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Posts by jpmcgee

Posts by jpmcgee

1) Message boards : Number crunching : Big difference between RAC and average change in total credit (Message 36954)
Posted 18 May 2009 by jpmcgee
Post:
Les and Richard,

Thanks for the explanation. As for the resolution, I'll just wait and see what happens. I'm assuming that the total credit numbers are correct and that eventually the RAC numbers will converge to them.

Pat
2) Message boards : Number crunching : Big difference between RAC and average change in total credit (Message 36950)
Posted 18 May 2009 by jpmcgee
Post:
I see a big difference (3-4x) between Recent Average Credit and the average of changes in total credit for ClimateChange runs. I don't see similar differences for SETI.

I'm running CC on 3 computers (2 Macs, 1 Windows). On the computers, BOINCManager reports a host average of around 4,800 total (computers around 1800, 1650, and 1350). This agrees with the RAC reported on BOINCStats, which was 4,858 this morning. These numbers have been pretty stable for the past 10 days or so, going down a bit the day after we had power problems for several hours.

When I add up the total credit, and look at how that changes from day to day, I see only about 1,500 per day (computers around 650, 550, and 300). Both BOINCManager and BOINCStats agree on this number, as does boincsynergy when looking at just CC stats.

These two numbers differ by more than a factor of three, and that factor has been stable for the same time.

I have another computer that runs SETI. On it, the RAC, from several sources, shows up as 75-80, and the average of the changes in the total credit as 80-90.

What can I look at to help me understand why CC shows such differing results, or to diagnose whatever problems I might be having?

Thanks,

Pat
3) Questions and Answers : Wish list : usability issue: some Graphics Preferences change without user input (Message 33127)
Posted 28 Mar 2008 by jpmcgee
Post:
The issue I described is strictly on the web page, not with how the web page interacts with the client program. I apologize for not making that point more clearly.

Pat
4) Questions and Answers : Wish list : usability issue: some Graphics Preferences change without user input (Message 33123)
Posted 28 Mar 2008 by jpmcgee
Post:
Versions: BOINC Mgr 5.10.45, CPN hadcm3i 5.44, Windows XP, SP2, CPN web page as of 27 March 2008

Issue: When editing Graphics preferences on the web page, some values change back to defaults instead of remembering the user\'s previous selection.

Expected behavior: Go to the Graphics preferences on the web page. Note the values of all the fields. Click Edit. Compare the values shown with those noted above. There should be no differences.

Why I expected this: Usability principles. Reference just about anything written by Jakob Nielsen. In general, if a user sets something, don\'t change it out from under them.

Actual behavior: Several fields had different values. Fields included Scene and Rotation. Headlight, Political Boundaries are not affected.

Why this is important: The more frustrations a volunteer has, the less likely they are to continue to donate their computer time to this project.
5) Questions and Answers : Wish list : usability issue: changing graphics parameters sometimes requires reboot (Message 33122)
Posted 28 Mar 2008 by jpmcgee
Post:
Versions: BOINC Mgr 5.10.45, CPN hadcm3i 5.44, Windows XP, SP2.

Issue: When some Graphics Preferences are changed on the CPN web page, the application does not apply those changes until the computer is rebooted.

Expected behavior: Go to the preferences on the web page. Change Rotation. Go back to BM, click update. The rotation should now be applied.

Why I expected this: 1) After editing the preferences, the web page displays a message saying that the changes will be applied when an update is done or when the application next communicates with the web server; 2) The rollover message on the update button on BM says the same basic thing.

Actual behavior: The rotation is not applied when update is done. It is also not applied when BM is exited and restarted. It is applied when the computer is rebooted.

Affected fields: Rotation is affected. Scene is not. I have not tested other fields.

Why this is important: The more frustrations a volunteer has, the less likely they are to continue to donate their computer time to this project.
6) Questions and Answers : Wish list : Where can I post issue reports? Here? (Message 33121)
Posted 28 Mar 2008 by jpmcgee
Post:
Hi Iain,
Thanks, I\'ll put stuff here then.

I know that safety and good science are the most important goals. I\'d like to argue a little bit that improving the user experience is also important to this project, like all projects that recruit volunteers. (I\'m the volunteer coordinator for one non-profit right now, and have been same for a couple of others in the past. Keeping the volunteers happy enough to do good work was pretty much my entire focus.) (Also, I know you\'re not the person I need to convince.)

Here\'s my argument:
1) This project depends completely on volunteers to run the programs.
2) Prospective volunteers come in lots of flavors. For some, the science is the most important thing, and they will work through any frustrations of using the program. (These people tend to be the most similar to scientists.)
3) For others, the \'good feelings\' of contributing are the most important. These people tend to be less able and less willing to deal with frustrations. (These people tend to think differently than scientists.)
4) People like this tend to quit running a program that frustrates them. In order to keep more of those people, the fewer frustrations in using the program, the better.
5) In order to reduce the frustrations, it would be good if the developers put \'user experience\' as a very close third to safety and science.

If you believe this logic (and I do), then the more attention paid to the user experience, the more compute hours people will donate.

Pat
7) Questions and Answers : Wish list : Where can I post issue reports? Here? (Message 33119)
Posted 28 Mar 2008 by jpmcgee
Post:
I found several small issues with CPN and BOINC yesterday. I don\'t know the best place to report them. Is this a good place? If not, where should I put them?

