(Participation in this project is FREE. It makes use of unallocated resources within your PC and causes no detectable degradation of performance.)

One in four of us will at some time suffer from cancer. The high mortality rate, the suffering experienced by patients from the side effects of existing treatments, and the high costs of treatment all contribute to making cancer a priority for drug research.

By joining the United Devices network, you can have a direct benefit to cancer research. The UD software sits in the background on your PC and utilises any spare capacity to analyse data for cancer research projects. (It can also be set just to run when your computer is idle if you are concerned about your PC performance being compromised, but, in reality, there is very little overhaead and even running live you should see no degradation.)

Each individual computer analyzes a few molecules and then sends the results back over the Internet for further research. This project is anticipated to be the largest computational chemistry project ever undertaken and represents a genuine hope to find a better way to fight cancer. (You can also choose to work on anthrax or smallpox.)




------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The link to the site is http://www.grid.org/projects/cancer/

Downloading the agent takes only a few minutes and once it is done it will function quite happily on its own. You can make adjustments to how and when it runs very easily. There is a very comprehensive FAQ section to help.

I have set up a MoneyAM BBers team so that we can pool our work and statistics. Why not join in and see how much of a difference MoneyAM can make?

The link to our team is MoneyAM Users Team - JOIN NOW
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Join us today and make a difference while you make money. One day you might be grateful to take advantage of the developments this research achieves.

Don't just make a donation, make a difference!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

PS Thanks to MegaBucks who suggested the idea of starting here.

Thanks to fundamentalist the MoneyAM Team has doubled in size. :-)

Between us we have already racked up over 600 points and submitted 11 results.

Why not join us? It is all very painless.

Let's see if we can grow from 2 to 200 and make a real difference.

G.

Just changed all my computers over so the points should start going up :-))

Bit pointless changing if your already in a team isn't it ?

im married,but i can still change for a newer model if i like :-))

This is exactly they same though.

just personal choice :-)what i would like to do is ask the IT people over here if they can hook there computers up to this project...

Mega: just joined

yeah good idea but do us a favour and ask them after they have sorted the search facility

Mike,well done :-)

Just joined but need help.........I have a home network with two desktop and one laptop,do I need to set this up seperatly on each machine.The network is on 24/7. Graeme. ps. I dont like coputers eo make the answer easy please......

GRAEME well done,the answer is yes you do have to set it up on each machine !!!

Just joined, thanks Greystone :-)

Mega Bucks, Thanks. Graeme

Also joined, great idea, thanks.

18 computers, Mega Bucks??

Got a few but some are family also :-)

Thanks all. A really good start.

Signed up and joined the AM team.

In view of other recent comments about charities, may I suggest you include in the header 'no money required' or similar - might get more response!

I notice that my cpu usage is now running at 100% all the time. Maybe a naive question, but is this ok? Not going to hurt the pc or anything?

Piptrader - Thanks for the advice.

The UD Agent uses only a small amount of RAM and will hold off altogether if there aren't enough resources. The only real overhead is when it is sending/receiving data and you can put it in "snooze" mode if you feel it might affect performance. (I have snooze mode set at 30 mins.)

Runs best if you set your screensaver to "none".

Piptrader,my cpu total time on this cancer project is just over 6 years and had not a single problem just install and forget all about it !!!

A CPU running at 100% will consume a fair amount more electricity than when in idle mode, and consuming electricity will make it hotter. How much more electricity depends on the make and model of CPU but perhaps 25-50W, less than a 60W lightbulb burning continuously. This will be reflected in your electricity bill but the cost will be minimal (less than 6p every 20 hours). A hotter CPU will be slightly more prone to failure but CPU failures are very uncommon and it is very unlikely that you would experience a failure before you eventually replace your machine.

Edit - I should clarify that the above comments were intended to relate to desktop computers. I probably wouldn't recommend installing the application on a laptop. For a start you would have to disable it whenever you went travelling to stop your battery being exhausted in minutes. So much of a modern laptop is concerned with saving power by turning off or slowing down the CPU when not in use. Also laptops are not really designed for constant high volume usage and the constant use of CPU and fan and heat given off might well mean an early demise.

