Personal expericences with asking college / work place to fold.

Hey, ive recently got back in to folding in a big way, my main rig has always been folding, but now im starting to look wider. I havent been at my current college long, since october, and i don't study ICT there either.

What i'd like to know is, what people want to know when you ask them if the college will fold. What sorts of things make them not want to, good ways to persuade them with the information about FAH avaliable. Also any experiences you have had, trying to borg alot of computers within one place, how you overcame any difficulties, or what stopped you in the end.

Also what they expect from you in return if anything, i have no idea what peoples views are going, the first time i ask will probably determin whether they say yes or no, so being moderatly prepared would be a good idea i think.

Thanks

Scott.

(UK)

I borged quite a few machines, workstations and servers, at my place of work with the blessing of my department bosses. Even got to borg a couple rackfulls of customers' servers while we were building their new systems and "burning it in" for a couple weeks before installing the new machines at their site. Of course the folding software has to be removed after the burn-in tests were complete. Since I'm the network admin, I didn't have much problems getting management permission since I could assure them there was no harm in running the folding software. However, we've just had a management shake-up and before the month is out, we'll have all new senior management at the company helm, and I've already been told I'll have to cease folding on all these machines I've borged at work, except for perhaps my own workstation and maybe one or two co-workers' machines too. My folding powerhouse will come to an abrupt end, and I don't forsee any possibility whatsoever of getting the company machines back ever... in fact the outlook at my place of employment looks so grim that myself and several of my co-workers are seriously considering looking for new jobs immediately. I just hope that I can make it to the 500K points milestone before the hammer falls. It's a goal I've been striving to achieve in the mere one year I've been folding. It'll at least be a good feeling to be able to brag that I've contributed a half-million points to my team in a year's time.

There are a multitude of ways to approach getting permission to borg pc's at a University.

As a staff member I know the IT department pretty well, and i worked directly with them. My approach was to breifly explain to them what Folding was, and specifically how the computers would be used. I asked to try FAH on just a small (half a dozen or so) machines for a month or so and see if any problems arose with interference with normal use of the computers. I ended up getting a full public lab to borg as the test case. I really emphasized that my goal was to have the client be completely unnoticed and to keep the amount of work the IT department needed to do to get me started would be an absolute minimum. I was able to use the network installer and with a couple clicks had the first 14 machines borged.

Now, as a student, I would have approached this from a slightly different angle. The first thing I would do is find a faculty member to sponsor my request to borg a few machines, just to start. Getting a faculty member on board would provide a much better chance of getting a start at getting a borg up and rolling. From here, theres a couple ways to go. Either consult with the IT department about getting the client installed, or approach the administration of whatever department owns the PC's you wish to target, and discuss the borg with them.

Overall, the best thing to do is take your time, but still press for getting a borg up and running. Be very well versed on what folding really does. Also, have several plans to distribute the client already laid out so that when/if you do get a chance to get a few machines up and running, you are completely ready to go.

Bad, borg in the dorms. It's much better.

Thanks, alot for the info, if anyone else has something that they think would be useful that would be great.

Toysrme, college in the UK is like where you go after school, then after that you go to univercity, which is like your 'college' i think. Will be a good idea for the future though, thanks.