

Guacamole is an HTML5 + JavaScript (AJAX) viewer for VNC - kordless
http://guacamole.sourceforge.net/

======
jasonkester
This is ridiculously awesome.

I had a laptop die on me while traveling in South America this winter, and
spent a month developing through Remote Desktop from internet cafes to one of
our servers back in the US. It involved configuring a VPN on a sketchy box to
pull off, but at least it got me running the IDE.

If I'd had this set up, it would have cut out pretty much all the pain from
that scenario. In fact, it would make a good case for simply leaving the
laptop sitting in the cage at the datacenter, so as to have it available to
work on, but unavailable for nightbus thieves.

------
cybernytrix
It will be cool if individual applications can be exposed via VNC and each
mapped to its own URI. We can see some seriously interactive apps (maybe
killing Flash at the same time!)

~~~
sedachv
That can be huge for virtualizing legacy applications. A few months ago I was
going to build a similar web app, but with X11 (legacy X sucks, but XRender is
better than VNC for this IMO), and with the virtualization/"web-enabling"
back-end infrastructure to use for an application at work. That didn't pan
out, but I think making an easy to use, easy to manage web-app virtualization
backend is a big opportunity. Having this VNC client available provides the
web-browser half of the solution. I have a few hours a week available, anyone
want to work on this idea together?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
You just about described Skytap Cloud to a 'T'. Although, it does do a lot
more than just that. Check it out at <http://skytap.com>.

(note: i was their sr. program manager and primary ui developer from
2007-2009).

~~~
sedachv
That goes way beyond my idea, which would make sense, since the Skytap target
market is a lot larger and more profitable than what I was thinking of. Kudos
to them. I'd like to hear more about how they got started - are there any
articles or interviews you can recommend?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Sure thing:

Series A, stealth mode:

[http://www.npost.com/blog/2007/06/04/interview-with-david-
ri...](http://www.npost.com/blog/2007/06/04/interview-with-david-richardson-
founder-of-illumita/)

[http://www.nwinnovation.com/interview_with_steve_brodie,_ill...](http://www.nwinnovation.com/interview_with_steve_brodie,_illumita/s-0010800.html)

<http://www.seattlepi.com/business/327068_illumita10.html>

Launch:

[http://virtualization.com/news/2008/04/10/illumita-
renames-i...](http://virtualization.com/news/2008/04/10/illumita-renames-
itself-to-skytap-launches-skytap-virtual-lab-and-appoints-scott-roza-as-ceo/)

Series B:

[http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/03/16/cloud-computing-
fir...](http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/03/16/cloud-computing-firm-skytap-
scores-7m-more-from-ignition-madrona-wrf/)

[http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/03/Skytap_taps_7_milli...](http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/03/Skytap_taps_7_million_41218827.html)

Regarding the founders: Dave Richardson went back to school to finish his
Ph.D. Hank Levy is now the Chair of the Computer Science department at U of
Washington. Brian Bershad is now the Site Director for Google in Seattle.

~~~
sedachv
Cool. Thanks for the links!

------
gojomo
Anyone try it on an iPad?

------
rdl
This would be great for KVM server consoles!

------
jdavid
not sure how solid this is, but it's a wicked awesome concept.

does compviz work?

can i remote into a windows machine? can i remote into a windows machine
running IE to do IE6/7/8 testing?

~~~
cookiecaper
Well, presumably you can connect to anything with a VNC server attached.

I'm skeptical that the client would be fast enough for Compiz to work
reasonably, but you should be able to use VNC on a thing running Compiz -- the
effects will just be choppy and useless and probably annoying. It might be
fast enough I guess, but you'd need a fast connection anyway, probably
something local.

