If you use mIRC as either your IRC client or for an IRC bot, then you’re likely collecting log files from each channel you’re in. With mIRC Stats you can turn those log files into visual stats and have them automatically uploaded to your website via FTP. You can see an example of the results over at http://stats.jakewright.net.

Since my last tour of my desk, I’ve had numerous requests for an updated version. I feel now, however, that my desk has changed substantially since May 2009, so this is simply a new ‘Tour of a Geeks Desk”. Enjoy.

Remote Desktop Connection and Virtual Network Computing are both ways of connecting to, and remotely controlling a computer. Essentially, they do the same thing, but there are differences between them.

Remote Desktop
RDC Client is built into Windows and available for OS X
Remote Desktop (server) is built into most versions of Windows
RDP treats each connection as a new session
Number of connections is limited, often only one person can connect at once (and that logs of the user who is physically logged onto the machine)
RDP is faster than VNC because it sends data rather than ‘images’.

VNC
Available for free for most operating systems
Server built into OS X as ‘Screen Sharing’
VNC shows you exactly what the remote monitor would show and connects to the current session rather than starting a new one
VNC allows more connections but they all see the same thing
VNC is slower than RDP.

Neither are 100% secure, so if that’s your issue, I’d go with another solution.

The Good:
Space saving;
Looks good;
Convenient;
“Does what it says on the tin”.

The Bad:
Requires 2 USB ports (this could be good, though);
Case isn’t very protective.

The Rating: 4/5

One of my external hard drives is the Seagate FreeAgent Go portable hard drive which, so far, has been a very nice hard drive. So, I decided to purchase the dock, to make it look a little nicer, and make it easier to connect and disconnect. The dock also happens to come with a nice little case, perfect for carrying the hard drive anywhere.

Firstly, the dock. There’s not much to say about it, as it doesn’t add any features to the hard drive, but essentially, just puts a piece of plastic in between the two ends of the USB cable. The design of the dock is quite simple, but matches that of the hard drive quite well. Although the hard drive is held in place by some plastic, and the little USB connector in the bottom, it’s held up quite well, and feels sturdy and safe when pushed (gently, of course).

Strangely, the hard drive along uses only one USB port, without the option to use two, but the dock “requires” two USB ports, even though it’s not using any extra power. I believe one, however, is for data, while the other is for power. I just find it strange that the hard drive comes with a cable needing only one port, and works fine. Anyway, using two can only be a good thing, in terms of reliability and performance.

It’s very light, and doesn’t grip the desk very well, but this isn’t an issue as long as you don’t nudge it while it’s on, which isn’t a good idea at all!

The case is black, and very basic, but better than nothing if you need to transport your hard drive.

Overall, it’s a simple product, but available for a very low price making it a good addition to the already brilliant Seagate FreeAgent Go.

I bet you have a lot of media on your computer. Media can be in a variety of forms, such as photos, music, video, etc. Often, however, it is only on our computers, because, often, is is difficult, or impossible, to get all, if any, of our media onto our portable devices. The solution is to actually stream media from a computer, over the internet, to another device which is unable to store it all, for whatever reason.

Orb is a free program that lets you do just that! It allows you to stream a variety of media (including photos, videos and music) to a variety of devices (including mobile phones, game consoles, other computers, etc.) from either a Mac or a PC. If you have a TV tuner in your computer, you can even stream live TV to another device, like an iPod Touch, or iPhone. You can also access all of your media via the orb web interface, from any device which can browse the web.

Orb is very easy to set up, and a very impressive and useful piece of software. If you already have a computer than runs 24/7, why not install Orb so your media is accessible anywhere?