Greystone - Mega - Kayak - many thanks for your assurances. I'd wondered if the cpu would get hotter, but I'll leave it running and see what happens.

The Team has now grown to eleven members and is really gunning it.

Thanks to everyone for their support.

Welcome to our newest member, touche.

We are now up to 15 members with GRAEME.ALEXANDER and RICK FRANCIS the best performers so far. They obviously have better 'puters than most of us. ;-)

G.

Our 15 stalwart members have now donated 297 CPU days to the cause. We have submitted 955 results between us and generated over 146,000 points.

Why not join us this weekend and put your unused PC resources to good use?

Everyone is welcome!

G.

Thanks and welcome to mostrader, the latest addition to our merry band! Now we have sixteen members.

We have now donated well over a CPU year in processing time and amassed almost 200,000 points from the 1,289 results we have returned.

Great going!

Come and join us. It only takes a few minutes to set up and is quite painless. You will find the instructions in the opening post here.

If you have any problems getting signed up, I'm sure a question posted to this thread will find the answer for you.

G.

"Today I will spend sometime looking for a cure to cancer"
This is a great oppertunity to contribute.
skg.

skg - Thanks. You will be very welcome. It is hard to think of a better cause.

More than happy to join the team - although my mouse went all peculiar when I went to the Team page - changed the batteries and now fine ;)

Thanks guys. Our Team is now 18 strong - soon to be 19 - and has now contributed over one and a half CPU years to the cause. We have sent in 1,847 results and accumulated almost 300,000 points.

I hit a personal target today by sending my 100th result. :-)

G.

A quick look at the stats shows our Team is now 19 strong and has generated over 2 CPU years of processing for the cause.

We have now accumulated almost 380,000 points and returned 2,341 results.

Great going!

Why not join us? It only takes a few minutes to get set up and working and it costs you nothing at all. You won't even notice it is running.

I saw this week that, during a power cut when my PC switch to battery power, the UD system suspended itself to conserve my battery. Smart stuff!

G.

I would like to join but I run only on a laptop - I see someone has posted that it is not a good idea to run it on a laptop - is this right??

I run an IBMThinkpad R40e with 512mb ram and I am on a dialup!! would this be tooooooo painful?

SM

supermum - I am running on a Tosh laptop with similar spec and dial-up. Slows a bit when sending results and receiving data but otherwise no problem.

If I'm real busy, I just send it into "snooze" mode or shut it down for a while.

Give it a try. If you find it is "toooooo painful", the uninstall works very cleanly. :-)

G.

SM

Also running on a tosh laptop (though with broadband) - dont even notice it is there!

You only need the internet conection for about 1 % of the time. It is only used to upload the result and to get the next task.
Graeme.

ok guys - you convinced me! hard wasn't it? LOL I had problems with it before on my old PC and it NEVER worked - this time I will be more determined.... as this laptop is kept just for trading - I have 62% unused space - and would rather it did something useful..

SM

sm well done,it all helps !!!

Mega...

Mega- I am having problems logging in - this was what happened to me before :-(
SM

great idea-I'm in.

sm,just seen the reply!!!!

Mega...

I am still having big problems .. to save a further explanation this is a copy of the email i sent the company and it reply is underneath... not the most helpful of people...
I registered with you some time ago and was unable to log in, I could not remember my details and could not find out how to get a reminder..... I have a new PC now and have tried once again to login in and be part of this programme - without success. I have downloaded the latest programme and I still cannot remember my user name, password or PC name. When i tried to logon I get still receive no assistance as to the information - no reminder invitation and feel very frustrated. So I still cannot participate. I have an email from you to say that you have to approve my application and have had nothing else. So I tried to reregister to get a new set of information only to be told that you already have a member with that email address... Please can you let me know what to do?

the reply.....

Thank you for reporting your problem to our automated support system. At this time we only offer automated support and if the problem you reported is new, we will investigate it further and add it to the FAQ's.

