World Community Grid

The World Community Grid (www.worldcommunitygrid.org/) uses your computer to help solve problems we are all interested in solving, for example cancer and AIDS. Have a look at their site to find out more about the problems they work on, or go to YouTube and search on "World Community Grid". The idea is simple. They mean to use the leftover processing power of your PC to cure cancer.

I first heard about it a couple months ago and I have been running this software on some of my public stations, and my own, as a test. Though I suspect a number of you are already familiar with this application, I thought I would share my experience with and plans for this software.

I have been running this software on a half dozen stations for about the past month. I have noticed no response degredation at any time on any machine because of this software. It certainly does use resources but it is efficient about keeping its use to a minimum and not getting in your way.

One of the installation options is to run it as a service. This is what I use. This means it runs in the background. I use no screensaver or graphics so there is no indication there is anything going on in the background. Whenever the PC is on, this computer is working on one of these problems.

I am installing this on my public stations. I have been using it on OPACs so far. OPACs spend most of the minutes in a day just sitting there waiting for a person to use it. Now they are put in service for the good when someone isn't using them. I am just getting ready to install it on our surfing stations too.

Once this is fully in place we will provide a little promotional packet telling our our patrons what we are doing with these PCs and show them how they could put their home PC to similarly good use as well.