不需要, 您只要下載 SETI@home 程式並且將它安裝在您的電腦上就可以了.

如果您是使用28.8Kbps的數據機的話, 大約是5分鐘.

SETI@home 只有在傳送資料時會連線. 這樣的連線大慨幾天才會發生一次, 每次大概5分鐘而已. 所有的分析及計算工作都可以在您的電腦離線的情況下完成.

SETI@home 在運作時會使用大量的記憶體, 這對有些電腦而言有可能導致管理主記憶體及磁碟之間的置換(swapping). 我們盡量的使 SETI@home 不要影響到您平常使用電腦的習慣. 所以在個人電腦及麥金塔電腦上, SETI@home 的預設值是螢幕保護程式.

但您如果已經有您喜愛的螢幕保護程式或您不想使用螢幕保護程式, SETI@home 也可以用背景程式的形式沒有圖形的全天候運作 UNIX版的運作模式就是以沒有圖形的方式運作.

現階段來說, 以JAVA來執行的速度還不夠快, 而且有太多的因素會因使用者的電腦而影響如果我們使用C語言.

這一個用戶端/螢幕保護程式只應該從我們的網站上下載 - 我們不支援從別處下載的 SETI@home 程式. 這一個程式只會下載或上傳資料經過我們置於柏克萊(Berkeley)的伺服器. 這一個資料伺服器並不會上傳或下載任何的可執行程式碼. 不管如何, 一個螢幕保護程式再怎麼說都比您現在正在瀏覽的網頁來的還要安全!

以現在來說, 還不支援多工處理, 但也許以後的版本會有支援.

由於科學上以及安全性上的考量, 我們決定不公佈本程式的原始碼. 假如我們沒辦法讓所有的使用者都以相同的程式來分析我們的檔案, 我們將無法控制我們的研究情況, 也就無法對我們的研究成果有信心. 我們同時也擔心有一些人會試著攻擊或破壞我們的資料庫以及伺服器.

使用者並不需要做任何的步驟. 分析完成的資料會再下一次使用者上網(瀏覽網頁, 收發電子郵件, 或其他網路活動等等), 使用者也可以設定讓本程式在每一次連接上線時先徵得使用者的同意.

SETI@home 所使用的是HTTP協定, 它可以在裝有准許對外傳輸, 部分開放式防火牆的電腦上運行 最新的 SETI@home 版本應該能在更嚴謹的防火牆或代理主機後運行.

如果您在視窗的環境下經過SOCKS伺服器連線有問題的話,您可以考慮使用 NEC(恩益禧) 的SocksCap在 http://www.socks.nec.com/sockscap.html 或者是 Hummingbird(蜂鳥) 的 Socks 在 http://www.hummingbird.com/products/nc/socks/index.html 這兩個程式都可以讓 SETI@home 像是在直接連線一般的運作.

視窗版的程式有副檔名結尾是 .exe 的, 麥金塔版有副檔名結尾是 .sit 或 .hqx 的, UNIX版有副檔名是 .tar 的 - 很有可能您下載了不符合您作業系統的版本.

在大部分的螢幕上, 應該不會. 為了小心起見, 請在螢幕保護程式的選項設定中選擇選擇"Go to blank screen".

是的, 您可以在多台電腦上使用同一個帳戶 - 只要您用的使用者名稱是一樣的, 所有您完成的分析, 功勞都會在您的名下.

請注意, 在視窗或麥金塔工作環境下, 現階段來說只能有一個 SETI@home 程式運作, 如果您是使用多個 SETI@home UNIX版 來運作, 每一個都必須在不同的路徑. 在安裝時, 請記得每一次安裝一個 SETI@home 到不同的路徑. 然後您就可以將各個路徑的 SETI@home 分別啟動.

我們對每一個寄出去的工作單位都留有紀錄, 如果某一個工作單位很久都沒有被傳回來的話, 我們的電腦會自行寄出同樣的一份工作單位給另一位使用者. 只有在我們接到該工作單位的結果後, 我們才會將該工作單位從我們的硬碟中移除.

