MakeUseOf » vnc

4 Creative Uses For A VNC Server

Ryan Dube — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:30:50 +0000

By now, you’re probably pretty familiar with VNC Servers. We’ve certainly covered how to set them up and use them often enough here at MUO. I once showed you how to use the service to spy on your spouse (although not everyone agreed with the ethics of the approach). Angela also reviewed Chicken of the VNC for Mac, and I also recently compared TightVNC to other VNC clients.

Other than just using VNC clients to connect to a remote computer, what can you really use VNC servers for? I mean, when you stop and think about it, the ability to connect to and control a remote computer using free software like this is pretty cool.

In this article, I’m going to put together four remote-control systems that you can use to control various entertainment and display systems throughout your home, from a single, central computer. This is especially useful for those of you that have a “main” computer in your living room or living area that everyone uses.

Four Cool Ways to Use a VNC Server

Each of the four setups that I’m going to describe here involve a main computer running VNC client software, and a remote computer – which doesn’t have to have a mouse or keyboard attached – running the VNC server software. EchoVNC is my own personal favorite, but really any VNC server software that you prefer will work.

The four setups are: a remote TV controller, a remote stereo/music controller, a centralized surveillance system, and an in-home information display system. Sound cool? Let’s get started.

Remote Control TV Media

The setup that I am going to propose here involves a central computer in your living room that controls your television entertainment system. The actual infrastructure should be configured as showing in this diagram.

Next, I suggest you set up an HTML file using the tips I offered in my recent CSS web page article. Use a free CSS template and then create a launch page where you can quickly access links to your own personal video streaming services.

Have that page automatically launch every time the display PC boots up by adding the link to that HTML page you’ve created in the startup folder.

Once you’ve got this all set up, all you have to do is sit down at your control PC in the living room, VNC into your media “controller” PC, and you’ll see that browser window already open. Just click on the service you want to use and launch the movie of your choice.

Remote Access Sound System Controller

You can use this same approach to remotely control a sound system. All you have to do is hook up an inexpensive standalone tower PC to your stereo system.

This is what that setup would look like:

This setup is nearly identical to the movie system controller, except the output from the standalone PC is sound rather than an HDMI output cable. Now, all you have to do is connect to the standalone PC via VNC and launch the music using your favorite music app like iTunes. Here, I’ve connected to my controller PC using Echo VNC and iTunes.

Just launch the music on the remote PC and the music will start playing on your stereo system.

By the way, if setting up a media center PC sounds cool and you’d like to try it, I highly recommend the free MUO manual on setting up a media center PC, which goes into far more detail than I can in this article.

Access Your Surveillance System

Were you one of the people that thought the Wi-Fi surveillance system idea that I put together using Active Webcam was a good idea? Well, if you think about it, incorporating VNC into the mix can let you dedicate a single PC to monitoring your entire household surveillance system.

By installing VNC server software onto that dedicated surveillance PC, whenever you want to check out all of your camera displays, all you have to do is remote into it to check out all of the cameras.

This allows you to run your surveillance system setup from a single, dedicated PC. Whenever you want to monitor the cameras, just remote in and check things out.

Set Up a Household Display

If you’ve ever walked through a manufacturing facility, then you’ve probably seen those flat screen informational boards up everywhere, scrolling through important statistics and information.

Well, using VNC you can actually set up a similar display at home. Just mount a small LCD display monitor on a shelf or on the wall. Connect it to a dedicated, standalone PC that you can hide in a cabinet or under a table.

Then, set up a rotating set of HTML screens that show anything from this month’s family calendar, to a task list of important projects the family will be completing together. You can use a website like FreeHTMLCalendar to create such a quick HTML calendar screen and customize it with your important events.

If you’re familiar with Javascript, then you can set up your remote PC to scroll through HTML pages as shown here.

--->The body of your HTML web page goes here

As you can see, the moment the first HTML page loads, it launches the “PageLoad” function. This waits 20 seconds before launching “loadnext()”, which will load the next HTML page. For each display page, you’ll just change the next called HTML file.

