This application is for those who have a little bit of time on their hands (or not..) and is the next logical step to SETI@Home and the likes: Social farming! Don't use idle computers, use idle users!

The goal of the game is easy enough: solve the puzzle with the best possible solution while competing with fellow players to earn points. The twist? By solving the puzzle you're actually helping scientists figure out the shape of proteins and by doing so identifying their function.

The usual approach would be to use supercomputers to evaluate how a protein is folded but there are so many degrees of liberty that only a small fraction of all possible solutions can be explored... and humans do sometimes come up with better solutions!

For more information and to download the application, visit http://fold.it/portal/
Here is the article that made me discover the project http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026811.700-how-online-games-are-solving-uncomputable-problems.html

If you have trouble with transferring data over to Vista from another computer over a network, this may be the solution for you.

1. Go in your Control Panel and open 'Program and Features'.
2. Click on 'Turn windows features on or off'
3. Uncheck 'Remote Differential Compression'

This feature allows data to be synchronized from a remote source with compression techniques (hence the long comparison time before actually transfering anything)

For more details about this feature, visit:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372948(VS.85).aspx

Hope this solves your problem, I know it solved mine and made my Vista experience more appealing!!

Real-life art made interesting by Improv Everywhere!

The link below is in French but the video is in English

Enjoy the ride!