Today’s digest covers such exciting topics as Chicken of the VNC, Sequal Pro, Open Source GIS with MySQL and PostgreSQL, and the Khan Academy.
Most of my remote access to systems is done through ssh and if I need to run a graphical application I typically tunnel X over ssh. Recently, however, I needed a persistent graphical desktop that I could disconnect from and leave running so I fired up VNC. I wasn’t sure what a good VNC client for OS X would be, but after some Googling I found Chicken of the VNC. The reviews I’ve found are mixed, but I like it and it suits my needs. If you’re a Mac user needing a VNC client I doubt you’ll find one with a cooler name.
On the subject of cool Mac OS X applications, I’d also like to mention Sequel Pro. It’s a very useful MySQL graphical client for OS X. If you do any database development or administration with MySQL I recommend it. It would be nice if it would support Postgres as well. Apparently it’s on their roadmap.
Speaking of PostgreSQL, I came across the PostGIS project the other day during my web surfing. MySQL apparently also has spatial extensions. How the two systems compare I have no idea as this is far from my area of expertise. I wasn’t aware that the free database systems had spatial extensions. It makes sense that they would, I just never knew that because I don’t do that kind of work. Good to know in case I do need a free spatial database system though.
On another note, I was logging into the Google analytics account for one of the nonprofit sites I manage the other day and it occurs to me that Google still doesn’t recognize Google Apps for Domains accounts as Google accounts for the purposes of using their applications. I have Google Apps for Domains for this domain but I have to login with my GMail account to access Google Analytics, Google Wave, etc. It’s not the end of the world but I’d like to just be able to login with my secretelite.com account. If I could have Google Wave for secretelite.com I might actually use it. Oh well. Maybe some day..
I saw a story on Slashdot the other day stating that the Khan Academy delivers 100,000 lectures a day. I’ve been a big fan of the Khan Academy for a long time so I was happy to see the coverage. If you’re not familiar, Khan Academy is a series of lectures mainly on the subject of math (ranging from basic arithmetic through differential equations) but also including some content on science and economics and finance. If any of those subjects are of interest to you, I highly suggest checking out the excellent free lectures.