Here is the directory on my remote display PC that holds all of those HTML pages to display.

Whenever you want to update your remote display, just remote into it with VNC, update those HTML files with new information, news or a new family calendar, and you’re done!

Do you see yourself trying out any of these VNC client/server setups? Can you think of any other cool ways to make use of VNC? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.

Image Credit: ShutterStock

Is TightVNC Really More Tight Than Other VNC Clients?

Ryan Dube — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:01:29 +0000

When it comes to remotely connecting to a desktop PC or a server, most people quickly opt for installing a VNC server. It’s fast, easy to configure, and best of all it’s absolutely free. Once you’ve installed a VNC service on your target computer, you can essentially use any client you want in order to access that service if it is capable of using the VNC protocol.

In my somewhat controversial article on how to spy on your spouse with your computer, I mentioned using RealVNC for Windows to do just that. Then there’s Chicken of the VNC for Mac, or VNC access for Ubuntu. If you search free software directories, you’ll find VNC clients large and small and everything in between. Recently, I came across TightVNC, another VNC client with a claim that it is distinct because it is “free, lightweight, fast and reliable“.

Testing The “Tight” In TightVNC

In order to put TightVNC to the test, I decided to formulate a baseline by running and measuring several other VNC clients before running TightVNC and comparing it to the same baseline. Now, this is by no means a highly-analytical, professional, end-to-end functionality or capacity test. All I want to know is how much memory the application uses while it is running, and how much bandwidth it eats up while communicating with the remote VNC server.

The first client I decided to test is the one that I currently use all the time, called UltraVNC. I really like UVNC – it is easy to run and configure, and fast to connect to my remote clients. I use it to manage our family web server as well as my random PCs throughout the house.

Running UltraVNC, I opened up the Resource Monitor and went straight to the memory area. As you can see, UVNC, which runs under the image name “vncviewer.exe”, takes up just under 5,000K of private memory space, with a total of just over 11,000 set aside for the app.

In terms of network utilization, during a fairly low-activity, non-use period of time when I leave the connected screen untouched for about 5 minutes, the network utilization of this connection eventually evened out to about 1,621 B/sec. So, now we have a baseline to compare all other VNC clients to – about 5,000K of memory space and just over 1,500 B/sec.

Next up is RealVNC. This was actually the first VNC client I ever used, and it remains the VNC server app that I still use. Running the RealVNC client, the Resource Monitor showed nearly the same performance, only slightly better. About 4,520KB in private memory and about 10,284KB total.

On the flip side, I noticed network bandwidth consumed by RealVNC was just slightly higher than UltraVNC at 1,887 B/sec, but not a whole lot higher. Since the bandwidth can fluctuate significantly from time to time – easily 200 B/sec at least – then for all intents and purposes these two apps perform nearly the same in every way.

There is another free VNC client that you may or may not have heard about called TigerVNC. TigerVNC is interesting because its creators say that they focused on performance and remote display functionality. We’ll get to the functionality in a bit, but first we need to complete our measurements for this third VNC client. Network Activity for this one appears to be significantly higher for this VNC client – almost five times higher than the last two.

As far as I could tell, I was doing everything the same way during the measurement – waiting a few minutes after leaving the screen idle before taking a measurement. Regardless, network usage appears to be quite a bit higher.

The memory consumption, however, appears to be right along the same lines as UltraVNC. So, whatever the programmers did to increase functionality and consume more network bandwidth, they did it without consuming any more memory than UltraVNC.

As far as added functionality, it’s true that you can see more features immediately available at the top left corner of the view screen. With one mouse click you can zoom, launch the windows menu, or utilize “Control-Alt” on the remote client. I couldn’t really tell whether the display quality was any better than the other two VNC clients, but if the network use is any indication, then it probably is.

Finally, we come down to the one VNC client that has made the claim to be the tighter VNC client – TightVNC. The first thing you’ll notice when you launch TightVNC is that you can opt for a “low-bandwidth connection” before connecting to your VNC server.

