Episode 723 – Fun with Android Root and Monitoring your PC with Dropbox

The rejected original Star Trek pilot, “The Cage”, featured
Jeffrey Hunter as…? Answer for your chance to win some killer Hak5
swag at hak5.wpengine.com/trivia

The joys of root on Android

Darren is joined by Hak5 IRC’s very own Rkiver to talk Android Root

Monitor your Computer Remotely with Dropbox

There are plenty of times when I leave my computer on and running
while I go run some errands. I love it when I get home and the evil
progress bar is finished! But, how can I monitor it from my iphone
while I’m out? We have Remote Desktop Monitoring with Dropbox. Dropbox is
the tool that we use at Hak5 to send each other screencaptures and
video clips. You can also use this tool to remotely monitor your
computer, whether you need it to check a status, check what your kids
are using your computer for, or make sure no one is using your
computer while you’re away from the desk.

Basically, you’ll take a screen capture and the image will be saved in
your Dropbox folder at timed intervals, and you’ll be able to see the
images on the DropBox website. This is how it works:

First, if you haven’t already got an account over at Dropbox.com – Sign
up for a free account. Next, download Screen Grabber for Dropbox. Screen Grabber will
capture screenshots right into your Dropbox folder. If you have
SnagIt, you can use that instead. Unzip the files and run the .exe.
Once it’s running, you can find it in your taskbar. Right click and
open settings. Disable toast to run ‘quiet’ screen captures. This
way, your computer wont show notifications. Change the image format
to jpg for small files. Choose your folder and leave all the other
options the same. Next use this Autohotkey script to get screenshots
and regular intervals: Loop { Send, {SHIFTDOWN}{F10}{SHIFTUP} Sleep,
300000 } (This script will run in the background and hold down those
keys for you after a set amount of time). Or, if you’ve never used
Autohotkey, you can download this compiled version. Either of these will press
Shift + F10 (which is the default key combo in Screen Grabber) every 5
minutes. Run this on your PC or laptop that you want to monitor and
you will get a bunch of jpg files in your dropbox folder for you to
keep tabs on.

A couple of things I noticed: If you have more than one monitor, it’ll
only capture the main screen. Also, don’t leave the script running and
forget about it because you could potentially use up all your dropbox
storage! Screen Grabber is short and simple, easy enough for anyone
to use and I things it’s a nifty little tool. Email me your feedback
at [email protected]

5 Year Anniversary Party

Join us in San Francisco this August 15th to celebrate 5 years of technolust!