如果您和大多数人一样，您的家用电脑(home computer)可能大部分时间都处于闲置状态。也许你在工作、看孩子、买菜(grocery shopping)或看电视。无论如何，我家中的计算机 80% 的时间都处于关闭或睡眠状态。
这有利于省电和省钱(power and money)，但无论如何，大多数计算机都不会花那么多钱来一直运行。(t cost)相反，我决定让我的电脑在我不工作的时候做一些有用的事情。那么，你可以在没有在身边的情况下在 PC 上完成什么？其实不少东西。以下是您可以尝试的五件事。
帮助人类
有很多项目试图解决世界上真正复杂的问题，但需要更多资源。如果你想帮助科学研究，世界各地的大学有几个项目可以利用你的计算机和数百万其他计算机的力量来创建一台超级计算机。
BOINC 项目(The BOINC Project)
这是伯克利(Berkeley)大学(University)的一个项目，您可以在其中自愿提供您的计算机资源来帮助治疗疾病、研究全球变暖、在太空中寻找物体等。他们有超过 172,000 名志愿者，网络中有超过 850,000 台计算机。这为他们提供了高达 27 petaflops 的计算能力。只需(Just)下载软件并选择您要支持的项目。
另一个志愿计算(volunteer computing)的大项目是来自斯坦福大学(Stanford University)的 Folding@home 。它的主要目的是通过观察蛋白质折叠来研究疾病。这一切都非常技术性，而且超出我的想象，但你基本上是在帮助他们设计新药来对抗疾病。
自动备份您的电脑
如果您不备份您的计算机，您真的应该花时间制定适当的备份计划(backup plan)。即使您的 PC 上没有存储任何重要数据，如果您的计算机崩溃并且您需要执行恢复，您仍然可以为自己节省数小时。
与所有程序一起重新安装 Windows 是一个耗时的过程。为什么不在空闲时备份您的计算机？(computer backup)您可以手动创建自己的备份映像，但如果它们是自动完成的，您更有可能创建备份。
这里最好的选择是使用云备份服务(cloud backup service)。我个人使用的是BackBlaze和Carbonite。这些服务显然要花钱，但它们非常易于使用，让您可以自由地不必担心手动备份您的计算机。
更新您的电脑
如果您讨厌在工作日(work day)中间重新启动计算机，那么您可以轻松调整您的设置，以便 Windows 仅在您不使用 PC 时更新它。
在Windows 10中，您只需点击开始(Start)，然后点击设置(Settings)，然后点击更新和安全( Update & Security)。单击更改活动时间( Change active hours)并设置您在 PC 上工作的时间。Windows只会在此时间范围(time range)之外进行更新。
在Windows 7中，打开控制面板并单击(Control Panel and click)Windows更新(Windows Update)。在左侧窗格中，单击更改设置(Change settings)。
您可以选择每天安装新更新，也可以选择一周中的某一天。您还可以选择最有可能不使用计算机的特定时间。
设置 FTP 或游戏服务器
如果您喜欢与他人共享大量内容，那么您可以考虑将您的计算机设置为文件共享或游戏服务器(game server)。我写了一篇关于一些可以用来创建家庭文件服务器(home file server)的第三方软件的文章。
您还可以在Windows Pro和更高版本中安装(Windows Pro)IIS ，以创建自己的 FTP 服务器或 Web 服务器。最后，如果您喜欢和朋友一起玩游戏，您可以设置自己的游戏服务器(setup your own game server) 来玩Minecraft、Counter-Strike、Quake等游戏。
这些设置起来有点复杂，但是如果您在家中运行其中一个，您的朋友肯定会认为您很酷。
成为 Tor 中继
如果你有一台功能强大的机器、无限的互联网连接(Internet connection)和一个地狱般的路由器，你可能会考虑成为Tor 中继(Tor relay)。如果您不知道， (t know)Tor是一个旨在帮助用户在不被跟踪的情况下浏览Internet的项目。(Internet)它不是完全证明的，但对很多人都很有效。
但是，该网络由充当中继的志愿者组成。当您访问一个网站时，您的请求在到达最终目的地之前会经过多次中继。这有助于掩盖您的真实身份。
成为Tor 中继(Tor relay)有一些技术要求和法律影响，具体取决于您的居住地、您的ISP等。但是，如果可以的话，这是使网络更加私密的好方法。
其他额外用途
我只列出了五种使用 PC 额外处理能力的方法，但还有更多，我想我会添加更多。
- 挖比特币(Mine Bitcoin)——如果你使用一台带有一个显卡的计算机，你可能不会赚很多钱，但如果你有一个强大的多 GPU 设备，你每天可以赚几美元（可能）。或者你可以加入一个矿池(mining pool)。GNUMiner是一款免费且干净的比特币挖矿(Bitcoin mining)程序。
- 录制电影和电视节目(Record Movies and TV Shows)- 如果您有OTA 天线(OTA antenna)和一些额外的硬盘空间(drive space)，您可以轻松地免费录制电视节目和电影。将Plex 之(Plex)类的程序下载到您的计算机上，连接数字调谐器，您就可以开始使用了。
- 自动化 Usenet 下载(Automate Usenet Downloads)– 下载类似SABnzbd的程序以自动从Usenet下载文件。
您可以使用闲置的 PC 做很多其他事情，但这些只是我想到的一些。如果您有另一种利用闲置 PC 的好方法，请在评论中告诉我们。享受！
5 Ways to Automate Your Computer When It’s Idle
If you’re like most people, your home computer probably ѕits idle most of the day. Maybe you’re at wоrk or watching the kidѕ or grocery shopping or watching TV. Whatever the caѕe, 80% of the time my computer at home is either off or sleeping.
