:: 04-Nov-2003 13:10 GMT (Tuesday) ::

We have had numerous requests to add sub-team functionality to the
statistics system. With the recent migration to PostgreSQL, we feel
we are now in a position to offer sub-team statistics to our users,
but we first need to know what you (our users) want to see. There
are a few limitations as to how these statistics can be implemented,
but I want to leave the door open for any and all suggestions.

You can view the status of the bug and offer your comments here:

http://n0cgi.distributed.net/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=3479

:: 27-Oct-2003 15:51 GMT (Monday) ::

Almost forgot… team joins are turned on again. :) Enjoy!

:: 27-Oct-2003 15:50 GMT (Monday) ::

I’d like to re-number all teams with IDs over 20,000 before we turn team
creation back on (which will happen in a few days).

The up-side is that every team would have a 5 digit ID again (which is how it
was supposed to work in the first place). The down-side is that existing URLs
won’t work anymore (although we could make the code automagically re-direct to
the proper team ID for all teams over 50,000).

I’d like to know what people think before I do this. Please post your comments
to rc5@distributed.net.

:: 23-Oct-2003 21:22 GMT (Thursday) ::

There is an issue with password mailing; we’re aware of it and working on it.
Please be patient.

:: 22-Oct-2003 21:11 GMT (Wednesday) ::

Evening everyone,
I am pleased to announce that we have re-enabled
large portions of the stats system this evening. As
a result the following functions are again available
through the stats website:

• Participant Password Mailing
• Participant Edits

NOTE: The authentication for participant edits
has changed slightly. You are now required to enter
your participant id in the “Username” field when/if
you are prompted for your username/password.

That leaves only two major pieces of functionality
remaining to complete the PGSQL migration. Team joins
are in process and almost complete, Participant retires
is not quite as far along, but the hard parts are mostly
done. I would expect to see these two bits appear before
the end of next week.

A number of other bugs have been squashed and there
are new versions of a number of the pages available. Please
do not hesitate to report any new bugs that you find by
utilizing the “bug database” link at the top of the stats
pages.

Thanks again to everyone for their patience, and keep
on crunching!

:: 21-Oct-2003 04:30 GMT (Tuesday) ::

There’s a new release-candidate client for OpenVMS/Alpha available on
the pre-release page. This is the first update in awhile for that
platform, so early feedback from anyone on that platform is
appreciated. http://www.distributed.net/download/prerelease.php

We’re close to having an optimized AMD64 (x86_64) client with a
hand-optimized natively 64-bit RC5-72 core in it. If you’re
interested in the progress of this, you can follow this bug for
status. http://n0cgi.distributed.net/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=3387
Currently we’re trying to tweak a few more cycles out of this core
before releasing something.

Two weeks ago we upgraded the translated language selection
functionality on our website to use a cookie-based technique instead
of purely Apache’s mod_negotiation. This results in a more consistent
user-experience if you explicitly pick another language translation
and then navigate around the website. For technical details see
http://n0cgi.distributed.net/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=3380

If you think you’d like to help out with translation or updating of
some of the localized versions of our webpages, feel free to send an
email to mikereed@distributed.net indicating what language(s) you’re
able to accommodate.

The proxyinfo status pages should also be functioning again, after a
few days of not being available. A bug in one of our stylesheets was
preventing them from being regenerated.

Also if you think you have a reasonable amount of experience with PHP
and PostgreSQL and would like to help out with the implementation of
some exciting new features on our stats pages, join #distributed on
irc.distributed.net or e-mail decibel@distributed.net

:: 09-Oct-2003 18:06 GMT (Thursday) ::

They say that all good things must come to an end. (Don’t you hate messages
that start with “They say…”?)

I regret to announce that I will be resigning from DCTI after this weekend.
This was not an easy decision on my part, and I will miss working with the
staff and participants terribly. I’m truly amazed at how much I’ve learned
from working with the rest of the DCTI staff, as well as from hanging out in
#distributed.

In the end, it comes down to personal priorities. I’ve used this space more
than once to point out that we volunteers have personal lives. I finally
listened to my own advice and realized that any time I spend on DCTI is time
taken away from family, church, and work. There just isn’t enough time left
after those three to give DCTI the time it deserves.

After this weekend, my bwilson@distributed.net account will be inactive or
forwarded to someone else. (I leave that up to them to decide.) I will probably
continue to run the client and go back to being a stats junkie with many of the
rest of you. That’s what got me started in the first place, you know.

As always, I encourage any of you with ideas for projects, or with an
interest in helping out, or with coding/documenting skills to volunteer
and join up. The first step is to catch one of the current staff on
irc.distributed.net:#distributed and find out more.

It’s been a fun ride, and I thank you all for the ways you’ve helped us to
succeed as an organization. I wish you all the best.

As always, keep those CPUs crunching…

— Bruce Wilson bwilson@distributed.net

:: 03-Oct-2003 12:40 GMT (Friday) ::

I’ve created a meta-bug for all the bugs that need to be resolved to
restore full stats functionality. If you want to monitor the status
of these bugs, you should add yourself to the CC list on bug 3437
(http://n0cgi.distributed.net/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=3437).

:: 03-Oct-2003 12:16 GMT (Friday) ::

I’ve just enabled team editing. It appears to work fine, but please note that .
if errors occur it will be necessary to restore from a backup This means any .
changes you make right now could potentially be lost .

:: 01-Oct-2003 05:00 GMT (Wednesday) ::

A number of new clients and proxies have been made available on the
pre-release page over the last few days, for those of you who want to
assist with testing new early release (Win32, Linux/x86, AIX, Solaris,
NetBSD/x86). http://www1.distributed.net/download/prerelease.php

Notably there is a new Win32 MSI Windows Installer version of the
client now available on that page. Since that represents an entirely
new installer code-base, it would be good to get as much coverage as
possible on it before we put it on the formal download page.

As always, please report any issues in our Bugzilla database.