VNC

VNC: Virtual Network Computing. Awesome.

A few weeks ago I got set up with LogMeIn.com, a free site that, using VNC software allows you to remotely control any computer you own, as if you were sitting in front of it, from any other computer, anywhere. It is so useful. For instance, tonight I needed to post an hour and half of footage for client approval. I didn't want to stay at work all night and wait for it, so I came home, logged into my work Mac using LogMeIn and I've been controlling the process from here.

If someone were sitting in front of my work Mac while I was logged in they'd see the mouse cursor moving on its own, opening windows and running programs, all directed by some unseen hand. I had a particularly chilling experience of my own, being on that end of the equation. I was working a night shift about a month ago. It was probably 11:30 at night. I was, and had been for a while already, the only person in the office. Then, out of nowhere the suite next door to mine starts blaring music. Then it stopped. Then started again. It freaked me out! I got up and tentatively poked my head next door. No one there. I walked in and saw the mouse cursor happily zipping around the screen, user absent. I knew then what was going on, but it didn't lesson the shock I'd felt initially.

So VNC is good for getting work done even when you can't be there, and for scaring the snot out of the people that are.