This is good for saving power and money, but most computers don’t cost that much to keep on all the time anyway. Instead, I decided that I wanted to have my computer do something useful while I wasn’t working on it. Well, what can you accomplish on a PC without being around? Quite a few things actually. Here are five things you can try.
Help Mankind
There are quite a few projects out there that are trying to solve really complicated problems in the world, but need more resources. If you want to help with scientific research, there are several programs from universities around the world that can harness the power of your computer along with millions of other computers to create a super computer.
This is a project from the University of Berkeley where you can volunteer your computer resources to help cure diseases, study global warming, find objects in space, etc. They have over 172K volunteers with over 850K computers in the network. This gives them a whopping 27 petaflops of computing power. Just download the software and choose the projects you want to support.
The other big project for volunteer computing is Folding@home from Stanford University. Its main purpose is to research diseases by looking at protein folding. It’s all quite technical and way over my head, but you’re basically helping them design new drugs to fight diseases.
Automatically Backup Your PC
If you’re not backing up your computer, you should really take the time out to get a proper backup plan in place. Even if you don’t have any important data stored on your PC, you can still save yourself hours if your computer crashes and you need to perform a restore.
Reinstalling Windows along with all of your programs is a time-consuming process. Why not have your computer backup when it’s idle? You can create your own backup images manually, but you’re way more likely to create the backups if they are done automatically.
The best options here is to use a cloud backup service. The ones I have used personally are BackBlaze and Carbonite. These services obviously cost money, but they are super easy to use and give you the freedom to not worry about manually backing up your computer.
Update Your PC
If you hate your computer restarting in the middle of a work day, then you can easily adjust your settings so that Windows only updated your PC when you’re not using it.
In Windows 10, you simply click on Start, then Settings and then Update & Security. Click on Change active hours and set the time that you work on your PC. Windows will only do updates outside of this time range.
In Windows 7, open Control Panel and click on Windows Update. In the left-hand pane, click on Change settings.
You can choose to install new updates every day or you can pick one day of the week. You can also choose the specific time when you’re most likely not using the computer.
Setup an FTP or Game Server
If you’re someone who likes to share a lot of content with others, then you might consider setting up your computer as a file sharing or game server. I wrote an article about some third-party software you can use to create a home file server.
You can also install IIS in Windows Pro and higher versions to create your own FTP server or web server. Finally, if you enjoy gaming with friends, you can setup your own game server to play games like Minecraft, Counter-Strike, Quake, etc.
These are a bit more complicated to setup, but your friends will definitely think you are cool if you have one of these running from home.
Become a Tor Relay
If you have a powerful machine, an unlimited Internet connection and one hell of a router, you might consider becoming a Tor relay. Tor, if you didn’t know, is a project that aims to help users browse the Internet without being tracked. It’s not full-proof, but works well for a lot of people.
However, the network is made up of volunteers who act as relays. When you visit a website, your request goes through several relays before reaching the final destination. This helps mask your true identity.
Becoming a Tor relay has some technical requirements and legal implications, depending on where you live, your ISP, etc. However, if you can, it’s a great way to make the web more private.
Other Extra Uses
I only listed five ways to use the extra processing power of your PC, but there are so many more that I figured I would add a couple of more.
- Mine Bitcoin – You probably won’t be making much money if you use a single computer with one graphics card, but if you have a powerful multi-GPU rig, you could earn a couple of dollars a day (possibly). Or you could join a mining pool. One free and clean Bitcoin mining program is GNUMiner.
- Record Movies and TV Shows – If you have an OTA antenna and some extra hard drive space, you can easily record TV shows and movies for free. Download a program like Plex onto your computer, connect a digital tuner and you’re good to go.
- Automate Usenet Downloads – Download a program like SABnzbd to automatically download files from Usenet.
There are a lot of other things you can do with an idle PC, but these were just a few that came to my mind. If you have another cool way to utilize an idle PC, let us know in the comments. Enjoy!
