The Profile dialog

Two important bits of information in a profile are the Profile name and the Files location. The first is a unique name, chosen by you, to identify this profile; the second is the location of the SETI@home files. When creating a new profile you will be asked to enter both; when editing an existing profile, you will be able to change the first, but not the second.

Also important is the location of the SETI@home client, whose complete path must be filled in the Client location field. You can also provide some extra command-line arguments to be passed to the client, for example to lower the priority at which it will run.

The Poll interval will tell KSetiSpy how often to check the SETI@home files for changes. If the files haven't been changed for a period of time exceeding Client idle timeout, KSetiSpy will assume that the remote SETI@home client application has stopped running. These parameters are meaningful for monitoring remote clients only: for local ones, KSetiSpy relies on operating system functions to be notified of changes to the SETI@home files the very same moment they happen.

Using the check boxes in the Process Control area, you can set up KSetiSpy so that it will launch the client when it starts up. You can can also tell it to keep the client running at all time, restarting it if necessary.

By checking Use work unit cache, you can tell KSetiSpy to use the work unit cache for this profile. If you do, you will notice that the e-mail and client name fields to become grayed out. This is because when using the caching system, the e-mail address used to connect to the servers and the client that will perform the download/upload operations will always be those specified in the Cache Setup dialog.

In the User e-mail field you can provide an e-mail address that the User Statistics panel will use to retrieve information about your SETI@home account. If you leave this field blank, most probably this functionality will be disabled.

KSetiSpy has the ability to read and write both SETI Spy and SETILog log files. The SETI Spy log is a single file called setispy.log that contains information both about the work units and the returned signals. The SETILog format is more detailed and comprises two files: SETILog.csv, which contains work unit data, and SETIResult.log, which instead stores info about the returned signals.

You can specify which log files KSetiSpy should read by selecting the appropriate radio button. Also, you can select in which format (possibly none, or both) KSetiSpy should log the work units that get completed while it's running. Finally, you can specify the directory where the log files are stored; if you don't specify any, the SETI@home directory will be used.

In addition to writing to log files, KSetiSpy also gives you the option to save pictures of the gaussians that are discovered during the analysis and/or those that are returned to the servers. You can choose to save all of them, just the interesting ones (an interesting gaussian is one such that Fit < Power*1.5 + 2), or those whose Signal-to-noise Ration (S. R.) is above some fixed threshold. Moreover, you can specify the graphic format. For the size, you can choose between two preset values: the SETI@home format, short and wide, or the Default format, which is the right size for submissions to Alfred Das' CITY@home gallery. Finally, you can specify the directory where you want these images saved to; if you don't provide one, the log file directory will be assumed as default.

Starting with version 3.x, the SETI@home client performs some pre-analysis in the initial stage of the processing of a work unit. As a consequence of this, progress is not linear, and KSetiSpy's reported speed at the beginning of a new work unit might be substantially different from the average one. Calibration is designed to compensate for these variations by allowing you to modify the "percentage done" bit of information.

Since the length of this pre-analysis depends on the Angle Range (AR)], there are three calibration sets:

Low AR	(AR < 0.2255)
Medium AR	(0.2255 <= AR <= 1.1274)
High AR	(AR > 1.1274)

If you don't know what calibration values are right for your computer, don't worry: KSetiSpy offers you presets for most common CPU types. These presets are taken from the SETI Spy web page, and are provided courtesy of Roelof Engelbrecht et al. The SETI Spy web page also contains a more thorough discussion of calibration than what presented here.