What that article didn't mention is that without Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry, SETI@Home would never have been possible.
More about that can be read here: http://planetary.org/star_trek/enterprise_022405.html, or buy ST4: The Voyage Home - Special Edition, one of the extras is about SETI and its relation to Star Trek <G>
Anyway, there have been some changes since then. For quite some time already, there's been a newer version of SETI, using a program called BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing). With BOINC it is possible to participate in more than one project like SETI (and it's already no longer possible to create an 'old' SETI account, and according to their website, it should already have been no longer possible to even get and return work units), and there are indeed several other projects you can donate your computer time to. BOINC is also available for other operating systems: Linux, Windows, Mac OS (although not all projects may support all of those).
Some of these projects are:
- Climateprediction.net (study climate change)
- Einstein@home (search for gravitational signals emitted by pulsars)
- LHC@home (improve the design of the CERN LHC particle accelerator)
- Predictor@home (investigate protein-related diseases)
- Rosetta@home (help researchers develop cures for human diseases)
- SETI@home (look for radio evidence of extraterrestrial life)
At the moment, there are teams of STFF members for SETI (11 members, 3 active) and Einstein (1 member). I've also tried Climateprediction, but the work units that are sent to your computer are big, when running it needs over a hundred MB of disk space (and it caused my computer to be very unstable).
I haven't checked any of the other projects yet, so I don't know how much disk space they require, but for SETI it's only a few MB, Einstein needs a bit more. It is also possible to limit the disk usage; although some projects may require a minimum amount of space to be available (Climateprediction for example won't work if you only allow it to use 50 MB.)
How does it work?
To participate in a BOINC project, you need to create an account for that project, and you need to install the BOINC software.
To create an account, go to the project's website (see end of article for some URLs) and find the link 'Create an account'. Fill out the form, and you'll get an email with the account key that's needed to add it in BOINC. The project's website is also where you change the settings for BOINC (to limit memory and disk usage).
Then download and install the latest version of the BOINC software and add the project with the URL and account key that you got when creating the project account and that's all. Your computer will do the rest: It will contact the project's server to request work, it'll receive work (if some is available), and then it will start working. After several days (or longer, depending on how long your computer is active) the work is done, and it is sent back. When the result is verified you get credits depending on how much computer time was spent.
Additional info
Because BOINC will need to use part of your computer's CPU power, disk space and network bandwidth (this can be controlled however), there are some things to consider.
Only run BOINC on your own computer, or for which you have permission from the computer's owner. Companies and schools usually don't like it when something like BOINC is installed on their computers.
So when your teachers, employers or parents get angry at you for installing BOINC, do not blame STFF ;-)
There still seem to be a couple of active members there, but remember: SETI Classic is scheduled to be shutdown some time in the future. It is listed here because the URL changed, and the one in the COMM section of the site is no longer working ;-)
Both have a link to create an account that's part of the team immediately (if you already have a SETI or Einstein account, feel free to join the STFF team of course <G>)
If you already have an account for another BOINC project, let me know. I am planning to test a few of the other projects as well, and if there are enough members who also participate for those projects, we could create a team for STFF.
