Grid computing

What is grid computing (a.k.a. distributed computing)?

Grid computing is a way of distributing a complex task, that would require too much time to be executed on a single computer (even a supercomputer), to many users that run small parts of the same task.

This tecnique is widely used in many fields such as medical and scientific research. You can easily join these projects and your computer will use its idle time to work on them. Since projects of this kind are generally run with the lowest CPU priority they won't affect the overall performances of your pc.

I personally contribute to the medical research carried on by World Community Grid (www.worldcommunitygrid.com) on this topics:
-Help Conquer Cancer
-AfricanClimate@Home
-Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together
-Human Proteome Folding - Phase 2
-FightAIDS@Home


but if you don't feel like helping medical research then you may be interested in other projects.... here's a partial list:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php

Generally speaking all you have to do is to download a small program called BOINC (www.boinc.berkeley.edu) and attach to the project you like. Also, just for fun you can challenge other users since you'll get a certain amount of "points" for each completed work unit...