the OS kernel code should require a reboot. Even loadable modules > (DLLs) should be upgradable on a running system. Linux manages, why > can't Windows? "nice" applications should, of course, check if a "system" DLL already exists, and only replace it if the version it's installing is newer. If that DLL is in use, there's no way to replace it on the fly... which is why many installations ask you to shut down all other programs first. Following that sage advice can actually save you many a reboot. On the other hand, even "nicer" applications won't install any system DLLs and will work happily by placing the DLLs in it's own directory rather than mucking up the system/system32 area. FWIW, Windows XP is making great strides in trying to normalize behaviour such as this and actually does some fancy footwork on the sly to eliminate even more reboots by even the naughtiest installation routines. Win2K already does a good job of preventing DLL Hell, Windows XP does even better. So hey, at least Microsoft is paying a little bit of attention... Aaron _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 15:10:47 -0400 From: "Joshua Zelinsky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Juno Warning [Somewhat OT] Aaron Blosser wrote: >TAnyone else out there use Netmeeting to >do videoconferencing? If so, have you noticed that if NTPRIME (the NT >service version) is running, your video will go REALLY REALLY > slow? I >don't know of Prime95 has the same effect or not, but I'd > > guess so. So >whenever I'm in a videoconference, I have to stop the >prime service and >remember to start it later. I know, I know, it's an > idle priority thread, >and I've verified that the thread spawned by > the service is indeed >running at priority 1. But for some >reason, the codec used by Netmeeting or whatever must also run in > idle >time, >leaving the two to compete for resources perhaps? Have you checked if there's any way to change the Netmeeting priority level? Also, if you think about the constant data stream required for video, putting it at idle priority sorta makes sense if you want to be able to do other stuff at the same time. Sincerely, Joshua Zelinsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 21:31:00 -0000 From: "Brian J. Beesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: Prime under Linux/Win2K On 18 Apr 2001, at 20:04, Bjoern Hoffmann wrote: > I am running Prim95 mostly under a Win2K, but sometimes I use the > dualboot option for a red hat 7 system on the same machine. > > Then I start the mprime out of the win2k directory. Is there any > problem with it? The system mostly says then something like this: > > Error reading intermediate file: pC362401 > Renaming intermediate file qC362401 to pC362401. The most likely thing that is happening is that when linux shuts down it is not waiting long enough for mprime to finish writing the savefile before it terminates the process. Try issuing the shell command "killall mprime && sleep 5" before shutting the system down. This will stop all instances of mprime which happen to be running & allow 5 seconds for them to wrap up cleanly before the shell prompt returns. The other thing which may be a problem is that the linux installation is somehow misreading or miswriting the Windows filesystem. This is rather more likely to happen with NTFS than FAT or FAT32. You should particularly suspect this if you have upgraded the linux kernel to v2.4; I haven't found any problems in this respect, I do read FAT filesystems occasionally but no longer dual boot. The problem could also occur when starting mprime from linux if Windows shut down Prime95 untidily. Regards Brian Beesley _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 22:16:48 -0500 From: "David L. Nicol" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Mersenne: Distributed Computing Mandatory For Juno's Free Users] Its true, I read mersenne list archive about as often as there are lunar eclipses. "Halliday, Ian" wrote: > As another point, I know many who are in SETI solely for the nice > graphical display. I don't know whether GIMPS, given the abstract > nature of the work we do, could ever really develop such a display. I imagine a better GIMPS graphical display would look like part of the set from "twelve monkeys" with fake big black dials and twitching needles, that indicate system performance and available swap space and so forth. It could be a cute graphical system monitor application. Of course you can maximize your prime95 window. - -- David Nicol 816.235.1187 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Home of the V-90 modern _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ End of Mersenne Digest V1 #841 ******************************