Looking at the network bandwidth under the “low-bandwidth” setting, you can see that the network consumption is still higher than UltraVNC or RealVNC – about 3 times higher. However, it does beat out TigerVNC in terms of bandwidth.

In terms of memory use, TightVNC does indeed blow away the competition by a difference of approximately 2,000KB less of total reserved working space. Considering that it appears to be working pretty hard over the network to provide adequate functionality, the smaller footprint is pretty impressive.

So, there you have it folks. While TightVNC may not exactly live up to the hype, and in fact fails to achieve significant bandwidth improvements, it does indeed meet the claim that it is lightweight. For anyone concerned with the overall memory space active applications use up on your PC, then TightVNC will at least save you a little bit of space.

Have you used many VNC clients before? What’s your favorite client and why? Share your opinions in the comments section below!

Image credit: Anders Engelbøl

How To Set Up & Use Chicken Of The VNC For Remote Access [Mac]

Angela Alcorn — Fri, 27 May 2011 19:31:18 +0000

If you’ve ever needed to get remote access for a computer, you’ve probably realised that some solutions are far superior than others. Even as far as VNC (Virtual Network Computing) clients go, there are a few really good clients out there and there are many clients that just don’t cut it for some reason or other. Today we’ll introduce you to another great Mac VNC client you’ll love.

Chicken of the VNC (COTVNC) is easy to use, simple to set up and works like a charm. You can use Chicken of the VNC to connect to a Mac, Windows or Unix machine, so it’s really quite versatile.

Install Chicken Of The VNC

Download a free copy of Chicken of the VNC from Sourceforge here. It’s a small download of 1.2MB so it shouldn’t take too long.

Installation is standard Mac procedure: just open the disk image and drag the application into your Applications folder. Double-click Chicken of the VNC in Applications to open it.

Set Up Remote Computer For Chicken Of The VNC Access

To begin with, you’ll need to make sure the computer you wish to connect to is allowing VNC connections and that you know the IP address and password details for access to the computer.

To allow VNC connections on a Mac, go to System Preferences > Sharing. Check the box for “Remote Management” and check all the applicable boxes in the popup window, depending on how much access you want to give out. Then click on “Options” and check the box to allow VNC connections with a password. Choose a password. When you click “OK” you should see that Remote Management is on and which IP address to use.

Otherwise, to find the local IP address on a Mac, go to the airport symbol and choose “Open Network Preferences” (or go to System Preferences > Network). The IP address will be shown clearly on this screen.

To allow VNC connections in Windows, the Windows machine will need to have a VNC client installed, such as the free RealVNC and configure it to use port 5900 and to use a password for access. To find the local IP address in Windows, open up a terminal (by going to Windows > Run and typing “cmd“) and then type “ipconfig“.

For access via the Internet, it’s a little more complicated. You will need to know the IP address you’re using in the real world, so head to WhatIsMyIP to get it. You may also need to set up port forwarding on the router to ensure the port 5900 is sent to the VNC server on the IP of the Windows computer.

If you want to use VNC to help a relative with tech support, for instance, you might need to set this up in advance and perhaps talk them through the steps to get the new IP address to ensure you can log into their system.

Set Up Chicken Of The VNC

For every computer you remotely connect to with Chicken of the VNC, you’ll need to set up a new connection. From the previous steps, you should now have the details you need ready for use.

Click the + button to add a new connection and give it a name. In the host field, write the IP address followed by a colon and the port number. Put the password in and click connect. You should see a window pop up automatically where you can control the machine.

As you can see, the main trick to setting up a VNC connection is in ensuring the computer you wish to connect to is willing to accept the connection. Chicken of the VNC itself is pretty straightforward and just gets the job done.

What do you think of Chicken of the VNC? What’s your favourite free VNC client for the Mac? Let us know in the comments!