以現階段來說, 我們暫時的做法是將同一份資料(就是工作單位)寄給一些使用者, 只要我們有接獲兩份以上的結果回傳, 我們就將該份工作單位從我們的電腦中移除. 這樣的做法可以讓我們加速新資料的取得以及加速我們將龐大的資料分離 成每一個工作單位的速度.

將任何一個檔案拷貝到 SETI@home 的檔案夾中. 從新命名這個檔案為 "stop_after_send.txt". (在寄出後停止) 在麥金塔版本, "SETI@home Data" in the Preferences folder, 在系統的檔案夾中; 在UNIX版 及 視窗版中, SETI@home 的檔案夾就是 SETI@home.exe 所在位置的檔案夾. 假如您在未來想繼續執行 SETI@home 的話, 您只要將 "stop_after_send.txt" 移除就可以了.

這主要是因為中央處理器的處理速度不同的影響. 另外, 由於 UNIX版的 SETI@home 並沒有圖形顯示, 速度自然會快了許多. 如果您想在麥金塔及視窗板上加速您的處理速度, 您可以將您的螢幕保護程式設定為幾分鐘後轉為全黑(blank), 少了圖形顯示, 程式的執行速度會加速很多. 值得一提的是早期的設計給視窗的版本(1.05版之前)由於有程式錯誤, 會顯示不正確的處理器時間(CPU times).

程式依舊在尋找高斯資訊, 只是不將搜尋過程顯示出來而已. 只有在程式找到很強烈的高斯訊號時, 它才會將圖表顯示出來, 並通知我們.

SETI@home 的程式很有可能是受到另一個螢幕保護程式的影響, 或另一個類似螢幕保護程式的程式的影響. 因為 SETI@home 是以對最不影響您的電腦效能為前提設計的, 假使有任何一個程式需要運作, SETI@home 就會將自己暫停, 以其能使其他的程式順利運作. 一個最常見的情形就是當您有安裝 McAfee 防毒軟體的時侯, 請您將螢幕掃描(ScreenScan)關掉, 因為它會一直影響 SETI@home 的運作.

SETI@home 的運作就跟其他的螢幕保護程式依樣, 所以您可以使用密碼保護的功能, 就像其他的螢幕保護程式.

If you set "Ask me before connecting" in the Preferences dialog, SETI@home will display more detailed information for many errors.

Due to overwhelming interest in the SETI@home project, the server may intermittently be unreachable as too many clients are trying to connect. The server may also be occasionally down for maintainance. If you are unable to connect, please wait an hour and try again.

When we receive the results of a completed work unit at our server, it is transferred to a separate computer for processing. There may be a delay of up to a few days before the results are assimilated and verified. Your credit is updated only after verification of the work unit results data. Once the server has updated your statistics, your computer will receive the revised values the next time it connects to the server. This means that your displayed statistics will generally lag behind the work actually done.

No. You can parallelize SETI@home by running multiple instances of it, either on a multiprocessor or on the nodes of a cluster. Just make sure that each instance runs in a different directory.

Not a graphical one. We may be able to do a command-line (DOS) version.

This is not a SETI@Home bug but a virus ("hybris-b") that causes this behavior. Please download your latest anti-virus updates and disinfect your systems.

Yes. In Preferences, select "Data Analysis Always Runs". Select a different screensaver. SETI@home will run, even while the screensaver is running.

In order to protect your account from modification by others, we require both your e-mail address and password for access. If you lose this information, we unfortunately cannot help you access your account or your credits. You will need to create a new account with a valid e-mail address to access any future credit.

Yes. Our software keeps track of where each piece work is done. If your computer is involved in the detection, you will, if you wish, be listed as a co-discoverer.

Due to the large response and the high quality of the data analysis we're going to extend the project past the two year point. We'll also be extending the project to include either data in another frequency band, data from a southern hemisphere observatory, or both.

Our goal is simply to find the signal. If it contains information, it may require experts in linguistics or mathematics to decipher it.

