The "Other" Folding@Home Page

[ZhengHe]

Every so often when navigating to the official Folding@Home page (http://folding.stanford.edu/) I misplace a letter or forget to click the first link and wind up at this page (http://foldingathome.stanford.edu/). A blank page, which except for it's auspicious name and an all CAPs "OK" is completely blank. While the web page seems to belong to Stanford, confirmed by it's Whois page (http://whois.domaintools.com/stanford.edu),why would they want a website almost identical to the official one? What would be the point?

A few ideas come to mind, each with varying plausibility. Perhaps they registered this first one and then realized that simply including the word folding in the url was more logical? Maybe they were worried about another party registering a similiar domain for their own monetary gain? Maybe it was just set up by a jokester and just happens to be eerily similar to the original Folding@Home website. Truth be told I don't know, but perhaps one of you have some idea as to why this website still exists and doesn't simply direct you straight to http://folding.stanford.edu.

[ghidora]

The URL folding.stanford.edu and foldingathome.stanford.edu are sub domains of the primary stanford.edu. No one can setup a sub domain except for the owner of the primary.

As for why the "odd" one exists, that's anyone's guess.

[Kougar]

The point is so no one else can grab the domain and put up a fake site or one of those search portal pages that assault you with ads. They should have used an auto-redirect though... you should ask them directly why in their forums, they may simply have forgotten about it?

[Kougar]

I am working on making a current FAQ to replace DAS's out of date one. I've just started, but already I just realized that Folding@home has a great many duplicate and out of date pages! Their website is as labyrinthine as the steps required for installing the 5.92 SMP client... :ahhhhh:

[ghidora]

The point is so no one else can grab the domain and put up a fake site or one of those search portal pages that assault you with ads.

It's the same domain. stanford.edu is the domain, period. The others are just sub domains off of it. No one could gab anything that ends with stanford.edu because stanford.edu is already owned, so that is not why it was done.

To prove it, try to register something that ends with bjorn3d.com. I guarantee that you won't be able to do it. ;)

[ZhengHe]

I am working on making a current FAQ to replace DAS's out of date one. I've just started, but already I just realized that Folding@home has a great many duplicate and out of date pages! Their website is as labyrinthine as the steps required for installing the 5.92 SMP client... :ahhhhh:

Hmmm....well Scott asked me to revise the FAQ a few weeks though, granted I've gotten a little behind on it with all the madness that's been going on. Want to pool resources?

[Kougar]

Hmmm....well Scott asked me to revise the FAQ a few weeks though, granted I've gotten a little behind on it with all the madness that's been going on. Want to pool resources?

Sure thing. It's still in the rough phase, I was thinking about maybe a single thread that lists all the currently updated FAQ pages, as there are some old ones that have been left up for ages, and new FAQs were started to replace then around a year ago if not more but the old ones are still up.

Then having a second thread that lists a few key points about each F@H program? Listing helpful things such as not to run two GPU2 clients (Or if it runs in Crossfire yet, which I have not checked), whether you should use GPU or GPU2 (difference is which cards are supported), not to run two installs of SMP on the same machine... not to run GPU2 on Vista 64-bit or XP 64-bit, since it doesn't work yet. That sort of stuff.

[ZhengHe]

Sure thing. It's still in the rough phase, I was thinking about maybe a single thread that lists all the currently updated FAQ pages, as there are some old ones that have been left up for ages, and new FAQs were started to replace then around a year ago if not more but the old ones are still up.

Then having a second thread that lists a few key points about each F@H program? Listing helpful things such as not to run two GPU2 clients (Or if it runs in Crossfire yet, which I have not checked), whether you should use GPU or GPU2 (difference is which cards are supported), not to run two installs of SMP on the same machine... not to run GPU2 on Vista 64-bit or XP 64-bit, since it doesn't work yet. That sort of stuff.

Sounds good. The school year is almost over for me so how about we send each other what we have then and work from there. It would be really useful to have someone else check my stuff over to make sure it's clear and concise and collaborating with this sort of thing will almost, inevitably lead to a better result. Plus I've already put off grinding through the entirety for long enough, but working together that's harder to do. I'll be in touch.