How To Remotely Access Your Mac From Your iOS Device

Bakari Chavanu — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:31:10 +0000

Before I started using VNC (Virtual Network Computing) software on my Mac and iPhone, I can’t count how many times I needed to connect with my home office computer to access a file, launch an application I needed to use over Wi-Fi or 3G, or simply shut my computer down. Up until recently, VNC software has been pretty expensive and often clumsy to use, but since the emergence of the iPhone and other mobile devices, virtual network technology has become easier to set up with improved interfaces and features for remotely connecting to your home or office computer.

While there are several advanced mobile VNC programs costing $30 or more, there are a few free options in the Apple and iTunes Music Stores that work quite well to remotely access your Mac.

PocketCloud Companion

PocketCloud Companion is a VNC program for remotely accessing your Mac from your iPad and other iOS devices. Due to the large size screen of the iPad, viewing the desktop of your Mac is three or four times better than on the iPhone and iPod touch.

PocketCloud Companion remotely connects to your computer over Wi-Fi and 3G using your Gmail account. After you download the PocketCloud Companion app from the Apple Mac Store, and the remote PocketCloud client version from the iTunes Music Store, you can have both programs connecting in less than five minutes.

To set up on your Mac, launch System Preferences > Sharing > Remote Management. Click the Computer Settings button and check “VNC viewers may control screen with password“. Enter a password. Then launch PocketCloud Companion to set up your account.

On the mobile client side, you will be taken through the process of adding your Gmail account and password security. It’s about a two-step process. With my computer setup, PocketCloud on my iPad enables me to view both my main and secondary monitors. Anything on my desktop and in my computer can be launched, viewed, and used.

PocketCloud Companion includes a handy little Touch pointer that helps you navigate items on the computer desktop. It’s almost like using your mouse. Of course, navigation on the smaller iPhone and iPod touch screens will be more challenging.

As with other VNC programs, there is typically a delay between what you see on your desktop and what you see on your iOS screen device. So for example, if you click to close a window on your desktop, it may take about five seconds before you can see the window close on your iOS device. So be patient and keep trying if it doesn’t work at first. VNC computing does not provide the same experience as actually working on your computer, but it’s a useful resource for when you really need it.

RDM + Desktop Lite

Another VNC program similar to PocketCloud is RDM + Desktop Lite. The free version is ad-supported, but you might find its interface more handy than PocketCloud”˜s.

RDM + Desktop Lite is optimized for the iPhone and iPod touch, although it can be used on the iPad as well. After downloading RDM + Desktop Lite from the Apple Mac Store and the remote mobile client on your iOS device, the setup is even easier than PocketCloud. You need to set up an account, add the given computer number in the client app, and you’re good to go.

With RDM + Desktop, you can remotely access your Mac just like you would with any other VNC program. But its client app also includes navigation and action buttons which keep you from having to point your remote cursor to menu bar items on your desktop. You can, for example, quickly shutdown, log off, or close and quit windows and applications with the touch of a button.

Both PocketCloud Companion and RDM + Desktop include a virtual keyboard if you simply need to do some typing on your computer via their remote clients. I found extended typing using the programs too slow and cumbersome. But it’s great for when you’re in a pinch and need to make changes to a document on your computer and then perhaps remotely email that document to yourself or someone else.

These free programs are a great introduction to VNC technology for mobile devices. If you have never tried using virtual computing, you’ll be amazed at what it can do. If you give them a try, let us know what you think. Or if you have another favourite app, let us know all about it.

Gitso Reverses VNC Connections, Makes Helping Others Easier [Cross Platform]

Justin Pot — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:31:03 +0000

Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is useful, but less so if you want to help a friend with something. If they need your help to begin with they probably can’t set up their router’s port forwarding to give you access. Gitso allows for reverse VNC connections, meaning your port settings need to be set instead of your friend’s. Combine this brilliant idea with a program that works on Linux, Mac and Windows machines and you can support your friends in three simple steps.

