The macosxhints Rating:
[Score: 8 out of 10]
- Developer: SilverNetworks / [Product Page]
- Price: Free!
Spy includes its own webserver, which it uses to publish images of your desktop. Even better, however, is that it also streams your desktop -- so users can see what you're doing in (near) real time. In practice, it was able to push out my 1920x1200 desktop images at the rate of about one or two frames per second, which was quite impressive. If you're behind a firewall, make sure to forward the port you're using in Spy (2000 by default) to your Mac, otherwise your visitors may not see anything at all.
You can control things like the the type, size, and quality of the image to be uploaded, what information is displayed with the image (time, date, OS version, CPU speed, etc.), and even the design of the page. You can even optionally list your streamed desktop on a "Spy Tracker" if you want to publicize your work habits to the rest of the world!
The biggest annoyance at this point is that the streamed images won't work in Safari (though static images are fine), so you'll have to have your guests use another browser if they want to see your streaming desktop images.
Spy is primarily a fun little app (and potentially embarassing if you forget you have it running!), though it could be useful in tech support situations where you may not have direct access to the other user's machine.
•
[8,834 views]
