Macs, Animation, and Xgrid

[Hydr0g3n]

Many of the members on our team have recently invested in the new MacBooks. So as part of our build seasons and the animation project - I have been working on a way to integrate the massive ammount of computing power availible to our team. To do so, I have looked into Apple's Xgrid software extensively. I have successfully built an Xgrid on our network and I'm working on an xgrid agent/client for windows. As part of my tests though, I wanted to make sure that I could also integrate external processing units over the internet. So, I have a request to make of my fellow FIRST Mac owners. I was wondering if anyone out there would be willing to donate their spare processing power to help me test out this grid. The grid was originally designed for scientific research and our team's animation stuff - so there are plenty of things to test. If you are a mac owner with a few extra computing minutes on your hand I'd love if you could help me out and put your computer on my grid for the purpose of testing the grid.

There may be several of you out there may be concerned about what this means exactly. By putting your computer on this grid - you ar greatly helping me help my team by allowing me to test stuff on the logistics of the grid by donating spare processor power when your computer is Idle. Many other grids already exist out there on the internet like Stanford's XGrid and various private organizations. The grid that your computer would be joining is simply a test grid that eventually will allow our team to run the animation jobs on our mac powerhouse.

So I guess in the end I am just asking for your help. Anyone that would be able to join the team grid - I have put instructions out on my website: www.mriblett.com - as to how to join. If there is anyone out there that has experimented with Xgrid stuff either personally or professionally - your suggestions would be greatly appreciated as well.

Thanks for your help in advance.