When it comes to remote connections, VNC is many people’s protocol of choice. With native support built into Mac OS X and most versions of Linux, and a plethora of applications available for Windows and (seemingly) every other system on earth, it’s hard to match VNC for versatility.

But getting a VNC connection working when there are routers and port settings involved can be tricky, particularly if you need to access the computer of someone not savvy enough to make the necessary changes to their firewall and port settings. This explains the popularity of services like LogMeIn.

If you want a simple way to help your friends with their computer problems, but don’t want to depend on a proprietary service to do so, Gitso is what you’re looking for. Download Gitso if you want, and keep reading to find out how to use it.

The Basics

This program has two main functions: getting help and helping others. The person helping should probably start the program first, and doing so is simple enough. Here’s what it looks like when I start the program in Ubuntu:

Giving help was as simple as clicking the “Give Support” button, then pressing start. The message “Server Running” means I’m ready to accept connections. Now comes the tricky part. I need my friend, who needs help, to connect to me. For this to happen he or she first needs to download Gitso, or I could simply email the program in order to simplify things. Once Gitso is working it will look like this:

My friend needs to type my IP address, which I’ll gladly provide over the phone. Once this is entered I will be connected to their computer:

So the person receiving support only needs to do three things: download the program, run the program and type an IP address. It’s a little complicated, but far less than talking your friend through configuring their port settings.

Port Settings

Oh yeah, port settings. Using this service on a local network is simple, but if you want to make use of Gitso via your Internet connection you’re going to need to configure your port settings properly. Log into your router’s administrator and make sure port 5500 is forwarding to the computer you’ll be helping people from. For best results give your computer a static IP.

Conclusion

Still have questions about setting up a reverse VNC connection with this program? You can find more information at Gitso’s how-to page, or ask about any troubles you might have in the comments below. Also feel free to share any links to remote support software you find that’s easier to use than this is.

How To Remote Control Linux From Windows

Dave Drager — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:30:21 +0000

We’ve covered how to set up a Linux server for various tasks in previous articles. But once it is set up, what is the easiest way to administer that server? Oftentimes it can be tucked away inside a basement or attic, it doesn’t matter where — as long as it has power and network (and is properly cooled). You don’t need a keyboard, monitor mouse or other peripherals; just a power and network cable.

So once you’ve got the server set up (and of course you’ve tested it to make sure it can boot back up from a reboot or power failure), how do you remotely connect to it?

There are 2 main options: GUI (Graphical User Interface) or CLI (Command Line Interface). Also for the sake of this article, I will mention Ubuntu-only, but the same general ideas work on any Linux-based system.

Finding Your Linux System’s IP Address

For either method, you will need to find your computer’s local Internet Protocol (IP) address. If you have a sidebar, it may show up there, or you can open your network manager “Connection Information” and view it there. If you have not done so already, set up a static IP address so that this does not change when you reboot your Linux computer.

In the example above, the static IP address is 10.0.2.15.

Remote Control via GUI

Ubuntu and most Gnome-based Linux systems use VNC, or Virtual Network Computing protocol, for graphical remote control. To configure this service, which is disabled by default, go to System->Preferences->Remote Desktop. This will bring up the settings panel for Remote Desktop:

I’ve configured the correct settings above for remote control on an unattended box. Another important aspect of this is to automatically log you in to the system on a reboot, otherwise the desktop session will not have started and you won’t be able to log in. You do this in System->Administration->Login Screen.

After enabling these two options, are you are good to go. Install a VNC client on a Windows computer (I recommend UltraVNC (it is only necessary to install the client, not the server) for ease of use. Enter the Linux computer’s IP address and hit ‘Connect’ – it will then prompt you for the password. Once you are connected, it will pop up on your screen and you’ll see this message which is shown on the desktop of the remote computer.

We’ve previously written about Remote Desktop on Ubuntu specifically how to establish simple remote access between Ubuntu and Windows and how to use the built-in Remote Desktop in Ubuntu, read on there for more detailed information.

