Funky SETI Toys?

Just wondering what extra little SETI plugins and toys people use, which have people found the most useful or enjoyable from the ones available?

(yes I'm being the lazy newbie and not looking for myself)

SETImonitor to cache work units in and to keep a record of my results and I've also got SETI@home MapView downloaded, but as I said in another thread I don't think I've got it set up right. It's supposed to show me where in the sky my units have come from but I'm not seeing anything.

Just the plain, old black-and-white command line SETI for me. I used to use CheckSETI to monitor progress, but have even let that go. Also, I have tried various work unit caching add-ins but have actually had so few problems downloading new units lately that I don't have any of them anymore.

Is there a noticeable speed difference between the command line Client and the Win Client?

Originally posted by Kano
Is there a noticeable speed difference between the command line Client and the Win Client?

Based strictly on my observations and no actual scientific study, I see up to a 25% speed bonus.

My main reason for choosing it is portablility. I am constantly moving the program from machine to machine and I don't have to actually install anything. SETI and all its WU and user info will fit on a floppy.

Oddly enough, if you raise SETI's priority in XP's task list from "low" to "normal" it doesn't make a bit of difference that I can see.

Why does it take so long to do a unit? I want to do around 10 units at a time.

I tried the map viewer but I cant get it to work either. Just like Spectre, I have a portable copy but mine is the windows version on a 32mb USB flash drive so I can do Wu's on the many university computers I use.

Hi Kano!!

Welcome to the team!!

I use three add-ons here as follows:

SETI Monitor which let's you cache WU's in case you haven't got an always on connection(say) or, in my case, as "insurance" for when the SETI server suffers downtime (which happens!!)

SETI Spy which is a very pretty interface and gives lots of information about your stats - and those of the team, of course!!

and SETIStats, which at the moemnt appears to be a deadlink. It gives a graphical representation of your overall stats and "stores" these as a spreadsheet, so that you can take the data into - say - an Excel spreadsheet.

The *best* thing to do is to look at the Add on page from the SETI@home site and see what is (potentially) useful to you Kano.

Good luck with the programs!!

Originally posted by ilovepizza
Why does it take so long to do a unit? I want to do around 10 units at a time.

How longs a piece of string?

Well, there's a lot of computation needed ILP - that's why SETI@home was established as collecting the data is (relatively) the "easy" bit - processing the signals needs intensive computing power (as we can all attest to) and SETI@home devised the distribution system so that those who WANTED to, could take part in the programme. Originally, I think, they thought people would simply run S@h as a "screensaver" but hadn't realised that there were "obsessive" people around who would run it "full pelt" 24/7!!

So, the reason it takes so long is that the program is searching for anomalous signals - triplets, pulse, Gaussians, peaks - and that takes time... And how!!

Whoa SETI Spy rocks.

Also appears it is possible to retrieve user and team stats via the SETI server. Might be possible to make a script to keep track of the teams perhaps?

Originally posted by Kano
Whoa SETI Spy rocks.

Also appears it is possible to retrieve user and team stats via the SETI server. Might be possible to make a script to keep track of the teams perhaps?

SETI Spy is *very* pretty indeed - pleased you like it Kano!!

As for the "technical" aspect - I wouldn't know where to start myself...

I *think* Skeptic Overloard had some idea like this, for allocating "Points for WU's", but I haven't heard any more since the ideas were being "kicked around" here

I'm sure *someone* in the team would have the skils necessary to do this integration - my programming stopped around - hem - 15 years ago, with BASIC!!

Even better, it appears someone may have done the basics already:

members.lycos.co.uk...

Hi Kano!!

Thanx for the interesting URL!!

*One* program that intrigues me is SETI@home XML Banner which "This web page demonstrates a PHP script you can use to create banners with your SETI@home statistics created from SETI@home provided XML data."

*If* that could be incorporated as a "banner signature" (??) and linked to the ATS SETI@home stats, then I think we could show how we're doing as a team as well (or incorporate it somewhere on ATS Home page - perhaps in place of the "Deny Silence" banner as at present??)

What does the team think please??

sweet how did u come accross this ??

Originally posted by tealc
sweet how did u come accross this ??

Hours and hours of idlely searching through....!!

Hi tealc!!

No, seriously, looking through the "add ons" page at SETI@home - it seems to create a banner like those *annoying* "You're running WinXP, your ISP is..." type things - but the information is a *lot* more interesting!!

Do you reckon you can get it working tealc - pretty please??

Originally posted by Genya
Hi Kano!!

Thanx for the interesting URL!!

*One* program that intrigues me is SETI@home XML Banner which "This web page demonstrates a PHP script you can use to create banners with your SETI@home statistics created from SETI@home provided XML data."

*If* that could be incorporated as a "banner signature" (??) and linked to the ATS SETI@home stats, then I think we could show how we're doing as a team as well (or incorporate it somewhere on ATS Home page - perhaps in place of the "Deny Silence" banner as at present??)

What does the team think please??

that sounds good. UF's banner did an excellent job of raising the awareness of the team and this could be the next step.

Well, I got that Excel Spreadsheet cranking, it was a little outdated (as were my Excel skills apparently). But I got it locked into the ATS Team. It can give us change over time etc without having to keep track manually.

hi Genya i too have spent many hours searching thru add ons and i have never seen this im intrigued

haha that stats banner rocks, you could set it as your signature.

Hi all!!

pantha - it *does* seem disloyal to UF, doesn't it?

Perhaps we "retain" UF's banner sig, and "simply" ask SO to see if he can get that XML coding put into the ATS boards code .... (I'm lost already!! ) A "real time" data logger would be really though, wouldn't it?!

Well done Kano - could this be "published" somewhare for everbody to see or is it for personal archiving of the team's progress??