Firstly, Flash is installed on more machines than any other plug in, web browser, or operating system. Allowing users to join your science project without having to register, download, or install greatly reduces the barrier to entry.

Additionally, the OCG is not meant as a replacement to existing standalone frameworks (like BOINC or World Community Grid) but moreover as an extended computational and advertising platform.

For example, let's say you have a standalone application and also an OCG port. Your OCG application can say a message such as

While a job queuing, such as ones formed on internal grid networks and supercomputers, would be unique and potentially beneficial for scientists, allowing users to select their own projects is a much more efficient and beneficial system.

In an arguably Capitalist v.s. Communist debate, the Capitalist ideology works better in volunteer grid computing. Just like in a Communist structure, job queuing works well when there is much overhead and analysis of submitted jobs.

Forums are available as well as a contact form.

You sure can. Just copy the code on the right side of the page. In the future, as soon as someone joins the Online Community Grid from your site, your website will gain "points". For more information click visit the webmasters section of the site.

The Online Community Grid application has the capacity to save results. Every few seconds the work done is saved as a checkpoint. When you visit another page with the application, work will resume where previously left off. Of course, this functionality is up to the developer of the grid application and not the framework.

Plus, as mentioned earlier, you can still load the widget on a separate window or tab by clicking here.

Whenever you visit a webpage, you automatically begin to process data. Whether the process is rendering images, loading a Flash game, listening to mp3s, or just displaying text, your computer processes data whenever a page loads.

While, Flash 9 has comparable speed to Java [oddhammer article], Flash is significantly slower than most standalone applications. However, due to Flash being so easily accessible, the Online Community Grid can obtain clients more easily than standalone applications that require registration and download.

On the bottom of this page you should see the application widget running. Click on the Status tab and then click Join the grid

If you'd like to keep the application open on a separate window you can click here.

Only one instance of the widget can run at once. This is done to help the server distinguish users.

The Online Community Grid is built with Flash and Actionscript 3. This means that as long as a user has Flash 9 installed, that users can join the computing grid. According to internet statistics, around 95+% of users already have Flash installed [Survey]. No registeration, no downloads, no sweat.

This is one of the problems with current grid computing projects. Most Internet users (especially those outside the Technology realm) have never heard of grid computing nor would ever consider joining such projects. These projects always require users to download software and register on a website. With all the viruses floating around the net today, it's hard to convince an ordinary, periodic internet user to download and install software.