Remote Control Via Command Line

The surest way to connect to a Linux box is to use SSH. All modern Linux systems include an SSH-client installed by default and most will also include the openssh server. Check to see you have it installed by issuing the command:

# sudo apt-get install openssh-server

It will either install the server if you don’t have it, or tell you it already is the latest version.

Once this is installed, all you need to do to connect to the computer is use any SSH client to connect to the IP address. A widely used and free one is called Putty. It works on multiple platforms and is free. Mac OS X users can also use the built-in xterm.

Execute Putty, put in your IP address and hit ‘connect’. You will then be prompted for the username and password on the system, enter it and you are in!

Which Way Is Best?

This all depends on your end goal. I find the command line to be much more stable and reliable than VNC so I typically will do everything from there, but then again I am comfortable with and grew up with the Terminal. If you are unfamiliar with Terminal commands or are perhaps used to the ease of use of the graphical interface, then VNC still works very well. It gives you an instant look at the desktop just like the computer was sitting in front of you. Do whichever method works best for you, or experiment with both! Just don’t run any commands that interrupt its network connection or you’ll have to make a trip to install a keyboard and monitor – been there and done that!

Let us know how you make out and of course let us know if you have any other preferred method of connecting to Linux from Windows!

Image credit: Shutterstock

Access Your Computer From Anywhere on Your iPad

Nancy Messieh — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:30:49 +0000

Accessing your computer from anywhere using your iPad is relatively easy to achieve, whether you’re using a Mac, PC, and even in some cases, a Linux machine. You can gain remote access to your own computer when you’re away from home or the office, help a friend out with their computer remotely, or even give a presentation from your computer to someone else’s iPad, all with the use of apps available for download for free from the iTune’s store.

In addition, if you would rather access specific folders or files (of any kind) that has also been made possible for Mac and PC users.

VNC and Screen Sharing

TeamViewer HD

TeamViewer is one of the easiest ways to get full access to your computer from your iPad [iTunes link]. While Teamviewer is also compatible with the iPhone/iPod Touch and Android phones, using it on the iPad is of course much easier because of the larger screen that gives you easier control over the various features.

To get started with TeamViewer HD, install the application on your Mac, PC or Linux machine, and launch it. It will instantly give you a username and password that you can share with anyone with whom you want to give remote access, or use with the iPad app.

No need to mess around with hostnames and ports – it’s all done for you. The great thing about TeamViewer is not only its ease of use, but also the flexibility with which you can use due to the fact that it supports so many platforms.

If you would prefer to use an easy-to-remember password on a consistent basis, you can select it under your preferences, otherwise the password will change each time you close the application.

From your mobile device, you can type with an onscreen keyboard and control the mouse by dragging the cursor around the screen, giving you full access to all features on your computer.

TeamViewer HD is free for non-commercial use only, and is offered on good faith that users won’t abuse their policies. The application is ideal for giving tech support to family and friends, controlling your own computer from wherever you are, or even can be used to give realtime demonstrations from your PC to someone else’s iPad.

Connect My Mac

Connect My Mac [iTunes link] is another easy way for Mac users to gain access to your computer using an iPad or iPhone. Rather than have to install anything on your computer, the connection can be achieved using your Mac’s inbuilt sharing settings.

Navigate to your System Preferences and open the Sharing window. Make sure that Screen Sharing is checked, and make a note of the VNC address that is displayed on the screen.

Don’t forget to add a password, found under computer settings, to limit access to your computer.

Launching Connect My Mac, enter the address as your hostname, enter your password, and connect.

The advantage to using Connect My Mac over TeamViewer is the fact that you don’t have to install any extra software on your computer, and that you also have access to the Cmd+Opt+Esc function in the event that any of your applications freeze.

iRemoteDeskTop Free [iTunes link] from the same developers as Connect My Mac gives Windows users similar access to their Windows desktops. Unlike Connect My Mac, however, it will require the installation of a small program on your Windows machine to gain access.

