Cranking up the heat

It has been quite a while for me, but I have finally got my computer back to running Folding@Home. Folding@Home (F@H or Folding for short), is a distributed computing project maintained by Stanford University, which benefits disease research. The program uses you CPU or graphics card to simulate protein folding, hence the name. Anyways, I recently purchased an Nvidia 8600 GTS graphics card from a friend. While I current graphics card is faster than the 8600, I intended to use them in tandem for different purposes. My faster ATI card drives my displays that I uses for games and work, and the 8600 runs Folding non-stop. This gives me the advantage of using a graphics card for Folding, which is faster than regular CPU folding, but at the same time be able to do all of my normal work without lagging. Although I could settle for the 1800 points per day that my graphics card can manage alone, I don't want to. In a quest for more folding power, I have created two virtual machines running Ubuntu Linux to run on my ultra-fast CPU. You may ask, why go with virtual machines? Isn't that slower than running a program natively? Yes and no. In this case, I choose to run the Folding client in Linux because the Linux version can make use of more efficient F@H (a2) cores which are much faster. However running the a2 cores in a virtual machine is slower than running them on an actual Linux machine. Now when I fire up both virtual machines and the GPU core, I can fold about 6000 points per day. With all those processors running, I end up with a lot of heat. My 8600 GTS card averages 70C folding, and my Core i7 CPU averages about 58C.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Research Paper

I have just finished writing a research paper on Arnold Schwarzenegger. The topic of the paper is how an athlete, in my case Arnold Schwarzenegger, has contributed to society. Now that it is finalized, I have chosen to release the paper under Creative Commons licensing. It is free for the taking, modification and publication. The paper in PDF format can be found here. The Open Office Document format can be downloaded here. They will also be found under the files link on my blog.



Arnold Schwarzenegger by Benjamin Daschel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at dl.dropbox.com.

Links to machinima...Finally

Here is the link to part One.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIw6eDwot0I
And the Link to part two.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuL0O_z-c5E

New Machinima Series

What started as a class project, has now been poised to become a machinima mini series. Most likely to be the purpose of my blog from now on, is to post links and director commentary about my videos. This video series is called Deception. Episode One starts out with the introduction of the main character in an unfortunate way. He and his team have been sent to an alien planet to ambush a convoy. However, they are attacked, and his team is killed. He is able to get away. Then, the episode becomes a recap of the events leading up to the original mission. After the purpose of the original mission is revealed, the episode switches back to the present to show the protagonist getting away. But he stumbles upon a strange something...
[edit] The original post failed because it was too long sorry. Re posting with two separate videos should do the trick. I will post links when they are both up.

Core i7 photos

Here are a few photos of my recent core i7 build. I know that the cable routing is pretty messy, so I don't want to hear about it.

Upgrading to Core i7

Nearly two years ago I bought myself a gaming computer. Since then, I have been upgrading it here and there. I finally decided that the single core gaming computer was outdated and that it was time to move up. So I bought myself a Core i7 920 processor, an Asus P6T motherboard, 6 gigabytes of DDR3 1333, and a Cooler Master Cosmos case. I recycled the power supply, graphics card, hard drives, and the optical drives from the old computer and used them in the new build. Later I will post some pictures and possibly some benchmarks from the new box.

ATI Now Offering Radeon Drivers for Windows 7 Beta

Recently, ATI has released a Windows 7 specific driver package for Radeon graphics cards. The download includes the Catalyst control center and the driver version 9.3 . They are also offering a 64 bit version in case you have an x64 edition of Windows 7 beta like myself. Download at http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx. Keep in mind of course that along with a beta operating system comes pre-release drivers.

Firefox 3.1 beta 2

I enjoy beta testing new software, especially when it is something that I might actually use. That is why I got the latest beta version of Firefox. There have been a few changes under the hood, but the only noticeable change to me is the private browsing feature. When this is enables, history, forms, and searches will not be saved. If you already have Firefox, installing the beta is great. It loads your bookmarks, history, and compatible add-ons and themes from previous Firefox versions. If you want to try out some new cutting edge browser, but don't want to stray to far into the unknown, consider the Firefox 3.1 beta.

