myDesktop Online
Platform: Windows Vista/XP/2000/98 (.NET Framework v2.0 required)
Current Version: 1.3.0 (released 3/29/09)
Description
myDesktop Online allows you to periodically capture an image of your desktop and upload it remotely to an FTP server. You can then expose your desktop via a website or simply check up on what someone may be doing on your computer. When running, the program sits unobtrusively in the system tray, uploading images at whatever rate you specify. Supported image formats include BMP, GIF, PNG, and JPG (with variable quality compression).
myDesktop Online supports multiple monitors and will capture your full desktop. After capturing your desktop, you can archive the image both locally and remotely on the FTP server. You also have the option to skip captures if certain windows are open (filtered by window name).
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24 comments so far
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Chris, I want to use your program to upload screen shots of earthquake activity I’m monitoring with seismic equipment. The program works great when left alone, but if I remote desktop into the box to do maintenance, the program will not continue to upload unless I leave my remote session running. Is there a way to activate the program remotely, and then remote into the box without interupting the session?
thanks, Guy
Guy,
I’ll look into this. To clarify:
1. You’re logged on a box (as User:Guy) and running myDesktop under this session.
2. You remote into this box as the same user, opening this existing session. I assume you’re using Microsoft’s Remote Desktop.
3. You disconnect (NOT log off) from this session, and myDesktop stops uploading.
Is this your scenario? If you’re logging off instead of just disconnecting, I could see why it would stop uploading. myDesktop is running as a user process and would get shutdown when you log off the box. Let me know if I’m missing anything.
Sorry it took me so long to look at this. I was able to reproduce the behavior you described and unfortunately, I don’t have a good answer for you.
When you remote into the box and then disconnect, the box is then in a “locked” state, i.e. if you physically go to the box, you’ll have to re-enter credentials to gain access. Windows sees no reason to paint the desktop in this state, which explains why you just see a black screen.
Similarly, if you’re remoted into the box and you minimize the remote desktop window, Windows will stop updating the desktop until you restore the screen.
The only work-around I can propose is to restart the box after you’re finished with your maintenance. myDesktop has the option to start capturing automatically when your computer starts, but this is only useful if your box can log you in automatically, i.e. you’re not on a domain. You’ll also need to have your seismic monitoring software start automatically.
Chris,
Is it possible to name the output file with the date and time?
Thanks,
Tom
No, not in the current version.
Nach langem suchen im Internet habe ich myDesktop Online gefunden. Es erfüllt alle meine Wünsche übersichtlich und sicher in der Funktion. Klasse, weiter so!!
Greetings,
I like your program. Would you be willing to do custom mods?
1) Startup
2) Make a capture of the screen
3) Send the file to the FTP site
4) Disconnect
5) Have the program terminate?
This way, I can control the activity from the system scheduler.
Many thanks,
Paul Gregory
Paul,
myDesktop Online is already capable of steps 1-4. When starting the executable, pass the “-autostart” parameter to make the program begin capturing immediately.
I’m not sure how you could terminate it though. You might look for a utility that would let you kill a process by its name. Googling “kill process by name utility” returned a fair amount of results.
Hi,
very nice app. Will there be a Mac-Version?
cu,
peter
Hi Chris,
We run mydesktoponline for more than 3 years now perfectly. Again thanks for the program!
Also no real bugs or trouble discovered, only very sometimes we have to stop/start the proces when it hangs in FTP-upload. (would be great to have this automated from the program though.)
We still have a request for you, and we hope you are able to fullfil it. It’s a very simple feature: I want to be able to setup a DELAY between the actual screen-capture and the FTP upload. In my case a 10-15sec upload-delay is needed to synchronise screen and audio. (Our audio-stream uses a buffer, and now we face the problem that the screen updates are 20sec ahead to the audio-stream).
Can you add such an “delay”-option? It would be great!
Best regards from The Netherlands,
Jan-Pieter
I was curious if there were any other parameters that the program will accept. You mentioned -autostart in a previous comment, are there any others? I am hoping to be able to use batch files to schedule start and stop monitoring so that it only runs for a certain time period during the day.
Also I would like to submit a feature request or perhaps there’s a way to do this now. My server is on my local network so is there a way to just save the image file to a local drive instead of using FTP? Or have it run with out the FTP? I see that the image is saved in the program files folder so I could write something else to copy the file to where I need it if this program will continue to monitor with out the FTP upload running. Thanks. This is a great tool.
Curtis,
Keep an eye out over the next week or so for a new release with the stuff you requested.
I’ll also be incorporating some of the other requests from above.
Thanks Chris, can’t wait.
Hi Chris!
I was just wondering if there is a possibility of incorporating the feature of storing the screen capture files locally into your application? Your tool is just what I need (scheduled capture and multiple monitor support) for archiving my activities based on which I fill out my time report, but in the office I cannot access my FTP with your sw. Thanks in advance!
Balazs
Balazs,
I’m actually wrapping up development on the next version and it’s going to have the feature you’re asking for. I’m hoping to finish within the next week or two.
Chris,
I try running “-capture_and_quit” using Task Scheduler but was getting a black screen. Any insight? Thanks!
West
West,
Could it be that your screen saver is activating?
Chris,
For sure it’s not the screen saver. Can you please give it a try? I suspected the process is running in the background and therefore it doesn’t work for some reason. However, if I try the same command by bringing up the command prompt, it works just fine.
Thanks,
West
West,
I was able to use the task scheduler successfully. However, once I locked the machine or closed my remote desktop session (which effectively locks the machine), myDesktop started uploading a black screen. Could this be your case?
It makes sense that the program can only capture the desktop when someone is actively logged on to the machine.
Chris,
Can you please tell me how you configured your script to run in task scheduler? I tried on three different machines but was getting the same result (black screen). All of my machines are actively logged on (not using remote desktop).
Thanks,
Kenny
Fantastic app. Took a little while to dig through the piles of shareware apps sites before finding your gem. Great stuff.
I’m looking to use the app for visual logging of a bank of Windows machines. Seems like it’s exactly what I want.
One question… Any plans for SFTP support? I can do port forwarding in order to guarantee security, but it would be a little easier if it were natively available.
Wonderful work - I look forward to writing a blog/review.
Sol Young
Sol,
Unfortunately, the free FTP library I’m using from http://www.enterprisedt.com doesn’t support SFTP. They have an upgraded version that does support it, but it runs a few hundred bucks. I’ve always had my eyes out for an alternative library but haven’t found anything yet.
FYI, the latest version of the program was a pretty big rewrite from the prior. It’s only been out for approx. a month and I haven’t received any feedback/bug reports, which can be a good or bad thing :). Let me know if you run into any issues.
Hi, I have been looking at your program and it is excellent, but i cannot find a program that has a bult in webhost to host the photos locally? as uploading the file to my website takes up bandwith.
thank you
ian
Ian,
Depending on your version of Windows, you may already have a web server installed on your machine - IIS. If not, there are several free Windows web servers available, e.g. Apache (http://httpd.apache.org).
Are you planning on pointing an img tag on your website at your local machine? Keep in mind that depending on the amount of traffic you get, this may take considerably more bandwidth than just uploading the image once to your web host.