Media and Files

If you would rather access specific media and files on your iPad, or even download them to your iPad, your best bet is ZumoCast [iTunes link]. The app which is, amazingly enough, free gives you access to all kinds of files, including your music and video files, and pretty much any folder you choose. All you have to do is install the ZumoCast app on your Mac or Windows machine, and you’ll have easy and secure access to your files from your iPad or iPhone.

What method do you use to access your computer from your iPad? Let us know in the comments.

Control Your Computer Remotely Using HTML5 With ThinVNC

Dave Drager — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:31:28 +0000

We’ve covered numerous remote desktop applications before, and they each do a great job of sharing your desktop at work, home or on the go. For Windows, built in remote desktop works great but you need a client to connect, and if you use a VNC (RealVNC, UltraVNC, etc) you also need a client – either standalone or a java-based one built into a webpage. Every remote desktop application I’ve seen requires some sort of browser plugin – until now.

ThinVNC takes remote desktop to a whole other level. The “VNC” part of its name is a huge misnomer – it does not use the VNC protocol at all. What they have done is written their own remote desktop software from scratch that implements HTML5 as a front end – meaning that any web browser that supports HTML version 5, such as Chrome, IE, and Firefox; can display and interact with the remote computer.

It is open source and free for non-commercial use, and is available currently for Windows XP, Vista, 7 and Server 2003 / 2008. ThinVNC also has some unique features that I will go over below.

Downloading and installing ThinVNC is simple – just download the file and install. The service will launch itself into your toolbar and the basics are complete.

After setting it up, you will want to go into the settings as soon as possible and update at least one thing – the username and password to log in. Shut down the service in the File menu in order to change your settings. By default the login is set to ‘admin’ and ‘admin’ and this would be easy to guess by any attacker. Use something a little more secure that only you know about.

If you look at the “HTTP” configuration tab, you can also change the ports the service lists on as well as the presentation server settings. I will go over the presentation features below.

The final result is your local computer available in any modern web browser, sans plugin. It is presented to the browser as shown below.

Finally, in order to access your PC on anything other than the local network, you will need to “Port Forward” from your router to your local PC. Make sure to log in and forward to port 8080 on your local machine (the default port ThinVNC uses) or you won’t be able to access it from the outside. Do this only once you changed the default password.

The presentation server allows external users to “view” your screen only. When they connect they will see your screen in their web browser, and again as above no plugin is needed. This is pretty awesome when you consider that before with a WebEx or other desktop presentation engine the end user needed to install a special plugin and this is a roadblock for many, especially the technically challenged. The simplicity of this setup makes it easy for external viewers to see your screen (if they have the password).

To add a remote user, right click on the service and click “Manage Presentation“. This allows you to enter the remote viewer’s email address which creates a temporary username and password for them, and can generate the email with the “Invite” code.

I think ThinVNC is an excellent program if you need simple desktop access remotely without a plugin. The major feature it is lacking that something like the free LogMeIn or a true “VNC” solution has is file transfer. Also I did notice that the screen refresh rate isn’t as fast a LogMeIn, but it isn’t slow either. The bottom line is that if you need quick emergency access to your machine without installing a special client, ThinVNC is a great solution for you.

Let us know in the comments what you think about it and whether you think there is an easier alternative out there we should know about.

How To Remote Control Your iPhone From Your Computer

Varun Kashyap — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 22:31:55 +0000

There are a number of apps in the Apple App Store that let you control your computer or a specific software using your iPhone. You can use your iPhone as a mouse, remote control iTunes with it and do a whole lot more. Such apps are fun to use simply by the virtue of the “awesomeness” factor.

Let’s just turn the tables a bit. How about an iPhone remote control app that lets you control your iPhone using your computer? Especially if you bitten by the texting bug! Now you can type fast and do work on your laptop while having the iPhone open in a separate application on your computer. Interested? Let’s see how you can do it.

