My initial interest in distributed computing was most likely triggered by my work with ElectricImage Animation System. It uses a network rendering engine called Renderama, which allows a large computer animation rendering job to be completed by any number of computers you have to throw at the job.

I think I next heard about people joining the SETI@home project, but that did not interest me much, as the probabilities of there being life elsewhere in the universe are staggeringly slim. If I were going to throw computing power at something, I wanted there to be a reasonable chance of it counting for something.

Folding@home

Then I ran across Stanford University’s Folding@home efforts. As it says on their website, “Help Stanford University scientists studying Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and many cancers by simply running a piece of software on your computer.”

When I started in 2002, getting everything setup and running properly was a bit challenging, as it required having files placed correctly and a bit of command-line work. My statistics page lists June of 2002 as the point where I switched from solo-folding to a team, so I’m guessing I started in January of 2002 (possibly even December of 2001) to reach the number of submitted work units by June.

Protein folding

The Wikipedia article on protein folding explains it like this:

“Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein chain acquires its native 3-dimensional structure, a conformation that is usually biologically functional, in an expeditious and reproducible manner. … Amino acids interact with each other to produce a well-defined three-dimensional structure, the folded protein … The correct three-dimensional structure is essential to function … Failure to fold into native structure generally produces inactive proteins, but in some instances misfolded proteins have modified or toxic functionality.”

This results in various diseases and allergies. Hopefully, if the reasons for the misfolding can be discovered, it might lead to cures. We’re basically running computer simulations to try and cover all the possible ways a protein can fold. Since there are a lot of proteins to examine, an extreme amount of possible ways they can fold, and a lot of computing power required to model each possibility, distributed computing is the only real answer.

You can read about some of the results and objectives on the papers section of Stanford’s site.

Team Mac OS X

In June of 2002, I discovered there were actually a number of teams competing for fun, comprised of individuals like me, implementing one or more computers towards the project. I found Team Mac OS X which had a community forum, providing information and friendship within the very large Folding@home community. I was pretty hooked.

Over the years, I’ve had anywhere from one computer, to maybe a dozen or so contributing to the project. While my numbers are kind of small in the big-picture, it all helps. And, over time, I’ve reached a ranking of #86 on Team Mac OS X (I’ve been much higher at points when I had more computers running), and am currently ranked 10,400 in the world (out of ~1,827,278 contributors). Not too shabby.

It’s now super-easy to contribute. On the Mac, it’s just an installer and a ‘control panel’ web URL, or I think there are even Chrome extensions that can run it directly in a browser window. I’d install it though, as you’ll want to just let it run in the background.

Tips

If you’re interested, just head to Stanford’s site and get going. However, I have a few tips and warnings from years of folding experience.

Folding (or any kind of distributed computing) is probably going to try and maximize output, or at least offer that kind of functionality. The problem is that many computers aren’t designed to run all the CPU or GPU cores 100% 24/7. That’s more the kind of thing servers, workstations, or pro machines are designed to do, which is why they often cost considerably more money.

I’m a Mac user, so to run 100% 24/7 I’d want something like a Mac Pro. Since I don’t have one of those… yet! … I limit the amount of CPU power Folding@home can take.

To put it another way, for many consumer computers, it would, IMO, be a good idea to limit the amount of CPU/GPU that Folding@home can take. You’ve been warned!

While it is designed to ‘get out of the way,’ in that it runs at a lower process priority, that’s not enough. (if you’re running it, and then start up some other app, it will reduce it’s usage to allow the other apps priority) Via the web control panel, you can set it to ‘Light’ which I’ve found uses ~50% of the CPUs. I’ve been running it 24/7 on my iMac for years now, and it hasn’t caused any problems.

That said, if the weather got extremely hot, it might not be a bad idea to shut it down for a bit. And, when I’m doing something else that’s highly CPU intensive (like encoding video, 3D rendering, etc.) I do typically stop the folding. That’s super-simple to do via that web control panel. I just keep it bookmarked. Also, if I’m doing something really mission critical, I tend to quit everything but the app I’m using, which would also include folding.

