Help Cure Cancer Contest

[Joseph Fung]

The YaBB and YaBB SE teams are calling out for members to help fight cancer.  The project is run by United Devices in a distributed computing effort much like the SETi@Home project.  The way it works, is you download the client and either sign up with your existing account, or let it walk you through the registration process.  Once you've installed the client, it will download data from the UD server, process it on your idle clock cycles, and return the results once your package of data is complete.

It's great because there is minimal impact on your machine, but when you add up that little bit of processing from a large number of users - it can really make an difference.

The way we've made this into a contest is as follows: when you're processing data, you earn points at ud.com - the points are based primarily on how much time you spend processing and how much processing power you can bring to the cause.  The YaBB and YaBB SE teams are offering a free CD to the member that signs up between now and May 31st who earns the most points.  That's two teams, one CD for each team.

Once you've registered you can join the YaBB SE team by following this link, or you can check out the YaBB 1 Gold team by following this one.

If you're interested, here is some more information about the project, and if you have any further questions, feel free to email either of the team captains: [email protected] and [email protected]

[PHPlugin]

hmm my english isnt good at all!

Whats this thing? Dunno what U mean!  

[Edwin]

Why not offer them a free YaBB (se) board instead of the expansive UBB forum (the can use the money!)  

[Nerd3d]

What about those of us who already signed up I have 8,600 points! I suppose I could rename my device and sign up again, but that falls into the dirty trick catagory.  

By the way people this is a screen saver that does a lot more than draw useless pictures on the screen. While you are not using your computer it is looking for possible cancer treatment drugs.

JUST DO IT

[Joseph Fung]

What about those of us who already signed up I suppose I could rename my device and sign up again, but that falls into the dirty trick catagory.  

The point of it is to be a recruitment campaign, I'm afraid those of you enrolled (even Jef, Zef and myself) are out of the running.  And dirty tricks are indeed frowned upon  

[Nerd3d]

That's OK, I didn't start doing it for goodies anyway. This is the best seceensaver ever Instead of pictures I get satisfaction. Priceless.

[Muad_Dib]

(Please don't mind my English).

A good initiative, this 'contest'. I've read about the Help Cure Cancer project before, but never took the effort to really figure out how it works.

But now there is a YaBB-team I think I'll be joining it.

I've just got some questions for the people who joined it earlier: Are you sure there isn't any spy- or adware in this software?

And could you explain in simple English (Or perhaps Dutch, Edwin?) just how this program works (does it only run when I'm not working at my PC?) and whether there are any minimal system requirements? The point is: My regular PC is broken and now I'm working at an oldtimer (P1, 200MHz with 64MB SDRAM or someting like that) and I'd like to now if I can still work on it, when UD is running.

Thanks in advance for the explanation and while I'm at it: Thanks for YaBB and this good initiative to!

[Joseph Fung]

It works all the time - but when you are using the computer it works less.  If you are off your computer, it will do more.

Yes, you can install it on your older computer, and no, there is no spy ware.  I used ad-aware to search and found no spy ware.

[Nerd3d]

No spyware, I've been running it for several months now. It functions as a screen saver or a background app. I believe it will wotk on your present system. If you use a fire wall be sure to give the .exe premission to access the net.

[Muad_Dib]

Thanks for your quick answers. Just 1 other question (perhaps also nice for future reference by other wannabe-members):

It functions as a screen saver or a background app.

Can I configure it that it will only run as a screensaver and not at the backgrond while I'm working? They can have all my CPU-'power' when I'm doing something else but when I'm working I really need all the memory and CPU I can get at this old bastard.

[Joseph Fung]

Yes you can do that

If you click on the config button (the checkmark) you can toggle onthe run only as screen saver

[Muad_Dib]

Great! I'll download it and join the YaBB-team! Let's hope we can make a difference!

[Joseph Fung]

Also, for those of you who didn't know, you can install the client on multiple machines under the same account.  As you can see in the screenshot below, I have 2 machines running.

[Jeff Lewis]

Heh which I just figured to start now

[memobug]

Just wondering how would you know this distributed computing thing is actually working on curing cancer and not a defense project to develop biological weapons or crack spy codes or... OH!

How do I know you will actually do useful and scientifically valid computations on my computer?
 United Devices is working on this project with the University of Oxford, the National Foundation for Cancer Research, and Intel-all highly visible, well-respected organizations. Please feel free to review the web sites of each of these organizations to confirm their involvement.

In addition, our members can see the project themselves via the UD Agent interface. UD is committed to Member involvement—Members will always have information about the project that their machines are working on.

Gee.  I'm glad they didn't say Microsoft was involved, or I'd have known for sure I was going to get screwed.    I guess I can park my Matrix screensaver for awhile and give it a try!