Hi dreplogle

Thanks for the constructive criticism but if you have a look across the forum you will find out that a Linux agent is on it's way and eventually a MAC agent. Dual Core and SMP support is on it's way. The WCG has thought about these things and things are being done - it just takes a bit of patience. If you don't like the graphics you don't have to waste your CPU time on them just minimise the agent down to the task bar and jobs a good one and remember to turn off that screensaver. Other more typical users enjoy the feedbck that the program gives that something is cooking away inside their PC.

I would have thought that it would more efficient to support the X86 architecture fully/completely rather than chasing the rabbits of various Graphic Chip designs - these change almost weekly in the last 12 months we've had 9600,9700,9800, X800 from ATI and 5600,5700,5900,6800,6600 and 6200 from NVIDIA. This week I have heard of a 7800 arriving from NVidia . The X86 processor line has been around since 1987 (to my personal knowledge) something we should be glad for.

You say a serious distributed computing user wants to work with the command line. This is all well and good for an enthusiast but for the majority (which means the most will be contributed to the project) of computer users have had their Windows GUI for a while and have never seen a C:\ in a DOS box in all of their days with Bill's Products. I'm sure the Linux Client will have a command line option.

The leaders of this project regularly make an appearance on the forum check out posts from bbover3, Viktors, Knreed, Nelsoc and the Developer Alther. We have regular feedback from rbonneau the Scientist who is the recipient of all the data we have created in the special forum set up specifically for this interchange. You will find info on new projects also mentioned in this forum

It really has only been 7 months since the start of this project and we have only just laid the foundations for the future - which is going to be a good one.

I'm extremely lucky in being able to represent this community to IBM please be assured that IBM are listening - not just listening but acting on that feedback.

I hope you stick around to watch this space.

Please don't take offense by any of the above. It's just I've supported this project from day 1 and I think you are being slightly unfair as to how the project is running we have completed at least 60% of Project number 1 which in anybody's book is great news starting from scratch on November 16th only last year.

Take care and all the best
Sam

We all know that the number of WCG members is raising slower and slower, and there's no increase in total run time per day...
But WCG is still very young and both releasing the Linux Client and finishing our first project should be the moments that will "wake and shake" WCG...

So cheer up guys, in a few months everything will look better. (I hope... )

Regards,

Rest assured that we are not short on innovative ideas. We have a very long list of innovations, enhancements, new functions, etc. which we have prioritized. I don't want to publish this list because we will just get more emails asking when some particular favorite will be ready. However, we are a small team, and being a philanthropic, non-profit project, we don't have an infinite budget. Thus please be patient with us. We cannot do everything in the list at once.

As for new projects, we are receiving proposals and are in various stages of evaluating them. We have people dedicated to following up on any leads for additional proposals. It takes quite a bit of work from proposal to a running project, so please be patient with this also.

BTW, we have encountered scientists that should be able to use this kind of massive grid power, but they have never seriously given it any thought because computing power of this scale is well beyond their budgets. So, it will take them time to develop a project, the programming to go behind it, and to test the validity of their approach before it appears on the grid.

Members can help by getting the word out to their research friends, many of whom are not aware of the computing power we are making available for free. This will give them more lead time to come up with ideas on how to use our grid. Some researchers ask, "What is the catch?" There really is none except that the project must benefit mankind or the world, and the immediate results must be placed in the public domain.

As for getting more members and devices, we have some things planned in the next few months that should help a lot with that. Sorry, I cannot spill the beans on those things yet.

Finally the best way to get more members is using a grass roots approach. There is an article here: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=5686 which describes how grass roots efforts are far more effective in the long run than big publicity events. So go out and sit down with your friends, neighbors, and relatives and show them how to install the grid agent, join a team, and use the web site and forums. I find it amazing how often people say they will download and install the agent, yet never do it without someone actually sitting down with them and doing it with them, while explaining what it is all about. So please, "Ask not what World Community Grid can do for you, ask what you can do for World Community Grid."