In a follow-up to Wirt's remarks regarding Parabon, may I make a comparison
between the two cancer research software options that were mentioned on this
list.  I am referring to Parabon Pioneer and United Devices, both of which
are "profit making adventures, but with completely different results and
environments.

I installed Parabon Pioneer on one of my pc's first.  The installation was
quick and painless.  I can locally control how much disk space it uses, how
much of the CPU memory it will consume and how long it will wait for my
machine to go idle before it grabs control.  If you wish to disable the
software for any period of time, it's a simple as a right click followed by
clicking on the "disable engine" option.  In truly does operate in an
unobtrusive manner.  Truly it does offer a "pay for use" approach, but any
proceeds that you may have earned can be earmarked back to the American
Cancer Society and refunneled into cancer research.  As near as I can tell,
the software has completed 5 tasks in 6 days - 4 of which were "cancer
research" related and 2 of which were apparently something else (what I
can't even fathom).

I also installed United Devices on another pc.  The installation was not
quite as fast, but it was pretty painless.  That's where the similarities
end.  The UD software takes about 1/3 more disk space (although at 2.25
megabytes, it's still not a large amount).  The options are all remotely
controlled from their website.  However, it took 5 tries to actually get
their website to recognize my options - and then the software still ignores
most of my preferences.  The software does not wait for your machine to go
idle, but instead also tries to grab "unused cycles" during productive
times.  At times I have tracked it consuming as much as 80% of that
machine - even when I am doing other normally CPU intensive tasks!  To
temporarily disable the software you actually have to exit out of the
software - which means that to restart it you have to "reload" it.  It is
very intrusive!  Yes, it is a "pay for cycles" approach as well, but from
what I can gather the number of tasks that are dedicated to cancer research,
it is nearly 100% cancer research related.

It's really hard to make a choice between these two options, but I think
because of the "unobtrusiveness of the software I will continue with Parabon
and drop the UD stuff - on all of my machines.  [Currently we have 3
non-work related pc's in our house connected to the internet.]

Glenn

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *