Hi,
I have been an on again/off again participant in SETI@Home for the past two years, under the screen name "Daedalus".
I, too, am a "noob" by definition.
What I think is really cool about SETI@Home, and indeed SETI itself, is that the long-awaited ET signal, the holy grail of astrobiology, could be received at any time: maybe in an hour, or tomorrow, or in a month, or a year, or ten years... You never know. For all I know, that signal could be under the scrutiny of some random user's PC right now. (Even though it probably isn't, it's still fun to think about.)