OK, here is an example of a problem (which though it can be of issue to dialup users) is not an issue to those of us with broadband connections. I have 1.5 Mbit down, 364 Kbit up aDSL.

> 3-11 MB is to big WU to download with dial-up
3MB
> downloadtime 15 minuts
> crunchtime 1 hour

Now they did lengthen the size of work units and mention was given to this in a thread referenced in that one.

Some of us use bit torrent to download TV shows (and no, when it's available over the public air waves I wouldn't call it piracy, but that's an issue seperate from this thread). Some of these TV shows can be 350 MB. This is one such issue (OK, some addressing was given in another thread) I wouldn't want to have signup and the ability for me to get in to be delayed for.

Issue for some peeps (aka dial up users)? Yes, but not for fellow broadband users. Now from the stand point of BW on the servers end, it could be a potential issue however, reason they also lengthened to computation on work units (the longer work units) and also can generate more then 1 work unit from a given set of data...

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i just leave the dial up running at night. when it finishes downloading it will disconnect if nothing else has been used in 20 minutes or im not getting somthing with firefox. like im getting a driver for my wireless card right now. it doesnt help with dial up but i bring my router and card with the laptop to my frinds with broadband

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~boinc its not the credit or satisfaction its the screensavers~
S@h Berkeley's Staff Friends Club ©members

Good to hear your found away around it. With an unlimited flat rate ISP this would be one way around.

And yeah dialup does suck IMO. My father is stuck on it, but after living on campus/in the dorms and getting resnet connection (over their switched ethernet connection which got served by 3 T3 lines...and at night when few peeps were on :D ) I could never go back.

This though is an example of something in which some users might want an addressing (and from the sound of it there was) isn't a show stopper that I would consider warranting shutting the door on those of us with broadband connections...

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They are trying to address this issue, and others, with enhancements to BOINC. As time goes on these control features will make BOINC smarter about what it is doing and what the participant can do to maximize their system for their participation.

One such feature is the one where they look at the time dedicated by the computer to BOINC as compared to other tasks. This in turn controls how much work is requested for the same buffer size. So, for example, I have two like computers, but one of those is used to play games and to do other work. This one should ask for slightly less work than the other computer which is "lightly" loaded and is doing BOINC for just ablut all of the time.

I am not saying that this is a perfect set-up, but it is a refinement that should assist in the management of the BOINC system as a whole. I know I sound like a broken record, but all of this stuff takes time.

I was amused by a post in one of the subscription mailing lists where a person commented that BOINC was a lot more complex than they had first thought...

I have been saying that since early days in the Beta test program. When I was doing system engineering and building systems with PowerBuilder I had a simple metric for system complexity. You simply count the number of windows that the system will have, divided into Tee-shirt sizes (S, M, L, and possibly XL, gut usually not) and from this you can estimate the time it takes to build the system as you know about the length of time it takes to make each window.

Here, I can simply count the number of web pages I have that are needed to document the system to an extent. Always keeping in mind that we also have to include into the count the number of pages on the BOINC Developer site.

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