Statistics

If you start folding, you’ll probably want to keep track of your progress or your team’s progress. There is an incredible site by Extreme Overclocking that displays this data in any number of ways, even including projected overtake data. Here is Team OS X and my (SteveW928) data on that site.

Happy Folding!

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A couple weeks back, I received an e-mail that Gizmo5 services were being shut-down, and that I would have to transition my account to Google Voice, or get a refund on any remaining credit. I was expecting this to happen eventually after Gizmo5 was bought-out by Google, but was a bit surprised at the quick time-frame once announced (about a month). I’m pretty busy right now finishing up my graduate degree, so I really didn’t want this on my plate as well. However, I really had no choice, or we would have lost our phone numbers and been out of business on our phone service.

I’ve been using VoIP phone service since around 2005 when Gizmo Project first got going. We’ve been pretty happy with it in general. It has been flexible for us, as well as saving us money. For example, we’ve been able to keep the same phone numbers for several years, even across several moves. When we got to the ‘new place,’ we only needed Internet service, and everything was up and running again. It allowed us to capture voice-mail as audio files and e-mail them to members of the family. We’ve been getting our calls for around $0.019 per minute or less (sometimes free). About the only down-side is either no-911 service or e911 service, but we always have a cell phone or two around for emergency anyway.

I was a little sad to see Gizmo5 go after all these years. Their support was OK. It took a bunch of monkeying around to get it going initially. We have used an ATA hardware device, which allowed normal phones to be plugged in and used. Once setup and configured properly, though, it has been little different than using a traditional phone. We’ve even been able to have a US and Canada phone number that ring the same phone, which is handy since we now live in Canada but have lots of friends and relatives in the US.

Moving to Google Voice is a WHOLE different story! First, Google seems to have just shut down Gizmo5 support. This is kind of inconsiderate, given that people might need some help with the transition or porting numbers to other services. To make matters worse, it seems Google Voice support is also nearly non-existent. I’m guessing you can get a kind of ‘self-help’ support through their forums, if you can get to them.

First, I had trouble even figuring out what the heck Google Voice is. I have a friend who has used it and told me a bit about it, or I’d certainly be lost by looking at Google’s web site. It just seems to be this Internet calling thingy that may or may not be connected to calling phone numbers, etc. They use a lot of terms for the ‘features’ that make it sound impressive, but I haven’t really figured out anything it can do that most VoIP providers do not.

Second, since I’m in Canada, I couldn’t even get into the Google Voice forums or create an account to see what the heck was going on. I decided to get a refund on my credits, and attempt a port of one of my numbers, but it was a blind move. No support, and no way I could see to get support. I spent an hour one day just trying to see if I could get into their support (I’ve got several ‘Google Accounts’ now, but all failed). I think they must be blocking by IP. In other words, if you’re not in the US, you can’t get anywhere in their support system!

As an aside, if Google support is this horrible (and I’m not the only one who has complained about it… Google doesn’t seem to be known for their customer service), how well does this bode for Android users? Maybe ponder that a bit before you make your decision against getting an iPad or iPhone!

Enter Callcentric! Luckily, I had been experimenting a bit with Callcentric previously on my iPod Touch. I had purchased a Canadian dial-in number for it and was making calls from school and such with it. My experience with them was excellent. Their support was extremely responsive (within minutes sometimes)! Their documentation was very good for setup. Their on-line system for settings, call routing, phone books, reporting, etc. was all excellent! About my only complaint about them, is that their voice-mail system seems a bit outdated, however, it still allows me to route my voice-mail messages to e-mail and deliver them as MP3 files. I’m happy!

So, I was able to port my Gizmo5 number (Canadian) to Callcentric, and decided it wasn’t worth my time or money to try and get our US number out. Callcentric was also running a special on US dial-in numbers, so I just picked one of those up. The experience has been very good, other than maybe wasting about 1/2 to 1 day messing with Google Voice and porting the numbers. It only took me a few hours to get everything going and setup on Callcentric. Interestingly, even Callcentric tech support had to come to my rescue on porting the number, as Gizmo5 didn’t provide me with the docs I needed to authorize the port. Since Callcentric had helped other Gizmo5 people, they were able to point me in the right places to get the info I needed.