Thank you for your patience and participation,

United Devices Support Team


Anyone got any ideas?

deleted - I now see your problem :-(

You could simply use a hotmail address, there is no need to check the emails after registering, they certainly haven't sent anything out in the past couple of months.

a hotmail address sounds like a good idea ... wouldn't it have been reasonable to have come up with a reminder - maybe its too simple ;-)

SM

dont like hotmail either... its stupid really because they say on the login bit that they want your address so they can rest your password! and tehy just dont let me!

SM

well, I still cannot get it to work - I have trawled the helpfiles and I simply cant find out where I am going wrong....
I cant retreive my password and whatever I try I get the message
'sorry the username or password you have provided does not match the one in our records'
I have registered alost password on the site and it has sent my password to my email. I use it to log on to the site proper and it tells me I don't have an account ..
circles and more bloody circles...


Arrgghhh!
SM

are you typing the password in the same case as given to you?

dun it!!!

got in and logged on and joined the team - yippeee!!!!!!
my name in the team is now catamaran.... supermum had gone :-(

now what do i do?

SM

You should have a dark blue oval shaped icon in the system tray. Double click it and you will probably find that it is already busy. Go through all the pages to double check.

yup it sure is - its got this little 3d icon being built... much better than any screen saver... will try to get a few more people to join up.. i think I can read all the instructions now ! and do ALL the trouble-shooting to get it going - LOL
SM

Some new 'Human Proteome' units are just being distributed in this software, sounds like they take up a lot of computer memory, if so you can opt to just do the cancer units. Havn't had one yet myself yet so I don't know what they're like.

Thanks to our 21 member Team for contributing almost 5 CPU years of processing time to this excellent cause and for sending in nearly 4,000 results.

I hope over the New Year break maybe a few more will join. It is really great to be able to do something worthwhile every day without even noticing it happen....

G.

Alan - I have got another 2 people - its amazing how the time adds up - I have done 32 days already and I forget its on - the screen saver is
interesting though!! I get about 50% of the Human Proteome -very pretty!

SM

It is very remiss of me not to have refreshed the thread for such a long time. My apologies Team!

Thanks to skg83239, I have been prompted to check our progress and am pleased to announce that we have just passed a major milestone - we have now donated over 10 CPU years to the cause.

My thanks to you all for doing it!

If YOU would like to join our little band of brothers and sisters by signing up for the MoneyAM BBers Team, the instructions are set out in the opening post of this thread. There are also twenty-two of us to help you out with any problems you may encounter....

G.

Seems to have spent the last couple of days "backing off" is it just me?

Have the same problems here M !!! this usually means they are doing routine updates to the site...

Mega...

Cheers mega

No problems :-)

They've got major computer problems...

Same here. No contact for two days now... :-(

mine seems to be ticking along nicely....

SM

supermum - mine was also ticking along nicely, until it tried to call home today, and didn't get an answer.

So it could be that yours is still in the middle of a long job?

91% through a lignfit.. has taken 41 hours so far... so hopefully computer will be sorted when I am ready for contact..

SM

Sounds like they've just finished repairs - but still backing off.
Message on boards reads -

Dear Members,

"Grid.org is online. The hardware failure on our core DB machine has been repaired.

Because of the downtime, agents will have "backed-off", and we expect that there will be a flood of initial activity as agents reconnect. Therefore, please be patient during this initial flood of activity. Normal agent connectivity should resume soon.

Thank you very much for your patience and continued participation,
Jonathon"

I have now joined the "backing off" club... :-(

Hopefully soon means soon
SM

The whole site is down now...

Got my result away this morning and a new set of data downloaded....

Up and running again here !!!

meee tooooo!

Up and running after a three day database rebuild

Thanks to sealed, who joined the Team today, we now have 25 members!

Haven't been able to make ocntact for two days now. I assume it is a general problem.... :)

I had a problem ... but online and running again now ;-)

SM

Working OK for me now, have selected to do the Ligandfit Cancer project and not the Proteum Science stuff, that is where I had most of the problems. One project took 100 hours, system closed own on me and no points awarded to the team.
opto

Had to re-enter password, etc when I finally got back connected.

