And finally - Drop.io

Came across this on a video about Web 2.0, it looked interesting, so I tried it, of course ;)

Its basically a simplified blog point where you can upload files, notes, you name it, very simply. You then give the simple url to whover you wnat, they can then add/download/view what's there if you give permission. I have, as you see embedded the upload button here, and made a new point by sending mail to new@drop.io/cinval2 with a jpg attachment and there's a new point. You can also transfer between your, or others' points - I assume..

Only drawback is that its a bit slow, but they might fix that.

Almost forgot

Another remote control/screen sharing solution for those whose .Mac account has run out - see http://tinyurl.com/yrnrhq and my Evernotes for more info.

"Back to My Mac allows a user log into another Mac remotely via internet. This is a great feature BUT it is only available if you are a .Mac subscriber. However, the new iChat supports Screen Sharing, so the only thing to figure out is how to auto-accept a Screen Share invitation and how to do it securely. This quick tutorial will show you how to set up iChat to do just that..."

Part of the setup requires changing an Apple script to enable auto login, which results in an Apple message every time you start iChat :( - however it all flashed into action, even if the Buddy explanation was unclear, and I wasted hours on trying to get the Buddy window to reproduce the tutorial.. it all worked though, which is the most important thing. I have added a couple of the practical comments entries which make some good suggestions which I haven't yet tried.

Why was I looking for more when I already have Vine viewer working like a charm..? A thirst for more knowledge I guess ;)

Use of afp:// and vnc:// to dvrdns

Now that things are woking pretty well between Leopard machines, I just checked use of the above for file-sharing and screen-sharing access. The former works perfectly on Safari, but not Firefox - a security issue? The latter works fine both on Firefox and Safari.. one is presented with a screen-sharing window showing the Bonjour machines available, and the Finder window for afp:// - great!

Remote control and screen sharing

Can't remember what started me off yesterday, but I came across Vine in /applications and decided to check it out. It worked fine with iMac able to control AIR very nicely. I got hold of a temporary key to enable the reverse, and that too worked fine, so I decided to transfer my single machine licence to the AIR, thinking that would be the logical place to do most remote work from.

The only thing I couldn't get to work was transfer of Cut & Paste between machines.. this set me off on a search which resulted in a trove of wealth! First from Lifehacker's Gina Trampani (a very bright lady) showed how a couple of lines in Terminal could turn the Leopard's screen sharing app into something a bit better. This worked very well, BUT although there were Toobar icons for getting and sending clipboards, it didn't work :(  see http://tinyurl.com/28jdu5


So I continued searching and came across a MacFixit http://tinyurl.com/2jk4yr tutorial with three or four methods of controlling a remote machine.

The one which did most was iChat! That allowed transfer between machines by drag & drop. Another was like Trampani's, and yet another was the one called 'Back to My Mac' this can be started/stopped in the .Mac prefs. It was already on, so I'm not sure whether it might have been in use in the above methods..

Quite a day... I missed dinner and shovelled a handful of nuts in my mouth for sustenance ;) Off to bed and 9:30 pm feeling happy, having learnt so much, even if Cut & Paste didn't work.