I was just listening to some tunes at work, decidedly not all that interested in working for the moment, and reading through some favorite blogs.  Blog reading of course reminded me that I hadn’t posted about anything recently and so I started trying to think of something interesting to tell the world (of approximately 20 people I think) about.

Then it suddenly dawned on me that I should tell you people about some of the cool shit that I take for granted and you may or may not know about.  After all, friends and co-workers who are also into the latest gadgets and applications share stuff with me all the time!

So it is with great joy that I tell you about one of my more favorite technology discoveries over the past little while: Orb!

This little gem of an application is essentially a streaming media server that you can install on any computer you like, which then makes the media collection on that computer available to you via a secure web browser interface on any other internet-connected computer anywhere.  You simply log into your Orb account and you can see and access the photos, music, and video on the base computer.  As if that alone weren’t enough, you can also tune into a number of internet radio and TV stations that Orb displays, and if you have a TV tuner card on your base computer you can stream live TV.  Similarly if you have a webcam running on your base computer you can stream audio and video signals from that too.  The Orb web interface allows you to choose a file or folder to play, and then instructs your base computer to create a stream that pipes directly into your media player of choice on the computer you’re browsing from.  I use it at work all the time to access my music collection at home.  Sheer brilliance!

The best part, of course, is that Orb is totally free.  As I understand it, they used to charge a monthly license fee.  I suspect that they wanted to significantly grow their user base and offering it for free is a pretty solid way to do that.  It wouldn’t surprise me if they re-introduce some sort of pricing model down the line.  So get in now and use it for free while you can!  If you do try it out, be sure to post a comment here to let me know what you think of it.