Fog Creek Copilot
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Fog Creek Copilot is a remote assistance service offered by Fog Creek Software. It launched on August 8, 2005.
Originally known as Project Aardvark, Fog Creek Copilot was developed by a group of summer interns at Fog Creek Software. Fog Creek's founder, Joel Spolsky, wanted to give his interns the experience of taking a project through its entire lifecycle from inception, to mature released product. The interns set up a blog where they posted updates on the progress of their project, to the world even though at that time the details of what they were working on was still a secret.
On July 1, 2005 the Project Aardvark team revealed that they were working on a remote assistance system for consumer use. A typical intended use is as follows:
Two computer users, an expert and his friend who needs help with his computer, decide to use Fog Creek Copilot to fix the friend's computer.
- The expert buys a 24 hour unlimited day pass from Fog Creek Copilot's website which yields an invitation code.
- The expert sends the invitation code to a friend who needs help with his computer.
- The friend goes to Fog Creek Copilot's website, enters the invitation code.
- A secure connection is automatically established between the expert and friend's computers allowing the expert to see what the friend sees, and remotely control the friends computer if necessary.
Fog Creek Copilot uses TightVNC, a modified version of Virtual Network Computing (VNC), as its core protocol.
On November 28, 2005 they released a documentary on the interns' summer, titled Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks, produced by Lerone D. Wilson of Boondoggle Films.