For example, in BM 5.10.45 and hadcm3i version 5.44, the text on the left side of the graphics says, \"Use keyboard keys in change view. Use CTRL + key when in screensaver mode.\" That behavior worked sometime before 5.2.13, but was no longer working in 5.2.13 or since then.

I think this confuses newbies (and this slightly reduces recruitment). It certainly confused me. It took me a couple of hours to find the correct way to do this.

Thanks,

Pat
8) Questions and Answers : Windows : Ctrl+key just stops screensaver (Message 33113)
Posted 28 Mar 2008 by jpmcgee
Post:
Hi Les,
Hmmmm. Well, the reboot did the trick. I now get rotation on both the \"Show graphics\" and the screensaver. Thanks, I would not have thought that a reboot would accomplish anything that exiting and restarting the program would not have.

I had seen the \"Use defaults\" and had made sure it was always \"No\". Thanks for checking, but I don\'t think it is relevant to this problem.

Earlier today as I was trying to figure this out, I upgraded to 5.10.45. That\'s probably too recent a change to show up in any results. I did make sure I was using the most recent version before I posted anything.

So, I\'m happy now. I still think there are several bugs that it would be nice if people addressed. In addition to the ones I mentioned earlier, I\'d add these:

1) Rebooting the computer makes things work that just exiting and restarting BOINC Mgr doesn\'t. In particular, correctly processing some but not all of the graphics preferences.

and, the one that started this thread several months ago:
2) It would be really nice if someone would change the message on the left of the planet model to remove references to the ctrl and keys to change the screensaver behavior.


For future reference, here are the steps I followed to get the screensaver preferences to work correctly:
1) From the \"Tasks\" or the \"Projects\" tab, click on the \"Your Account\" button.
2) From that web page, click on the \"Your account\" line in the left column.
3) In the Preferences section, click \"View or edit\" next to climageprediction.net preferences.
4) In the Graphics Preferences section, click on the \"Edit climateprediction.net preferences\" link.
5) Set the preferences you want. Make sure you look at all of them and not just the ones you want to change, as the web page will change some out from under you. Also make sure the \"Use Defaults\" is set to \"No\".
6) Click \"Update Preferences\"
7) Reboot each machine that BOINC is running climateprediction on.

(Tested with BOINC Manager 5.10.45, and with the web page on 27 March 2008. If using any other versions of either one, YMMV.)

Pat
9) Questions and Answers : Windows : Ctrl+key just stops screensaver (Message 33111)
Posted 27 Mar 2008 by jpmcgee
Post:
Hi Les,
Thanks for the reply. I got it partly working but not completely.

In the process, I learned a few things:

1) When I update the Preferences on the web page, and then do \"Update\" instead of exiting and restarting BOINC manager, the Graphics Display from the manager gets the new preferences, but the screen saver doesn\'t. You told me I\'d need to restart, but the rollover on the Update button says that it will get the latest preferences. Also, when I clicked the \"update\" button on the web page, I get a red message saying \"Your preferences have been changed. Client-related preferences will take effect when your computer communicates with climateprediction.net or you issue the \"Update\" command from the BOINC client. So, I see a mismatch between the behavior I expect from reading the rollover and the web page, and what actually happens. I think this mismatch is a bug.

2) If I start from no browser windows open, click on \"Your account\" in BOINC Manager, then the \"Your Account\" in the left column of the web page, then click \"View or edit\" on the climatechange.net preferences line, I get a section that shows me what my preferences are. If I then click on \"Edit climateprediction.net preferences\", the dropdown lists for Scene and Rotation are reset back to Temperature and None, instead of what I set them to. (Presumably the other drop-downs will do the same thing, but I didn\'t test them.) I think this is a bug.

3) If I start with BOINC Mgr running, and update the preferences on the web page to show rotation, I can go back to BOINC Mgr, do \"Update\", and then when I do \"Show graphics\", I see the rotation. However, if I exit BM, change the web page, and then restart BM and do \"Show Graphics\", I don\'t see the rotation. In addition, I never see the rotation in the screen saver. I think this is a bug.

Anyway, I\'ve got clouds now, so I\'m happier. I\'d like to see rotation also, but as long as I\'ve got a prettier picture than just the continental outlines, it\'s nice.

Thanks,

Pat
10) Questions and Answers : Windows : Ctrl+key just stops screensaver (Message 33107)
Posted 27 Mar 2008 by jpmcgee
Post:
I\'m having the same problem. (Windows XP, SP2, BOINC Manager 5.10.45) (I was using 5.2.something, but upgraded a few minutes ago to see if that would fix the problem. It didn\'t.)

Symptoms:
1) Some (unknown, probably a few months ago), my screensaver quit showing any dynamic pictures. It shows the globe not moving with just the continent outlines.
2. Before that, it showed interesting stuff like clouds, and the globe rotated.
3. I selected the task, clicked on Show graphics, and pressed S and C to make it rotate and show clouds. Looks nice.
4. I close the graphics window and open it again. I\'m back to the non-rotating globe and just the continent outlines.
5. When I get into the screensaver mode, I see a non-rotating globe and just the continent outlines.
6. When I press CTRL or S, I get out of screensaver mode. (I understand that this is the expected behavior for recent versions. Version 5.2.whatever did the same thing.)

Anybody got any hint of other things to try?

Thanks,

Pat




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