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Downloading the Folding@Home software
Download & Sign-up for Team Number 13915
(Team Ten Spider),
Folding@Home Distributed Computing,
The Pande Group and Stanford University
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Folding@Home Team Statistics,
Team Ten Spider (by Team Member)
Team Statistics, Team Ten Spider,
Folding@Home Distributed Computing,
The Pande Group and Stanford University
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Folding@Home Team Statistics,
Team Ten Spider (Graphical Analysis)
Team Statistics, Team Ten Spider,
Folding@Home Distributed Computing,
EXTREME Overclocking.com FOLDING,
EXTREME Overclocking
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What are Distributed
Computing and Grid Computing?
Distributed computing is a means by which computer resources at
more than one physical location can be tied together to perform a task.
The Worldwide Web is perhaps the best example of distributed computing.
Distributed computing systems range in size from global computing to local
intranets.
Grid computing is a method by which the computing power of
individual PCs or other computer resources throughout the world can be
harnessed to perform large-scale projects. Grid computing joins these
resources together through special software to simulate a single large
computer or virtual computer. Previously, such massive computing
power was available only through use of supercomputers. You can
participate in these projects; become a partner with us! The
projects are largely non-profit; you donate your idle computing
time to help forward progress in scientific research that might
otherwise not be possible.
The
Folding@Home Protein Folding Project
Folding@Home is a protein folding grid computing
project being conducted by Stanford University.
Protein folding is the method by which proteins in
the body assemble themselves. Learning how proteins fold is extremely
important because diseases such as Alzheimer’s, BSE (Mad Cow disease),
cystic fibrosis and cancer may be the result of faulty protein folding.
The Stanford Folding@Home project studies protein folding, misfolding,
aggregation, and diseases that may result when proteins do not fold
properly.
How Does Folding@Home Work?
The Folding@Home application that runs on your PC is known as a
distributed client — a standalone program that runs
independently on a PC or workstation under direction of a central server.
In this case, each Folding@Home client is fed data from and returns
results to a Stanford University server. The Folding@Home client runs
in the background on your PC and uses what would otherwise be idle CPU
time, so it is out of the way and unnoticed unless you choose to invoke
its display function, which shows the protein you are modeling and can be
rather cool to watch.
Under Windows, control of the Folding@Home client is available via
an icon in your Windows system tray. (Folding@Home client is
also available for Linux and Mac OS X operating systems.) A nice control
feature is the ability to manually adjust the maximum percentage of CPU
usage devoted to Folding@Home. You can also set the client to
inform you when it needs to connect to the Stanford servers; this is
necessary if you need to establish a dial-up connection or reconfigure
your firewall. (I’ll talk more about firewalls in a moment.)
Folding@Home spends most of its time performing mathematical
calculations; it is a number cruncher. Once installed and
configured (a relatively simple task), the Folding@Home client
downloads a processing core and work unit. Thereafter, it will
merrily crunch away in the background for hours or days, depending upon the
speed of your CPU and amount of memory, how many hours per day you run your
computer, the percentage of CPU usage you have allocated to the client, and
the size of a particular work unit being processed. When finished, the
Folding@Home client will attempt to upload its results to one of the
Stanford servers and download another work unit.
The Folding@Home client appears to be a safe and highly reliable program
which should not affect normal computer use. I have run (and continue
to run) the Folding@Home distributed client on several different
PCs under both MS Windows® XP and MS Windows 98 operating systems more
or less continuously for over three years. During that time I have
experienced no negative interactions with hardware or other software with
the exception of components of the Corel™ WordPerfect® Office
suite, which for some odd reason seem to not want to run when
Folding@Home is present. If I wish to run these, I simply quit
Folding@Home temporarily.
IMPORTANT: As with
any program, our results do not guarantee that you will not experience
problems with Folding@Home on your own system, either now or in the
future. Use your own best judgement and read the
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) on the
Folding@Home website before proceeding with installation.
WARNING: Never
install or run Folding@Home or any other distributed computing client
at your place of employment without first receiving written permission
from your employer to do so, and do not install it on any computer
or workstation other than those for which you have been authorized to
do so. Because they transfer data to and from an outside server,
some employers consider distributed computing clients to be invasive
software and could levy punitive actions for unauthorized use which
could include termination of employment.
If you have a firewall in place, you will need to configure one or more
rules to allow Folding@Home to download work units and upload results.
I suggest that you disable your firewall protection during initial
Folding@Home installation. Once installation — including core
and work unit download — is complete, you can reenable the firewall.
In my experience, our firewall has prevented download of Folding@Home
cores. While you can reconfigure your firewall to permit core download,
it may become a laborious task depending upon your level of expertise.
Folding@Home presently appears to be using three to four processing
cores, with specific cores being utilized by different work units. Each
core will be downloaded only when called upon by a work unit you have been
assigned. Once the cores are in place, the only core downloads that will
take place are new cores or updates to old ones. Cores updates are very
infrequent, on the order of months to a year.
Who Benefits from Folding@Home?
Folding@Home is run by an academic institution (specifically, the Pande
Group at Stanford University’s Chemistry Department), which is a
non-profit organization dedicated to science research and education.
The Pande Group and Stanford University will not sell the data or receive
monetary compensation for it.
Results derived from Folding@Home will be made available for others to
use on several levels. Most importantly, analysis of the
simulations will be submitted to scientific journals for publication.
Journal articles will be posted on the Folding@Home website
following publication and the raw data upon which analysis for such
articles is based will be made available to everyone, including other
researchers, on the Folding@Home website.
We hope you will decide to participate in this worthwhile scientific effort
and urge you to join our team. You can find sign-up, download and Team
Ten Spider information to the right. Welcome aboard!
Authored by Kenneth L. Anderson.
Original article published 21 October 2003, updated 18 January
2006.
Follow links to the right to learn more about grid computing, protein folding and Stanford
University’s Folding@Home distributed
protein folding project.
At the left margin, Related Links address topics of interest
pertaining to computer and internet resources. View the
Computer & Internet SiteMap
for a complete list of computer and internet-related topics.
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