Choosing to help fight a fatal disease without having to donate time or money was an easy choice for members of the Triangle Fraternity.

Several members of the engineering, architecture and science-based Triangle Fraternity have been volunteering through their computers for two years.

“We’re all in some sort of computer-based major and since we’re all connected to the same network [to simplify file sharing] and are online 24 hours a day, why not help out?” said Michael Hudec, member of the Triangle Fraternity recruitment team.

A program called Volunteer Your PC, powered by United Devices Inc., has allowed people to do just that.

The company realized that by combining thousands of ordinary PCs to work on extremely large computational projects, problems can be solved more quickly and less expensively than by conventional methods, according to its Web site at http://members.ud.com.

Regular people can help fuel research and projects that previously may have required a bank of supercomputers or 100 years to complete.

“I think it’s a really good program and if it’s helping to find a cure for cancer then it’s worth the effort,” said Jason Culberson, a freshman electrical engineering major.

This program allows any computer to join tens of thousands of other PCs across the Internet, each working on a small part of a large problem simultaneously.

Although the cancer project is the one the Triangle Fraternity has decided to help with, there are several other projects to choose from. People can help with anthrax research, Web performance research, or even genetic research.

There is no cost to participate and there is no known impact on a computer’s performance. The United Devices software works only on its projects and cannot detect or transfer anything on a computer. It is only able to process project-related information.

Students interested in helping out with this cause should visit http://members.ud.com and download the materials. The download process is explained through prompts provided to guide the user through completion. Once downloaded, the United Devices Agent runs in the background and updates itself.

However, if the computer with the program on it is tampered with, the program will be erased, such was the case with Brian Coats, a senior electrical engineering major.

“I do still think the project is very useful and I would still be running it if I was not having computer problems.”