Must add my new laptop to proceedings as it's doing nothing at present.

How do you get a choice? I just get what I'm given!!! it chunters away in the background and I forget about it.
;-)

SM

supermum - If you logon and go to "My Device Manager" then choose "Device Profile", you will find the option there...

thanks...think I'll leave it ... it doesn't seem to make any diference to me what ever I get given to do... just all adds to the pot..

SM

skg just reminded me that it is the first anniversary for our UD Team.

During this first year we have contributed over fifteen-and-a-half CPU years to the cause. A great achievement for such a small Team!!

In the year, RICK FRANCIS has donated the most time (getting on for 3 CPU years) and GRAEME.ALEXANDER has racked up the most results (3,025) and points (361,622) but the whole Team has shown great dedication and I thank them all for their efforts.

Why not join us and doing your bit to support Cancer Research?

It is free , painless, very easy to set up, and has little or no impact on your PC performance.

To The Team - Thank you very much! To those about to join, thanks in advance!

G.

Greystone

well done again for starting this up - still dont understand why more people dont sign up - its not as if it costs anything and you are doing your bit for medical research

reminds me, must set the second pc up for it as well

I've got trouble connecting to the UD server to return my results. Anyone else?
skg

skg,

Problems here also,i think they must be doing something to there servers !!!!

Mega...

Unfortunately the forum website forum.grid.org seems to be down as well, so no news
skg

I cant connect either... maintenance?

SM

Looks like the UD Cancer Research Project may be up and running again
skg

The Grid Forum says that they where moving their facility which required a full shutdown.
skg

i stillhave not been able to connect..

SM

Haven't noticed any problems, but then apparently I've been working on the same project for 285 hours!! Only 11 more to go.

Pipetrader,
You must be on the Human Proteome Folding Project rather than the Cancer Research Project which takes about 24hrs on a P4 1GHz. My slowest, a PII 400MHz laptop takes 120hrs.
skg

skg - yes, it was. Now on a cancer project, so the system must be up and running again.

Down again

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 11:10 pm Post subject: Grid.org outage

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Members,

We have incurred a major outage at our new facility due to a bad circuit breaker. This caused everything including the forums to be down for a while. We are in the process of recovering now. All of the servers are still not up which is why everyone is getting the backing off message. This will be corrected as soon as possible.

This outage is not related to the old hardware, but an issue related to the facility move. We did not anticipate this outage, but with a facility move of this magnitude, some temporary glitches are not surprising. Please bear with us while we work through these issues and again thank you for your contribution.
_________________
Robby Brewer
Senior Support Engineer
United Devices

This now a regular event. I normally have to re-register when it comes back on.
According to them I have about 18 machines registered but I only have 4.
Is there anywhere else that I can let use my spare capacity to achive the same results like helping someone to find cures.
Graeme.

Graeme
I think that we all suffer from the same frustration. A least this latest disruption did not create another set of phantom machines as previous ones have. For me there are pros & cons to moving to another project. The current UD Cancer Research Project meets most of my criteria for contributing:
1. I am directly participating in a cancer drug discovery project
2. It is for a UK academic organisation
3. Being in a team creates an active participation through competition

After over a year of contributing CPU time to the project we should now have a comprehensive list of cons, mainly centred on the not infrequent site outage problems.

These really play on the the conflicting problem of running machines 24/7 with the subsequent waste of energy. I personally find the breaks useful as I use the down time to perform additional maintenance and the turn them off and give them a rest from running at 100% load.

Another alternative is to see if it is possible for one or more of the team to keep a store of work units that could be distributed if the UD site is down.

It would be shame if individuals or the team felt that it was time to move to another project but I have found the following site, the Center for Distributed Computing has a list of similar projects.
skg

skg
Thanks for your coments. You sumed it up with the word "frustration", I find it hard to understand why more people haven't signed up to this when it appears that if we all made a little effort / contribution by signing up, then huge problems like a cure for cancer could be found. (from little acorns great Oaks do grow). But then I become frustrated when I think such a great opportunity could be lost because of what appears to be poor performance by the people running it. I will hang fire for the moment to see if things improve, then if they don't then I will see if my tinyy contibution could be beter used by someone else to achive a similar goal.
Lets all keep crunching and trying to make a difference.
Graeme.

