Put your PC to work

IBM and Harvard want you to help them solve some technological puzzles. Using your idle PC's processing power, a simple program crunches numbers for researchers who are using the web as one giant super computer. Similar to the old SETI screensaver program that parsed data looking for extraterrestrial radio signals, the World Community Grid asks you to sign up your PC to parse data for projects like AIDS, cancer and cheap solar cells. You can sign up for everything or mix and match projects. It's all free and you get the satisfaction of knowing that if you leave your PC on, it's doing something more worthwhile than recording TV programs or serving web pages. Click here to get started. Let me know if you sign up, or if you already have and what your experience has been. No word yet if Harvard is going to have a program in which your PC solves our current economic crisis.