New ways to play games online

Lately, I have been playing some of my older games with my friends online. The problem is that many older games have few online servers anymore, which makes it difficult to join a game with a friend. In turn, either I or a friend must host the game. The issue we encounter here is the fact that I do not have a public IP address any longer, and my friends do not know how to port forward, making it nearly impossible to host. My solution to this dilemma is to use a program called Hamachi. This application allows you to join a network with your friends and creates a virtual local network. Basically it is like having all the computers one one network all in the same room. No need to mess around with router settings and IP addresses. If you are looking to play some online games with friends or even do remote access, then you should have Hamachi.

Skype Beta drive me NUTS!

Along with Windows 7 came many new features and of course some sacrifices. One of the sacrifices I had to make to accommodate Windows 7 was a stable version of Skype. In case you are unaware of what Skype is, it is a voice-over-internet messenger system. Similar to MSN or Yahoo messengers, you set up an account and add people to your buddy list. Unlike MSN or Yahoo, Skype is geared toward voice conversations as it primary function, although it does have a fully functional text based message system just like any other messenger.
My problem with Skype beta is the fact the interface is so ridiculous. In the older versions of Skype, phone number based contacts appeared in gray and Skype buddies were in green. Now both are in green, and even though they use different symbols, they can be difficult to differentiate between from a quick glance. Another tweak to the interface they made was a tweak to the messenger window system. Instead of each chat with seperate people or group being it own window, all the conversations are contained within the Skype main program window. All this makes the interface seem cluttered, as it presents you with everything in one window.
Other than the interface changes, the Skype beta still performs the same as the other non-beta clients, so no complaints from me there.

Google Chrome does not work with Windows 7... yet

It been a little over a month since I have begun using Windows 7 beta. Since the beginning I have found little wrong with it and that remains true to this day. In attempt to break Windows 7, or rather find something that does not work, I decided that I would attempt to install Google Chrome. I was promptly greeted by a message stating simply that the program I was about to install had known compatibility issues. Despite the warning, I forged on ahead with the install. Unsurprisingly, Chrome failed to load correctly and did not run properly. So for now Chrome fans out there will have to live with another browser when running Windows 7. I would certainly imagine that Google will fix Chrome as soon as Microsoft puts a release date on Windows 7, or possibly earlier.

Another benefit of Gmail

Everyone should have a Gmail account. Gmail is by far the best mail service available. Not only do you get about 8 gigabytes of storage for your inbox, you get services that most other mail services might charge for. You can download you gmail into a mail client such as Outlook or Thunderbird. Additionally with thunderbird you can get extensions that synchronize contacts and calendars to and from gmail. This is really handy, especially if you are an iPhone user because you can make appointments on your calendar and they are right there on your iPhone. And if your computer explodes, you will not lose all your contacts information or calendars. Gmail is not full of stupid ads when you visit the web mail site either. Its spam filters are also one of the best. And for those of you technical users out there like myself, gmail also supports IMAP. So if your are not using gmail, you need to get yourself an account right now. www.gmail.com

So much for bookmark backup

Foxmarks is one of my favorite extensions for Firefox. But to my dismay, it appears to have failed me. Normally it backs up your bookmarks or favorites from Firefox to a server, for synchronization to other computers or purely for backup purposes. This time though it the case would seem to be that my bookmarks have disappeared. Fortunately, I may have a copy of my bookmarks elsewhere, in case I decide that they are really that important to me.

Synergy Mod Updated

If you happen to have the Synergy mod which I mentioned in an earlier post, the mod team has released a new version which is required to play. You will encounter an error when you run the old version. After a bit of Googling I discovered that the issue was related to the version being out-dated. http://synergymod.net/

The 3870 Radeon is Awesome!

After using the Radeon 3870 for about two weeks now, I am ready to call it stable. Not once have I experienced any hiccups in performance. The card has been running Folding@Home gpu when I am not playing games, and has completed about 8 work units flawlessly. I love getting new hardware, but I love when it actually works right the first time.