Not sure why you're having to reregister Graeme, the only time I ever had to was when they lost their whole database. I just ignore it and it reconnects by itself eventually.

I have done a bit of research, there is a program called UD Monitor that will download and manage multiple work units. I will install it over the weekend and comment back on it's usefulness.
skg

Kayak, Thanks.I have a total of four machines but now show 18. I can understand +2 because of new hard disks and +4 if every one had to re register, that makes 10 but I don't know where the other 8 have come from or why. There are only four active.
The other problem ( I now just ignore) is in device manager I cant set connection type and they are all showing not known because anything else I try I get duplicate device message error.

skg.
I like the sound of that, at least I won't be wasteing power leaving them on all the time. I will look for your update after you have tryed it. Cheers. Graeme.

Graeme and skg, hope you two keep up the good work, the team will look distinctly weak if you quit! I thought I lost points in the summer downtime, so recently when I couldnt check progress I logged off f.t.b. Ive just got the one machine (perry97) are you using a special number cruncher? If this is part financed by a British university maybe theres a shortage of funds to meet demand until the numbers click bringing the breakthro we all hope for. I am down as having 7 machines !!

Graeme
You can rename the old duplicate devices.
e.g. I renamed the two old duplicate devices skgpc_1 to skgpc_1z and skgpc_1y
You can then set the connection type for your current device

skg

I have downloaded the latest version of UD Monitor. I am testing it out to see how useful it is managing multiple work units on multiple PC's.

skg

Hi skg,
any update on how you are getting on with the latest version (post 101).
I am back to having problems conecting, downloading and displaying stats. one machine hasn't been able to conect for weeks. Graeme.

I am using the latest version of UD Monitor. You can create "Slots" which are complete copies of UD with an associated work unit and require a new device identifier. I have not tried it yet but you could copy the folder containing a "Slot" to another machine. The reason I haven't tried it yet is UD Monitor has "lost" the link to the Slots that I've created. It doesn't seem to be having a negative impact in my current set up, i.e. continuing to process the work units but I lost control of the additional WU's. I see this as teething probs and will sort it out and report when I return home at the end of the week. This is definitely the way to keep a supply of WU's to fill in time between site outages.

Graeme email me if you want a more detailed discussion.

skg

ttt.

An update on running UD Monitor
UD Monitor is a complementary program to manage multiple work units.
It allows a user to download multiple work units and work on them in order.
This is done by UD Monitor by creating "Slots" to form a cache of work units. Each of these Slots needs to be registered as a different device. This is inconvenient but it is how United Devices keeps track of the work units it has distributed.
Each of the Slots is a complete copy of the United Devices folder including a single work unit.
UD Monitor works by monitoring the files in the United Devices folder and when a work unit has been completed, the results uploaded and a new work unit downloaded, it stops UD.exe and copies all the files in the United Devices folder to the current Slot (a numbered sub-folder in the UD Monitor Cache folder). UD Monitor then copies all the files from the next Slot folder (in date order) to the United Devices folder. UD.exe is then restarted and processing of the next work unit commences.
There is a little configuration allowed in UD Monitor, particularly there is no choice as to the location of the cache. This means that local distribution of the work units would require additional steps. (you can execute files on completion of a work unit so you could create a batch file to copy a local slot to a central cache)
As the main reason for exploring the use of UD Monitor was to cover periods when communication with the UD server was not possible I think that running UD Monitor on one machine to hold a central cache. Work units have to be completed within 450hrs (18 and a bit days) so you could store the maximum number of cached work units on your fastest PC but the more slots and work units you have the more devices you need to register.
In the event of a loss of communication with the UD server you can store a completed work unit from a PC without UD Monitor to a new slot in the central cache and copy a new work unit back, marking the slot inactive to stop it being processed twice.
I will continue to experiment to see how easy or not it is to automatically distribute work units locally.
Please comment if this is too long and complex or feel free to ask questions.

skg

skg.
Thanks for the update above. I have spent some time over the last week trying to get my head around this. I have now downloaded it but it was only tonight I finally got my head around "the slots bit, I didn't right click in the cache window". Mission tomorrow to set up the slots on my laptop the see how it runs for a few days. If all seems ok I think the easyiest way for me will be to put the monitor on all four machines and treat each one as stand alone.