Data is recorded on high density tapes at the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, about one 35 Gbyte tape per day, then mailed to Berkeley, then divided into 0.25 Mbyte chunks which get sent from the Seti@Home server over the internet to people around the world to analyze. Arecibo does not have a high bandwidth internet connection, so data must go by snail mail to Berkeley at first.

No, all computers receive the same size chunks. Faster computers will finish each chunk faster, then immediately get a new chunk to work on, so we'll keep them busy all the time.

We search for strong narrow band signals. It's like tuning your radio set to various channels, and looking at the signal strength meter. If the strength meter goes up, that gets our attention. More technically, it's a lot of digital signal processing, mostly Fourier Transforms at various chirp rates and durations.

We also search for pulsing and drifting signals, and signals which match the antenna beam pattern as the telescope slews across the sky. The analysis software searches for signals about 10 times weaker than any search done to date, because it makes use of a computationally intensive algorithm called "coherent integration" that no one else (including our Serendip program) has had the computing power to implement.

They are merged in a database using our computers here, interference is rejected, and various pattern detection algorithms are applied to search for the most interesting signals.

Yes. Without going into detail (for obvious reasons) we have a mechanism that detects forged results.

See the above question. Besides, it wouldn't matter - if there's a "hit", we will analyze that chunk of data ourselves to verify it.

It's possible. Up to a point, we will handle it by sending the same data to more than one user. Beyond that, if we can afford it, we will set up another data recorder at Arecibo and record a wider frequency range (our current system records only 2.5 MHz out of SERENDIP's 100 MHz bandwidth).

No. The CPU on most computers is always executing instructions (often the operating system's "idle loop") whenever the computer is turned on. It's no additional strain to execute SETI@home.

In response to many requests from our users, SETI@home will now run on systems with screen resolutions smaller than 800X600 pixels. But if the window is larger than the screen resolution, parts of the SETI@home display window may extend off the edge of the screen; if this happens, move the window around to see all the data, or set the display to a higher resolution.

Select the "Blank screen after 1 minute" option under Screensaver Settings, and select "Data analysis always runs" in the Preferences dialog. Minimize the application window.

No. SETI@home writes its results to disk every minute or two.

If time resolution does not yield 64 or more time bins, or if the slew rate is out of bounds, the curve-fitting routine is not called. In the curve-fitting routine, if a Power of Time array has no bin above 3 sigma, skip that array. For each bin (i.e., each candidate Gaussian) if amplitude not above 3.2 sigma (mean recalculated to exclude peak) skip that bin.

Occasionally, a work unit will contain strong radio interference; these strong interfering signals typically come from satellites and radar from our own civilization. If the interference is very strong, the SETI@home program can not analyze that part of the spectrum, and after trying for a few minutes and detecting thousands of strong signals of earth origin, the program stops early in the processing and gets a new work unit. You will still get credit for the work done.

Earth is polluting space with radio and television signals that might be detected by nearby advanced civilizations, but it would be difficult for such a civilization to discover these signals if they only have Earth's current level of technology (eg: if they have an Arecibo like telescope and SETI@home like search).

Early TV shows like I Love Lucy and Ed Sullivan left the earth about 40 years ago, so have gone out 40 light years, reaching several thousand nearby stars. But these signals are relatively weak and SETI@home is not likely to detect the equivalent of Earth type TV transmitters, even on the nearest stars.

Earth's strongest transmitters might be somewhat easier to detect, such as those emitted by military radars, or some radio telescopes. The Arecibo telescope transmits very powerful signals when it is used as a radar system to study planets, asteroids and the ionosphere. These radar signals are powerful enough to be detected 10,000 light years away by searches like SETI@home, except for three big caveats:

a) The Arecibo transmissions are in a very tight beam (they are not omnidirectional, like TV and military radar), so they only cover a very small part of the sky at once (about a millionth of the total sky). It's is unlikely another civilization will be within one of these narrow beams.

b) The Arecibo transmitter's oldest signals left Earth about 30 years ago, so have only travelled 30 light years.

c) SETI@home is not searching the band of frequencies that the Arecibo transmitters utilize (although our older SERENDIP III program did survey one of those bands).

