This week we organized a workshop day for our dev team in Helsinki. The day was focused very much on improving the usability of the uploader script. What did we do? Here's a list:

• No more need to enter user-id (now you only need to enter your e-mail and password)
• Username = E-mail address (this clarifies the use of the uploader)
• You can check your completed, ongoing and pending sessions
• You can cancel a pending session yourself (in case you noticed an error in the scene after uploading, for example)
• Checking session variables to ensure a succesful render on Renderfarm.fi and minimize the amount of uploads that cannot be submitted to clients
• A slightly cleaner look on the uploader

In addition we were paying attention to security in the session upload phase. The new uploader will, most likely, be released inside the first official Renderfarm.fi Beta build of Blender 2.5 - or before.

We're also working on getting the Blender 2.5 Windows and Linux clients (both 32bit and 64bit versions) up and running to conincide with the release of the updated uploader. The Mac client, unfortunately, is proving a tougher challenge and could be delayed to July. Rest assured - we are working on it.

The Millennium/Famous experiment has been quiet after a small-scale sneak release on March 24, but we are back with a serious amount of work. We need to run a large ensemble of a global atmosphere-ocean coupled model, FAMOUS, from 800 to 2200 AD plus a preceding "spin-up" period. This experiment is part of the Millennium Project funded by the European Commission for paleo-climate studies of Europe. As the results we obtain cover the entire globe and the future, they will also be used in studies of other regions as well as the future climate change.

We hope you enjoy the fast simulations. Each work unit is 200 years long and is expected to complete in about 1 to 2 weeks on most recent PCs.

For further details, please visit the Millennium/Famous experiment page.