I finally managed last week to get them all working again last week after the last lot of problems so really hope I don't end up in a mess again.

I think in the near future we may experience quite a lot of downtime / non-connection as they are going to install new harware and then new software.

Thanks for your posts and help. Graeme.

Have now created 6 slots / caches on the laptop and all seems ok. fingers crossed for the next few days as I monitor how long it takes to work through them. Graeme.

In terms of points generated, our little Team, with 4,075,988 is now in 875th position worldwide... Quite a performance!

G.

This is due to the teams contribution of 22 years 7 months cpu time to the cancer research project.
Anyone interested can join the MoneyAM BBers team, just download and install the UD software and then go to MoneyAM BBers team page to join.
skg

any one else having problems conecting the last few days.
I can't even get to the message boards. Graeme.

Yes i am,but i guess they must be doing some work to there servers,when they have finished it usually uploads its self !!!!

Mega...

Thanks Mega, as long as its not just me.
I was only getting worried as I couldn't get through to the message boards either.
Hopefully they might be installing the new equipment that we are waiting for.

Also if anyone is just passing through the threads and spots this.........Why not read a bit more and sign up. We haven't had any new members for a while now and research needs you........or your spare computer time at least.
Graeme.

Not on your own, mine is not working today (and yesterday)
You are right about the new members, we do need more.
Anyone looking in that are not joined, do note...........it is painless :-)

All seems to be back up and running again.
They were doing maintanence over the w/e and it looks like it over ran.
G

G A,your still leading the points!!!

Rick...

Mega Bucks
Its the only time I will ever be a Millionare..........and all with no effort,worry or pain........
For those who haven't joined yet. Come on........if you have not tried it yet give it a go. If you do not like it or it interferes with anything you can always ditch it. Works on dial up or broadband. I have it running on four machines (with ud monitor) and do not notice any difference in speed or memory and as far as I know there is no security risk. Graeme.

Members of this project will need to see this:

http://www.grid.org/home.htm

Is there any benefit in going ahead as a team with one of the other projects listed, or should we go it alone?

I guess if we are going to go ahead as a team it might be appropriate to choose
a project with some UK input, such as climate prediction.

Happy to continue doing either as part of team (preferable) or alone. Compute against cancer would be my preference

I am torn, it felt good every morning waking up knowing even while you where asleep you where helping the search for a cure for cancer. I would prefer that my efforts went to benefit a British institution because as we know, drug companies have a limit to their philanthropy (this is good because as traders that helps us make money ourselves). Do we know what the status of the research we where doing? is it finished? will it be continued by Compute Against Cancer?
Stephen

Compute Against Cancer is run by Paragon on a profit basis. They have paying and non-paying users of the grid, and a portion of the revenue of the paying users is given to the non-paying users after Paragon take their cut. Paying projects are prioritised on the grid. Sounds a little commercial for my liking.

With the IBM World Community Grid, there is a choice of projects including cancer (although the cancer offering is a little uninspiring) and it is not run for profit, in fact IBM donate hardware, software and expertise to it, and users of the facility must be public bodies or non-profit organisations. It has around 600K PCs on the grid. It uses the same software as grid.org and can only use one processor as grid.org did. However we're all familiar with the interface.

Folding@Home is run by Stanford University and is also a strong candidate. They have around 200K PCs. There are again a number of disease-based research projects, but I can't see that it is possible to select what projects you run. It is possible to run two copies on dual processor systems. The interface looks a little techy if you plan on running on anything other than the default parameters.

Not sure that the UK issue really applies with any of the grids. I have the feeling that UK researchers apply for time on the grids along with other nations.

I would edge towards running Folding@home.