Groan . Good one!

Of course, the trick here is to notice the announcement and then ACT straightaway...

tonyh205, gb009761 -- thanks for your responses.

Combining your ideas, I'll try to hit a timing where my machine will be 'hungry' when a beta-release announcement is made. Hmm... wait, that looks like a tough act to follow! Gee, why does it have to be like a hit-and-miss affair? Why does it have to be this hard?... Why doesn't WCG have a "Server Status" where an overview of deployment of the WUs are (also) indicated? See this post.
;

andzgrid, another useful tip (or does it eventually start to appear like some sort of alchemy?) is to increase your cache BEFORE you make any preference changes and then to make changes to preferences and increase your cache again. This way, you can more safely leave your beta net in the water for longer (I have seen instances when tests have run long enough for a machine to grab, process and then grab again).

However, as the other sea dogs have already stated, you need to know when the beta fish are swimming in your waters. For that part, there is no real trick, it's more a case of luck.

Needless to say, if you do manage to grab a full net of betas, you really have to use micromanagement to get them done as soon as possible because you will only be allowed to catch one per working thread.

So there you go, full steam ahead and abracadabra!

Do the BETA fish swim on the weekend or mainly on the weekdays? I just want to know as to know when to micromanage stuff.