Use your computer for good, and join another type of FIRST team.

Unused time on your computer can now be used for the good of mankind in 3 fun ways.

The first program is from our Buddies @ Berkeley.

1) Seti@Home

“What is SETI@home?
SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data”

Download the program HERE (for the classic program)
http://setiathome2.ssl.berkeley.edu/download.html
Or HERE (for the latest program) called BOINC.
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php

Link to the FIRST team for Seti@Home:
http://setiathome2.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_163242.html

Previous Discussion about Seti@Home stats here on CD:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30006&highlight=Seti

Second program comin’ at ya from the intellects @ IBM.

2) World Community Grid (WCG)

“Our first project, Human Proteome Folding, is identifying the proteins produced by human genes. With this information, scientists can understand how defects in proteins can cause disease, making it easier to find cures.”

Download the program to analyze Proteomes Here:
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/downloads.jsp

Link to the FIRST team for WCG:
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/team/viewTeamInfo.do?teamId=VH5XNJBR9N1

And finally, the boys and girls over at Google Labs have teamed up with Scientists and Scholars @ Stanford to bring you the third installment of distributed computing that includes a FIRST team.

3) Google Compute (AKA Folding@Home)

“The first beneficiary of this effort is Folding@home, a non-profit academic research project at Stanford University that is trying to understand the structure of proteins so they can develop better treatments for a number of illnesses.”

Download the client here: http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

And then Join The FIRST team already in progress by typing in 44987 as your team Number and FIRST as the team name.

[left]:] Happy Computing. :] [/left]

Be aware that SETI will max out your CPU. As such I wouldn’t reccomend running it 24/7. Choose the run when idle option.

There are also other projects under the Boinc setup (you can run multiple things on your computer if you’d like). Here are the other projects besides Seti@Home they have started

Climateprediction.net: study climate change for use in hopefully improving climate prediction in the future
Einstein@home: search for gravitational signals coming from pulsars to help investigate Einstein’s theories
LHC@home: improve the design of the CERN LHC particle accelerator (which in turn will help improve quantum physics research)

I always use those things for a while, (several hundered units for each) then get paranoid about how much of my computer they’re using. :o

For those running Folding@Home (not just Google compute), you can join team FIRST Folding (#43672).

Over a thousand FIRST teams. We should be able to top the overclockers.

Please be advised that SETI at home is not a transparent background app. If you give over your computer and it starts acting wierd or unstable, suspect the new app.