What your computer does while it is on and you are not doing any work on it? Or while your computer is engaged in downloading stuffs overnight? The CPU remains idle and uses it as little as possible but consumes power. So, at that time why not use the wasted power in useful way? Like, sharing the CPU with the researchers who requires a lot of computing power in processing complex problems. In a way you are sending help for royal cause, which ranges from Biology & Medicine to astronomy, physics, chemistry, mathematics and games. And at the same time you are completing the assigned work too!So, how to share your computer? In this context Grid computing come into picture, which is nothing but the collective working of a large number of computers round the world to accomplish a goal. Well, to share your computer you will need to install a software
and internet connection is required to download the small work contents from the project, that will be processed on your computer and will finally be uploaded to the required destination. Full process is automated and will be done when your computer is idle.
To opt for a project there are different software available from different universities and research Institutes. Some of the projects like Folding@home which is a project to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases like Cancers and cancer-related syndromes. Further, BEinGRID is for Business Experiments in GRID. And the best one according to me is Boinc which has a large number of projects to select from.
First of all download Boinc from here, Download Boinc for Windows. After downloading install it. After rebooting the computer start Boinc.
Now it’s the time to Attach Projects to Boinc software, in order to do this you will see this window, and select Next:
Now select the project in which you want to share your computer.
After selecting project you will need to fill up your email and password to make a new account, so that the project team would recognise you.
After filling email and password you will need to press next > finish the operation.
Then a website will pop-up in your browser, fill the required info and hit submit/login. And you are done with set up. Now you will see this window:
To customise basic settings simply click on preferences.
To customise Advanced setting Click on Advanced View > Advanced > Preferences.
Bionic will start automatically at windows start-up and will process the works while the computer is idle. For more information on Grid computing, its advantage and how it works visit wiki page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing
So, what do you think about this idea to share your computer for royal cause ? Don’t forget to comment below.
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