So, many thanks to Gizmo5 for getting me into VoIP and years of service. Shame on you Google for doing such a horrible job on the transition and for such cruddy support. And, many thanks to Callcentric for being so supportive in the transition.

Also, if you are wondering why I didn’t mention Skype, it is because Skype doesn’t offer numbers in Canada. Also, Skype is a proprietary VoIP service which isn’t based on the SIP standard. You really want to be SIP based if you want to work with regular software VoIP clients, or standard VoIP hardware. I have nothing against Skype, and use it quite a bit, but IMO, it is a different kind of thing. One thing Skype is really good at, is punching its way out of networks to get a call through. I use both SIP clients and Skype on my iPod Touch when mobile. If I can’t get a call out with the SIP software, I usually can with Skype.

Image credit: gizmo5 by Nano Taboada

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Photo: Colorful Old Oil Barrels by L.C.Nøttaasen.

I have yet to get used to thinking in Liters/100km for gas mileage here in Canada. Miles per Gallon (MPG) is simply engrained in my head. Part of the problem is just the difference in units of liters and gallons. But, there is also the issue of one measuring distance on 1 gallon, while the other is measuring the quantity of fuel over a distance. To top it off, they run inverse of each other. (ex: a car that gets MORE MPG is better, but a car that uses LESS liters/100km is better.) Anyway, it threw my brain for a loop while I was car shopping several months back, so I looked around the Internet for a conversion calculator or chart. I could only find one for UK gallons (which I didn’t catch for a while, which REALLY confused me for a bit). Calculators weren’t very convenient while car shopping, so I decided to make a nice chart to take along.

If you are also struggling with this one way or the other, enjoy!

Liters/100km to MPG (US) Conversion Chart

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Photo: Snow Leopard by BenedictFrancis.

Just a quick post to point out an update to Devon Technologies’ WordService. WordService has just been updated to version 2.8 if you are already using it. Download from Devon Technologies products page.

If you are not already using this, I really recommend that you check it out. It adds a whole number of quite useful utilities to your Services menu on Mac OSX. From their website:

“WordService provides 37 functions to convert, format or speak the currently selected text, to insert data or to show statistics of the selection within all Cocoa applications (e.g. Textedit, Pages, Mail, Stickies, Safari or Xcode) and Carbon applications supporting services.”

My favorite and most used is ‘Reformat’ which does stuff like strip extra spaces, line feeds and other junk out of text. When I copy something from the web or pretty much anywhere, I typically paste it into a blank TextEdit document set to plain-text. I then do a ‘select all’ and then ‘Reformat’. It cleans the text up really nice! I also use the insert time/date functions quite a bit. The others are really useful as well, but I don’t have keys mapped to many others.

To map a keyboard shortcut go to your Services preferences under System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Services. By the way, the Services settings are a bit tricky until you figure it out. When it says to double-click on the shortcut and then push the key combination to set it, it actually means to double click in the area to the right of the service you want to set the keys for. If you scroll up and down, you should see some, and if you double-click there, you’ll see how it selects and gets highlighted.

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You probably are aware of this scam concerning wifi, as it is not new. But for OSX users, I just wanted to post a visual of it. I took this screen-shot on a recent trip while I was at the airport. As you can see, you should be looking for a network to join up where it says TELUS. If you look under ‘Computer-to-Computer Networks’ you will see ‘Free Public WiFi’ and ‘tmobile’. Both of these are scams. They are probably people sitting in the airport with their personal sharing turned on, waiting for someone to connect to the Internet through them. They can then capture packets of data, and look for people logging into services. Many services an average user might connect to are not all that secure (ie: properly encrypted passwords, etc.). They snag this info and then can use it.

Even if you connect to an actual router… such as ‘TELUS’, it could still be a scam. However, it is certainly more complicated to to setup that scam. Also, if you are somewhere such as an airport, there are usually advertisements as to what the name of the service is you should be seeing.

