News Archive

April 3, 2008
In case you haven't already noticed, we've started sending some MARXAN jobs through the system. Look for more of these in the days to come!

March 24, 2008
A couple hundred HMMPfam cleanup batches are in the process of being submitted. This will be the first major test of the new file caching code, but hopefully no one notices!

March 19, 2008
I am in the process of rolling out some system enhancements, which should have a dramatic impact on the number of simultaneously running HMMPfam jobs we can allow, for example. We will mostly likely scale up this capacity gradually, but if you notice anything odd please don't hesitate to report it. Thanks!

March 11, 2008
It seems that all of the HMMPfam jobs for this massive batch have been submitted, and I will be letting the work trickle out of the system. There are some jobs that need to resubmitted, but I may investigate the results that seem to be stuck in the "Ready to Send" state first.

February 10, 2008
The problem with the feeder has hopefully been resolved...

February 9, 2008
Our feeder is mysteriously segfaulting so the project is down until I can get that fixed!

January 31, 2008
I was in the middle of upgrading the server software when I realized that we really (really) need PHP5. I've reverted to what I think is the previous state until we can get PHP upgraded; but let me know if you notice anything odd.

January 9, 2008
Due to a scheduled power outage, our BOINC server will be down from Friday afternoon, 1/11, to Saturday afternoon, 1/12, so please don't be alarmed!

December 19, 2007
1534 batches of 276 jobs (workunits) x2 results/WU = a whopping 846,768 results to crunch! This should keep us all busy for a while. For more information on HMMPfam, look here.

December 18, 2007
We are listed under Biology and Medicine, here: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php Also, see the news item on BOINC's front page.

November 28, 2007
A new beta version of GARLI is being tested and has been released for our four supported platforms. Please inform us of any problems with the new version, thanks!

November 9, 2007
Approximately 500 batches (x133 WUs each) of HMMPfam will be trickling in as they get crunched. We should have more information about this project on the research page soon.

October 10, 2007
Some had asked for the ability to choose which applications they run. Well, now you have that option! If you're logged in, try this link. We hope that if your system meets the minimum requirements to run an application, you will decide to do so, but we provide this option to give our users additional control over the work they receive.

October 8, 2007
The server upgrade is essentially complete, save for one feature. Please report any problems you notice or features that you think are missing. Thanks!

October 4, 2007
A new page describes types of analyses run on The Lattice BOINC Project, applications used in those analyses, and specific project information. It's a work in progress! Head on over to Research Projects

October 3, 2007
We are in the process of upgrading the server to version 6.1.0, so please report any problems you notice, especially with the web site. I will inform everyone when the upgrade is complete...

September 12, 2007
A note to our faithful crunchers and potential newcomers: we are planning to improve the web site with better information about The Lattice BOINC Project. Hopefully this will serve to both satisfy curiosity and get everyone excited! So check out the new link, Background and Introduction

August 31, 2007
Finally, the day is at hand... a native version of GARLI has arrived! As a test, I will release the Windows version when the current work in the system finishes up (and I might remove some work prematurely). If all goes well, the other platforms will be right behind. Please let me know if you encounter any problems with the new version of GARLI (which should do checkpointing!)

August 22, 2007
The developer of GARLI is hard at work on a new version, which will include checkpointing. We hope to have this released next week! Thanks to everyone crunching for us...

July 31, 2007
A native BOINC version of HMMPfam has been released which does checkpointing and status bar updates. Hopefully it will improve throughput and user satisfaction! A native GARLI version is soon to follow, by the way...

July 9, 2007
The deadline for these workunits has been made 5 days, and this should be enforced on any new workunits that are created.

July 5, 2007
Soon we will be releasing some GARLI workunits into the wild. We have an experiment outlined that will require several thousand workunits crunched, in due time. Initially, HR will be turned off for GARLI.

June 28, 2007
Regretfully, we are turning on homogeneous redundancy for HMMPfam once again because there are simply too many inconsistencies, numerical and otherwise, that are causing results to be marked as invalid. Plans to release a native BOINC version are on hold pending developer time to work on a Windows version.

June 26, 2007
A new Windows version has been released which should correct some formatting differences in the output. Therefore, homogeneous redundancy has been turned off, but we will be monitoring any validation errors that occur. It's also worth mentioning that we are working on a wrapper-less, native BOINC version of HMMPfam that will do checkpointing. Stay tuned!

June 23, 2007
The 3x faster version of HMMPfam has been released for Windows. We are continuing to modify the source so that we may be able to turn off HR for this application eventually. We are approximately 40% of the way through this batch of work, but we are cutting off the flow of work into the system for a short time. Thanks for your continued interest in the project!

June 23, 2007
Versions of HMMPfam approximately 3x faster have been released for all platforms except Windows, which is soon to come.

June 21, 2007
I have increased the number of results available in the feeder's shared memory segment from 384 to 3840, so you should see the "there was work, but it was committed to other platforms" message more less frequently!

June 15, 2007
I have increased the number of results available in the feeder's shared memory segment from 100 to 384, and I've set it to purge stale WUs every ten minutes instead of every thirty. You should hopefully see the "there was work, but it was committed to other platforms" message less frequently now.

June 15, 2007
I just released a few workunits which contain an error that causes the HMMPfam application to terminate immediately, quite probably putting some of your clients into an endless loop. If you're affected, just reset your project, and my apologies.

June 13, 2007
We have word that a batch of HMMPfam six times larger than the most recent batch is on its way. Look for it in the next couple of days!

June 13, 2007
All of the work for this batch is in the system. The output from the newly released Windows version differs slightly from the other platforms, unfortunately, so I'm going to turn homogeneous redundancy for HMMPfam back on at some point. For those whose results were marked invalid recently, we're sorry.

June 9, 2007
To all who participated in our first test, thanks. I also appreciate the feedback on the message boards. We have a second wave of work going in now that is approximately 16 times bigger than the first one, so it should keep everyone busy for a while! For information on this research, look here.

June 7, 2007
All, you should now point your clients to http://boinc.umiacs.umd.edu/. We will have a small to moderate amount of work in the system shortly. This will be our first test with public clients since the project was re-launched, so we'll see what happens. However, this is real data, not test data! Good luck, everybody.

June 4, 2007
I didn't see a reason not to allow new accounts to be created at this point, so go right ahead, and post something if you encounter problems. However, do not try to attach to the project - it won't work just yet! I'll send another notice when the project URL is activated.

May 31, 2007
We're currently trying out the new HMMPfam application. Hopefully within a couple of weeks we'll be ready to turn it loose on everyone. As the day draws near, we'll open up account creation again so all can get ready. Thanks for your patience and continued interest!

May 11, 2007
Within a few weeks, we'll probably open up the project again in some limited capacity in order to test a new application, which is a part of the HMMER suite. This should give everyone something to look forward to!

April 17, 2007
We've noticed you found the site. We are currently working on polishing up the site's features, so expect changes and things to break. We've disabled account creation and client connections for the time being. We may or may not reply to message board posts. And it's uncertain when real work will be flowing through the system again, but we'll keep you posted...
Sincerely, The Lattice Project Team