Apple's Give Up on Windows Vista Ads

As a Mac user the majority of the time you can take this post for what it's worth (although up until about 2 years ago I used Windows exclusively).

I love seeing clever advertising anywhere. The blogosphere is inundated with examples of creative advertising in the real world, but on the web advertising is usually relegated to poorly designed static or flash banner advertisements. Most are bad. Some are horrible. So when you see something clever you can't help but want to share it.

Visit c|net.com's Windows Vista page and you'll see one of the more clever uses of banner ads I think I've seen. A horizontal and skyscraper ad work in conjunction to poke fun at Vista using Apple's Mac/PC adds that have been all over TV the past few months.

http://www.cnet.com/windows-vista.html

I'd love to find out what Apple had to do to get c|net to agree to this. Even if you love Vista, I think you'd have to agree this is one of the best uses of banners anywhere on the interweb.

Multiple User Screenshare Applescript

Got a few requests for listing multiple accounts and accepting if any of those show up in the allowed accounts in the applescript. This should work (sorry, i haven't had any time to test this for sure). Same instructions for using as outline in the previous post.

(*

File: Auto Screenshare Multi Accept.applescript

Abstract: An update of Apple's Auto Accept script to allow for automatic screenshare acceptance from a specific buddy. This version allows for multiple accounts to be listed and checks the requesting screen name against the list for verification.

Version: 1.1

Disclaimer: IMPORTANT:  I am not liable for any use of this script. Do not use this script if you are unaware of the potential security issues.

Created By: Graydon Stoner

http://www.getstonered.com

*)

using terms from application "iChat"

on received video invitation theText from theBuddy for theChat

set buddySN to (get name of theBuddy)

set allowedBuddies to {"buddy1@mac.com", "buddy2@mac.com", "buddy3@mac.com"}

set allowScreenShare to false

repeat with curBuddy in allowedBuddies

if (curBuddy is buddySN) then

set allowScreenShare to true

end if

end repeat

if (allowScreenShare is true) then

if (screen sharing of theChat is local screen) then

accept theChat

end if

end if

end received video invitation

on received audio invitation theText from theBuddy for theChat

set buddySN to (get name of theBuddy)

set allowedBuddies to {"buddy1@mac.com", "buddy2@mac.com", "buddy3@mac.com"}

set allowScreenShare to false

repeat with curBuddy in allowedBuddies

if (curBuddy is buddySN) then

set allowScreenShare to true

end if

end repeat

if (allowScreenShare is true) then

if (screen sharing of theChat is local screen) then

accept theChat

end if

end if

end received audio invitation

end using terms from

Applescript - Automatically Accept iChat Share Screen Request

So we have been having tons of issues trying to get remote desktop to work properly on our network at the office. Nothing seemed to work. After upgrading to Leopard (sweet) and playing with the amazing new features in iChat, we started debating ways we could get iChat to work as a pseudo remote desktop.

I figured a simple Applescript would work well, but didn't realize how simple it would be. Apple has added iChat events into their preferences. You can select any of their preset scripts or create your own. So after some experimentation I created the following scripts to use. Just setup your audio invitation event to use the following applescript on the computer you want to control. Follow the instructions below...

1) Open Script Editor and copy the code below. You'll want to edit the email address in the code (in two areas) to whatever account you will be using to login to that computer.

Requirements : iChat for Mac OS X ver. 10.5 Leopard

(*

File: Auto Screenshare Accept.applescript

Abstract: An update of Apple's Auto Accept script to allow for automatic screenshare acceptance from a specific buddy. Also added is auto video chat acceptance which can act as a remote monitoring option so you can spy on people at work....home....wherever.

Version: 1.0

Disclaimer: IMPORTANT: I am not liable for any use of this script. Obviously, there are significant security risks to automatically enabling screen sharing. Do not use this script if you are unaware of or refuse to take responsibility for any potential security issues.

Created By: Graydon Stoner

http://www.getstonered.com

*)

using terms from application "iChat"

on received video invitation theText from theBuddy for theChat

set buddySN to (get name of theBuddy)

set allowedBuddy to "youremail@mac.com"

if (buddySN is allowedBuddy) then

if (screen sharing of theChat is local screen) then

accept theChat

end if

end if

end received video invitation

on received audio invitation theText from theBuddy for theChat

set buddySN to (get name of theBuddy)

set allowedBuddy to "youremail@mac.com"

if (buddySN is allowedBuddy) then

if (screen sharing of theChat is local screen) then

accept theChat

end if

end if

end received audio invitation

end using terms from

2) Save Applescript to ~user/Library/Scripts/iChat folder. If this folder isn't present you can either create it or open up iChat preferences, go to Alerts, check Run Applescript and select choose script and iChat will create it for you.

3) In iChat preferences, go to Alerts, select Audio Invitation event (screen share is a property of the Audio Invitation class), check Run Applescript, and choose the script you just saved.

4) Rock it out.

P.S. Also included is auto accepting video chats which I thought might be useful if you want to spy on anyone who might be at your computer. I'm sure there are lots of other useful uses as well. Keep me posted on what you come up with.