Scott Jensen
05-08-2002, 09:46 AM
How about the screensaver and text client display one's current ranking? Even one's team ranking, current total work unit count and current best RMSD structure score? Perhaps even the title holder's RMSD structure score?
Each time the client program uploads information to the servers, it could get the above information and then display it. As for making rooms for such stats on the text client, you could get rid of the "To download this client and..." sentence and display all that information there. I never really understood the logic of that "To download this client and..." sentence and doubt it has recruited a single cruncher since to see it, one has to already be running the client. The new sentence could be something along the following lines:
"Your current individual ranking is 301, your team's current ranking is 44, your current total structures folded so far is 3,743,091, your smallest RMSD structure for the current protein is 6.01, and the current overall smallest RMSD structure is 4.73."
Naturally, if one isn't part of a team, that part of the sentence would simply not be presented.
By having the screensaver and text client present these stats, it can help keep up the interest of crunchers since it will eliminate the need for them to visit the project's website to get this information. Additionally, because crunchers don't have to visit the website for these stats, the traffic of the website should decrease thus help keep the expense of that down ... or at least reduce complaining from others at the university about the bandwidth demands of the project.
Also, I think the sentence "Hit Q to exit the program (after finishing the current structure)." should be changed to "Hit Q to upload work done so far and to exit the program." The "(after finishing the current structure)" is rather meaningless due to how quickly structures are folded.
Each time the client program uploads information to the servers, it could get the above information and then display it. As for making rooms for such stats on the text client, you could get rid of the "To download this client and..." sentence and display all that information there. I never really understood the logic of that "To download this client and..." sentence and doubt it has recruited a single cruncher since to see it, one has to already be running the client. The new sentence could be something along the following lines:
"Your current individual ranking is 301, your team's current ranking is 44, your current total structures folded so far is 3,743,091, your smallest RMSD structure for the current protein is 6.01, and the current overall smallest RMSD structure is 4.73."
Naturally, if one isn't part of a team, that part of the sentence would simply not be presented.
By having the screensaver and text client present these stats, it can help keep up the interest of crunchers since it will eliminate the need for them to visit the project's website to get this information. Additionally, because crunchers don't have to visit the website for these stats, the traffic of the website should decrease thus help keep the expense of that down ... or at least reduce complaining from others at the university about the bandwidth demands of the project.
Also, I think the sentence "Hit Q to exit the program (after finishing the current structure)." should be changed to "Hit Q to upload work done so far and to exit the program." The "(after finishing the current structure)" is rather meaningless due to how quickly structures are folded.