Click on the SETI@home icon in the Menu Bar and select Launch.

First, select "Proxy Settings" from the menu and check that they are correct.

If that is not the problem, then try this: Set "Ask me before connecting" in the SETI@home Preferences. Manually tell your computer to dial the Internet. Then select "Connect Now" from the SETI@home menu while your computer is connected to the Internet. (To dial manually, use the OTPPP, Remote Acess or FreePPP control panel.)

Macintosh dial-up Internet software comes in 2 flavors, Open Transport and FreePPP. On OS 9, Open Transport is called "Remote Access". If you are using Open Transport (OTPPP or "Remote Access"), then:

1) Under the Apple menu, select Control Panels and PPP ("Remote Access" in OS 9). make sure it has the correct phone number of your ISP, login name and password. To connect unattended, you must have "Save password" set.

2) Press the "Options" button, then select the "Connection" tab. Set "Connect automatically ..." and "Disconnect if idle for xx minutes". Set the disconnect delay to whatever number you wish.

3) You may also set the "prompt every xx minutes" checkbox if you wish. If the computer is unattended, so there is no response to the reminder, it will go ahead and disconnect after a few minutes.

If you are using FreePPP, then:

1) Find and open the FreePPP Setup application. Select the "General" tab.

2) Set "Allow applications to open connection" and "Disconnect if idle for xx minutes". Set the disconnect delay to whatever number you wish.

These are disabled while SETI@home is transferring data over the Internet, as they could interfere with the transfer.

Yes. Move the SETI@home icon out of the System Folder : Control Panels folder, to another location (such as the desktop), and restart your Macintosh. You can run SETI@home as a stand-alone application whenever you wish. But if you have another screensaver installed, SETI@home will run very slowly when the other screensaver is active, and the other screensavers animation may be sluggish or jerky.

Response to user input may be a bit sluggish on Macintosh models with slower processors (prior to G3), or with less than 32MB of physical RAM. You may sometimes need to hold the mouse button over the Menu Bar for a few seconds before getting a response.

SETI@home will not launch if another application has a modal dialog frontmost. The Standard File (Open and Save) dialogs are examples of modal dialogs. You must dismiss the modal dialog for SETI@home to launch.

Different portions of the same work unit can vary greatly in speed. If progress seems to freeze, be patient and let it run overnight. It may have gotten past the slow spot by then.

Here are some suggestions:

• Each time SETI@home launches, it optimizes itself for the current monitor color depth (256 colors, Thousands, Millions). If you change the color depth while SETI@home is running, it may slow things to a crawl.
• It should run reasonably at any screen depth, but it will run somewhat faster at lower screen depths (256 colors) than higher ones. Screen resolution (800X600, 1024X732, etc.) should have negligible effect on speed.
• In screensaver mode, SETI@home runs fastest if the screen is blanked, so for maximum speed set the preferences to blank the screen after a short time.
• In application mode, SETI@home runs fastest if its window is collapsed, using the Windowshade feature under OS 8.0 and later.
• Many Macintosh models are equipped with the Energy Saver Control Panel. This can put the computer's processor, hard drive, and monitor in a low-power sleep mode if the mouse and keyboard have been idle for a period of time. Although SETI@home can continue to run when the computer is in sleep mode, it will run much slower. You may want to change the settings in the Energy Saver Control Panel to let SETI@home have more time. Some people prefer to have the computer never sleep so it can analyze more signals, while others prefer to save electricity. The choice is up to you.

Dial-up Internet software comes in 2 flavors, Open Transport and FreePPP. If you are using Open Transport (OTPPP), then:

1) Under the Apple menu, select Control Panels and PPP. make sure it has the correct phone number of your ISP, login name and password. To connect unattended, you must have "Save password" set.

