Folding@Home (Distributed Computing) was created by a group of people from the Stanford Chemistry Department under the supervision of Professor Vijay S. Pande. It is is a form of distributed computing in which each end-user runs an application known as “Folding@Home” (F@H) to utilize the unused processing power from their computer to help a cause like many diseases (Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow, CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and many other Cancers and cancer-related syndromes. With Folding@Home you can join a team of people that fold for a reason or their own publicity.

“Folding@home does not rely on powerful supercomputers for its data processing; instead, the primary contributors to the Folding@home project are many hundreds of thousands of personal computer users who have installed a small client program. The client will, at the user’s choice, run in the background, utilizing otherwise unused CPU power, or run as a screen saver only while the user is away. In most modern personal computers, the CPU is rarely used to its full capacity at all times; the Folding@home client takes advantage of this unused processing power.”
-Wikipedia; Folding@Home

Usage and Mobility of Folding@Home:

According to figures released by Stanford’s internal F@H data, more than 250,000 unique PS3 users have registered to use Folding@Home. Since the project officially went live on March 23rd, a little less than 100,000 PS3s have submitted an entire work unit of protein data. As for processing power, PS3 users are providing nearly 400 teraflops at this very moment, which makes up the majority of the 700 teraflops currently being delivered by all OS CPUs combined. The addition of the PS3 to Folding@Home has influenced a new wave of PC users to join the project. Since the PS3 was implemented into the program, the number of active PCs has increased by 20%.
-GamePro Staff; Gamepro.com

Getting Ready to Fold:

The F@H client is available to all operating systems (Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows). The simple way to start folding is to fold under a team name; this makes your folds worth more. Other tips and tricks are available on the Folding@Home website, such as install and preparation directions. A link to download the client is provided here. To get the gist of how to start folding in “ninja-basics”, keep on reading!

The 101 to Start Folding:

1. Download the Folding@Home client and install it.
2. Choose a user name to identify your computer as an active folder. You can check if the user name is already in use by going to the above Download link and follow the instructions at the top of the page. (You can choose to leave the User name field blank, it will only fold your computer as anonymous.)
3. In the Team number field, enter in the number “75165″. This is the team number for Tutorial Ninjas!
4. All you have to do is click “Ok” in the configurations and you are setup. Let the folding do its work while your computer is unoccupied!

Tid bits:

When you press the X button to exit Folding@Home, it will continue to run in the toolbar of your computer. You can view the folding window and its progress by double clicking the F@H icon in your toolbar.

To exit the folding application, right click the icon in the toolbar and select “Quit”.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Technology.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.