Cool Toys

I wanted to make a quick post about some ways in which we can volunteer the idle processing power of our personal computers to help out on some pretty hefty research projects going on around the world.  Most of these are based on running millions of large-scale calculations and simulations, which have traditionally required a massive and expensive supercomputer to be purchased and maintained on campus. Over the last decade or two, more and more projects have been popping up based on distributed computing, spreading the load of calculation over many smaller, inexpensive computers connected over the internet, which is where we come in.

To participate, users volunteer by downloading and installing a piece of software created by the project developers.  Once installed, the software runs quietly in the background, similar to an antivirus program.  Because the program is designed to use few resources and take advantage only of processing capability you are not using, you should not notice a performance impact on your machine while doing things like catching up on email or watching a video, at least not on a relatively modern computer.

Because these processes are run on normal, every-day computers owned by normal, every-day people, many refer to this kind of computing a supercluster, rather than a supercomputer.

As far as what these programs are trying to accomplish, it really depends on the project.  One of the more popular distributed computing projects is Folding@home, sponsored by Stanford University, which simulates the formation of proteins.  Through millions and millions of simulations, the ultimate goal is to reach a better understanding of why proteins sometimes form incorrectly, and how these malformations relate to disease.  Folding@home has statistical tracking for individual users, so volunteers get to see how many simulations they’ve completed and contributed.  This is a great way for students to track their impact on project, or to plead their case for extra credit.

Oxford University’s Climateprediction.net runs simulations of climate models in an effort to predict climate change over the next century.  The idea is that the more accurately we can predict climate change, the faster we’ll be able to prevent it.  Here’s a video snippet that relates the need for more simulation and more processing power for the project to produce usable results.

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search project works to identify larger and larger Mersenne prime numbers.  If you have a few minutes, listen to an NPR story about the GIMPS project here.  There’s a cash reward for any user who discovers a new prime while running the program, if you need help incentivizing volunteerism.

For more distributed computing projects, check out the list on Wikipedia.

~originally posted by Carson Waites.

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Filed under: Distributed Computing

New technologies emerge on a daily basis, or at least is seems that way to me. In an effort to keep faculty and staff at the University of Michigan-Flint apprised of the latest and greatest – or perhaps the latest and not-so-greatest – the Office of Extended Learning has decided to highlight various software applications and their potential use in academia and beyond.

As a long time blogger, it seemed only natural for me to volunteer to write a column.  However, I hope I’m not the only voice you’ll “hear” when you stop by, which is why I will try to encourage the other contributors to add their knowledge and perspectives to the ongoing discussion.

Since this is my first post and the focus is supposed to be on technology, perhaps I should begin by discussing Posterous.   I was first introduced to Posterous by a fellow student in one of my literature courses; she used it to create a very eye-catching presentation.  A week or so later we were discussing the program in one of the department’s face-to-face Cool Toys brownbag sessions.  In both instances, the software was recommended because “it’s really easy to use”.

Now there are several blogging tools to choose from and some are definitely easier to use than others.  As someone who began blogging in early 2002, I’ve tried my hand at several of the more popular programs, like Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress, and MoveableType, just to name a few.   Some were, indeed, easier to setup and navigate than others.

If you’re looking for a user-friendly blogging platform, Posterous seems like a good choice.  I’ve included a video tutorial that I found on Youtube, which shows that you don’t even need to set up an account first.  Publication is simply an e-mail message away.

If you made it through the video, you’ll already know how easy it is to include media in your posts. Images are collected into galleries, Youtube links become embedded videos, and audio recordings are easily loaded.  Even more impressive, they also claim that they are able to support various file types like PowerPoint, Word, PDF.  Not all blogging software can say the same.

While I certainly don’t claim to be an expert on Posterous, I must admit I like what I’ve seen so far.   Now if I can only figure out how to add categories and change the theme..

One last thing.  Don’t forget to add us to your RSS reader!

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Filed under: Blogs & Wikis, Collaboration Tools