2) Press the "Options" button, then select the "Connection" tab. Set "Connect automatically ..." and "Disconnect if idle for xx minutes. Set the disconnect delay to whatever number you wish. 10 minutes is a good value.

3) You may also set the "prompte every xx minutes" checkbox if you wish. If the computer is unattended, so there is no response to the reminder, it will go ahead and disconnect after a few minutes.

If you are using FreePPP, then:

1) Find and open the FreePPP Setup application. Select the "General" tab. (If you don't see the "General" tab, click the small triangle in the lower left corner.)

2) Set "Allow applications ot open connection" and "Disconnect if idle for xx minutes". Set the disconnect delay to whatever number you wish. 10 minutes is a good value.

1) From the Start button, select "Settings" and then "Control Panels". Open the "Internet Options" Control Panel.

2) Select the "Connections" tab. Make sure the desired "Dial-up networking" selection is set as the default. (The set default button will be grayed out if you select the current default in the list.)

3) Set "Always dial my default connection".

4) Select the correct "Dial-up networking" from the list, and click on the "Settings..." button.

5) Another dialog box "xxxx Settings" appears. Press the "Advanced" button.

6) The "Advanced Dial-Up" dialog will appear. Set "Disconnect if idle for xx minutes" Set the disconnect delay to whatever number you wish. If you wish, you may also set "Disconnect when conection may be no longer needed.

If you set "Ask me before connecting" in the Preferences dialog, SETI@home will display more detailed information for many errors.

First, select "Proxy Settings" from the menu and check that they are correct.

For Windows 95 and 98, do the following steps:

1) From the Start button, select "Settings" and then "Control Panels". Open the "Internet Options" Control Panel.
2) Select the "Connections" tab. Make sure the desired "Dial-up networking" selection is set as the default. (The set default button will be grayed out if you select the current default in the list.)
3) Set "Always dial my default connection".
4) Select the correct "Dial-up networking" from the list, and click on the "Settings..." button.
5) Another dialog box "xxxx Settings" appears. Press the "Advanced" button.
6) The "Advanced Dial-Up" dialog will appear. Set "Disconnect if idle for xx minutes" Set the disconnect delay to whatever number you wish. If you wish, you may also set "Disconnect when conection may be no longer needed."
7) Close the "Internet Options" Control Panel.
8) Double-click on "My Computer", and then on "Dial-Up Networking". Double-click on the default "Dial-up networking" icon. Make sure the "Save password" box is checked. If not, check it and click on "Connect", then "Cancel". Close the dialog.

For Windows NT do this: 1) Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Dial-Up Networking.
2) Click More, and then click User preferences.
3) In the Enable Auto-Dial By Location dialog box, select each location for which you want the automatic dialing feature to operate.
4) Click OK and then restart the computer.

No. Due to our new security measures to prevent falsified results, if a work unit has been partly completed by a different version of SETI@home, the progress will be reset to zero and the work unit will be processed from the beginning.

After each pass over the data, SETI@home does a preliminary check to see if the data's properties indicate a possible gaussian curve. If not, it saves time by skipping the gaussian analysis. For some work units (those with slow slew rates), no gaussian fit calculations are done for the entire work unit, so this area of the display remains empty.

There are several possibilities. If you have SETI@home set to connect automatically to the Internet, it may have returned the result and gotten a new work unit. (If a work unit has too much radio interference or RFI, then SETI@home may request a new work unit much sooner than usual.)

If SETI@home's processing was interrupted abnormally by a system error or power interruption, its output files may have been corrupted. In this case, SETI@home will restart the work unit from zero automatically.

暫時來說, 我們沒有計劃要在短期內為任何的中央處理器的指令組作最佳化. 為來的版本也許會作最佳化, 但應該不會是近期內的版本.

不, 您不需要做任何的更改步驟, SETI@home 會自行偵測電腦中的舊版本, 然後依據需要自行跟新.

是的, 我們的確有這個計劃, 但不會是在3.0版, 可能會是在以後的新版本中.