Team Thread @ Dimes

[FluffyChicken]

Well we are the number one team so thought we should have a thread there

:cheers:

http://www.netdimes.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1096#1096

[Dreamer]

Just signed up there today!

Do you know anywhere that explains what this does in simple english, for non-scientists?

How does it calculate points and is it better if it is running constantly?

Thanks!

[PY 222]

Dreamer, welcome to the Team mate.

As for what does this project do, check it out at http://www.netdimes.org/

[CaptainMooseInc]

In English Dreamer it somewhat works like this:

My computer is here. I have DIMES running. DIMES only works when it's running and you are connected to the internet.

Your computer is wherever. My computer does something called a Traceroute. It finds out how long it takes my computer to contact your computer only using 1 computer inbetween us, 2 computers, 3 computers, 4 computers, and so forth. I don't know how many "hops" as they are called DIMES does before it moves on, but then it follows it up with a PING of the same IP address and sees how long it takes a packet of info to get from my computer to yours and back again.

That's one measurement. Now DIMES does thousands of measurements a day. It takes that data and "maps" the internet. If you see those floating little bits of info....those are computers that it's mapped information for already. :)

-Jeff

[Dreamer]

Thanks to both of you!

I downloaded the .pdf files on the site and one of these days, I will print them out and "attempt" to read them! lol! I am a social scientist, not a computer scientist.

Anyway, I have been running the program and have been having fun with it. It's cool to see which counties come up on the map.

Does anyone here know if playing with the dots does anything, besides making them move????

[CaptainMooseInc]

Unfortunately no. But what is fun in the new version is the addition of the "crawler" feature. I used to sit on Google and look up weird websites. Foreign ones mostly. Then I would enter them in into the Link part of the original .4 version of DIMES. Now I can enter just one GOOD link and pick a crawl depth and it'll crawl the website looking for link after link and gather them and add them to a queue and then use DIMES to measure that distance when it gets around to it.

I added one link yesterday and got 982 links collected from the crawl. It came up with some cool foreign ISPs and a whole bunch of measurements I don't think DIMES would normally get. If you have some spare time and just wanna play around like that you can contribute to the project in a less automated way. :)

-Jeff

[black_civic55]

by any chance does some one have the version before the update? the installer that is. I cant get the new client to work so im hopeing by reinstalling the old agent then waiting for the update it will fix the problem

[Dreamer]

Thanks, Jeff!

I am crawling now... Over 6,000 links on just the first site and it's not done yet. Do they give out points for the URLS?

[CaptainMooseInc]

No points for the URLs, but think of it this way...

It's found your next 6000 measurements for you. :)

-Jeff

[Dreamer]

Cool!
So, it is in my best interest to search out more url's to get more points? I have run a bunch of them and my graphs are getting more and more colorful!