How about a small ap that can be loaded on a thumb drive - one click and it installs GR on a computer and sets the projects.
I was just working in a campaign office for a couple of weeks with 3 computers and it would have beenneat to just plug in a thumb drive, hit one key and have three more computers running GR, without having to log on, select preferences, log in to my account, add computer etc etc
Then this same tool could be sent in am email - don't have everyone set up thier own account, but enrol them into your own / one big account and leave the decision making to those that can be bothered with such stuff. The defaluts would be very low-key, not interrupting computing at all, but giving the user the option to get involved themselves.
Then with some experience of this tool it would be an easier argumenr for default installation by computer manufacturers
I'm not sure I totally understand your question / suggestion --
You can download the GridRepublic installer in a variety of ways. Once you have the installer, you can put it on a thumbdrive, a CD-ROM, whatever.
When you run the installer, it will ask for an email and password: give it the email + pw of a preexisting GR account and the computer will be attached to that account -- ie, it will get the projects and preferences in use for that account.
That is: if you've aleady created a GR account, adding computers is as easy as running the installer (from any kind of device), and then entering an email + password.
You can have as many computers attached to an account as you want -- and all are managed via a single login here at the website. (We have one user managing 400 computers through a single login.)
Does that clarify at all?
Quentin
Let me see if I understand what you are trying to get at.as well as a few ideas of my own. You are looking for an installer that defaulty has the account manager information contained upon time of download. So once it installs then you can forget about it.(this could be useful in makeing the process of joining easier still even for current users). With the individual's info already entered after installing there would require no user imput exept through the GridRepublic site.
Another point I am reading out of your statement is for people who want to participate, but do not want to manage choosing new projects to help and want to give power to basically an advisory account run by GridRepublic or some organisation. Through this account people can just literally install and forget and a person at GridRepublic or the organisation chooses projects for the computers to contribute to as they see fit. While still leaving access for the owner to regain power of project choice at any time desired.
Lastly my addition to the previous for businesses and organisations who don't want to let individual computer users choose projects or be able to control the application on the computer in any way GridRepublic essencially could be a managment tool if the client could be selected to not respond to local attempts via either a specialized client type for businesses and organisations, two a lock out mechanism via GridRepublic so computers can only be managed from the web, or installing in a limited account and managing through GridRepublic all activity for the client.
under certain conditions, it is (theoretically) possible to make it so that users need not enter any personal information at the desktop when they initially run the installer. but, last i looked into the matter, this would only work if the volunteer was using internet explorer; and it would only work if he installed within a certain amount of time after downloading. for users of other browsers, and users who delayed running the installer, it would break. for these reasons, and since it was a fair amount of work, we didn't impliment this. (seems like asking the user to enter his/her email + password in the desktop installer wasn't too onerous.)
for companies, {1} we already have much of the functionality spark describes -- if you install on several machines, and attach them all to a single account, these can be managed by a single, remote user. {2} if a company uses a script to install on machines across a network, the GR identity can be "built in" so no action is required by the user: it will just appear on the machine, and can henceforth be managed remotely by the person who "owns" the GR account to which it is attached. (We have one user who manages 400 machines this way; i manage my mom's computer this way.)
Now in such case where a GR installation is being managed "remotely" by a third party, it is at present still possible for the user to manually add projects outside of GR control, and for the user to detach from GR control entirely -- but these actions would need to be made explicitly. In general, it's seen as a virtue to give the user ability for manual overrides of these kinds. if we had a big user who wanted it otherwise, we could probably create a "headless" client. So let's say this: anyone wants to install on 5,000 machines or more, we'll do this if they want.
Eventually, we'll add a facility to attach to groups of various kinds, and to "delegate" your project selection and resource share decisions to the group if you want. It's on the to-do list, but will take a while.