Also, just to be safe, whenever you are in a place using a Internet connection other than your own, be aware of what kind of services and things you sign into. The big problem is that many people check their e-mail, which is not a super-secure thing to do. While you can’t ever make yourself totally safe, you can prevent a lot of problems with just a bit of care.

Update:

One way to dramatically increase your security whenever using a public network, is to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network). This will encrypt and ‘tunnel’ the traffic between your computer and the destination, which would mean that snoopers on that wifi network will just see an encrypted stream. One service I use and like is called IP Vanish.

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Heck, even us Mac users have been perking up and paying attention… over the last year security firms have found spots in OSX where a skillful hacker *could* potentially have caused us some problems. We’ve not seen a virus yet, so it’s not like panic has set in or anything… but one always has to be on guard. Some Mac users even go so far as to install anti-virus software, just in case!

But, while I was perusing some of those ‘tech’ sites this morning, I ran across a totally new approach. Duh! It seems M$’s Windows co-president, Jim Allchin, found a MUCH more simple way to avoid all these problems.

WARNING: Don’t read further if you are not sitting down….

It seems that Jim has actually unleashed his 7-year-old son…. to surf the net…. on a Windows machine…. WITHOUT anti-virus software! GASP!

OK… if you’re still with me… before you go into a state of shock, read on…

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193700656

“Honestly, he doesn’t have an antivirus system on his machine. His machine is locked down with parental controls, he can’t download things unless it’s to the places that I’ve said that he could do, and I’m feeling totally confident about that,” Allchin said. “That is quite a statement. I couldn’t say that in Windows XP SP2.”

Man, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. All you have to do is lock down your computer with parental controls, so you can only go to a few known good web locations…. and you’re safe. How amazing is that?! Maybe he should patent the idea.

However, what I find even more amazing is that last sentence. Apparently, to get this safety, you’ll have to buy Vista (oh, and probably a new computer which can run Vista). I guess previous versions of Windows can catch a virus just by thinking about the Internet.

Well folks… there you have it. A simple solution from the great minds at M$. All you have to do is give them a couple hundred bucks…. buy a new computer… and lock down your parental controls for a 7-year-old… and you’re safe.

Oh, I guess the only thing I need to figure out now is how you determine the ‘safe list’ of web sites. Maybe Jim will be distributing this? Or, I guess you can call one of your friends with Mac.

But Jim, I have an even more simple solution…. why not just get a Mac and save yourself several hundred $.

(OK… I promise to write about something besides picking on M$ soon. But, they just make it so easy… ‘like shooting fish in a barrel’ I think the saying goes.)

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ComputerWeekly article

My only question… where is my name?

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http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193001536

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It became personal when I ran into the fan issue on the MacBook Pro that was issued to me at my job (YAY!). I ended up having to take it into the Apple Store to be repaired, and am currently awaiting its return. It’s not a big issue, mind you. Though, any day away from a new Mac can be quite traumatic (as any Mac user can attest).

However, I found that things could certainly be a lot worse. Sure, Apple has a problem now and then, but they are generally very good about fixing problems. And even with the problems, their products are still on par, or superior in quality to just about anything else on the market.

Case in point… I wonder how much press Dell will get compared to Apple on this one?

This photo is from the following article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32550 (article no longer available)

The laptop was apparently set up at a conference table, when it ‘exploded’ into flames. Good thing it wasn’t on someone’s lap. Think about that the next time you’re sitting on the couch surfing the web! Yikes!

Now I’m certainly not saying that non-Apple laptops explode or burst in flames on a regular basis (not counting the Windows OS in a figurative sense, which happens VERY often). But, the types of issues Apple users tend to see are not uncommon at all with other higher end vendors, and very mild compared to the lower priced brands PC users are quick to refer to when comparing to Apple.

So, I’ll not complain too much about a bit of bearing noise in a fan… and a week away from the new little Mac… sniff, sniff. And even though Apple is getting quite a bit of press on ‘issues’ with their new laptop line… we just have to put it all into perspective.

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