We are going to be using the iPhone as a VNC server. Apple, of course wouldn’t allow such a feat to be accomplished on their cherished device, so you won’t find any such application in the Apple App Store. However, you might be aware that another very popular platform exists where you can get free and paid apps that you won’t find on Apple’s App Store. I am talking about Cydia.

Before we proceed any further I must mention a disclaimer. Jailbreaking has recently been legalized in the United States but you might want to check your local laws if you are outside the United States. Also keep in mind that jailbreaking will void your Apple warranty.

We need a jailbroken device for Cydia and we need Cydia for Veency which is the app that lets you connect to your iPhone remotely via VNC and thus control it from your computer. Veency is of course not the only app that jailbroken device owners might be interested in. There are lots of them available via Cydia that let you tweak your iPhone in ways no other app on the App Store would let you do.

Jailbreaking is easier than ever before with the latest app called jailbreakme. The actual process is however beyond the scope of our discussion here.

Installing Veency

Open Cydia on your iPhone. Let it download the packages and do its thing. Now go to search and look for Veency.

Click or tap on Veency. You will be able to see details of the Veency Package. Browse through them to know more about it.
Once satisfied you can click the Install button towards the top right.
Cydia will ask for confirmation before proceeding and show you a summary of what will be changed

Confirm and Veency will be downloaded and installed on your iPhone.

Using Veency

From a configuration point of view you only need to ensure that WiFi is switched on your iDevice before you can access it remotely. You will also need to know the IP address that gets assigned to your device. You already know this if you assigned it manually.

Else you can find the IP address assigned to your device by visiting Settings > General. Then click on the blue arrow next to WiFi network name and you should find your settings listed there.

Accessing Remotely

Your iDevice now has a VNC server installed. So you should be able to connect easily using a VNC client. We have covered a number of them before. TightVNC stands out if you are on Windows. Download and install it from here. A portable version is also available if you are so inclined. Once that is out of the way, fire it up.

Next up you need to enter the IP address we determined above. And confirm the VNC request:

Once you are connected you will be able to use your iPhone remotely via your computer.

This is especially handy when typing long messages or accessing your iPhone in another room. There are certain downsides as well. Since you are using this with the mouse you won’t be able to replicate all the ground breaking gestures that make the iPhone so special.

I didn’t get the opportunity to test the setup with a magic mouse or magic trackpad. It would be interesting to know how things behave with these devices in the equation. Maybe some of you can let us know?

3 Best LogMeIn Alternatives For Ubuntu

Varun Kashyap — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:31:34 +0000

LogMeIn for Ubuntu is a great software for remote access and desktop control. However, it doesn’t work with all its powers on Ubuntu or other Linux systems. There is a LogMeIn plug-in for Linux but it’s been in pre-release for years and there is no word about it reaching fruition anytime soon.

Surely one needs remote access every now and then. So what options do Linux users have when wanting to access their computer remotely? Here are a few options.

TeamViewer

TeamViewer is one of the best, if not the best, remote access option for Windows. Guess what? They now support Linux as well. TeamViewer for Linux is still a beta product, but it works just fine, far better than running TeamViewer under Wine and it does everything that you have become familiar with TeamViewer on Windows.

Using TeamViewer can’t be easier. You download a package for your distribution and double click to install. At present there are packages available for Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse and Mandriva. In addition you can also download the tarball and then compile and install on your computer the old fashioned way. Once installed, fire it up and you are ready to rock!

Teamviewer takes a moment or two to initialize when you start it up. Once initialized, TeamViewer UI displays an ID and a password. These are the credentials you (or anyone else) needs in order to gain remote access to the computer. The ID of a computer remains the same, while the password is regenerated every time. You can however set a user defined password that doesn’t change and can be used to access your computer remotely anytime.

In addition to the above, you can also

record sessions.
adjust screen quality to optimize performance or view quality.
create blacklists and whitelists to always deny or always accept requests from certain users.
tweak and specify precisely what remote users would be able to do on your computer.

TeamViewer also makes it easy to transfer files between the connected computers and can also support VOIP if need be.

VNC

The other option is to use remote desktop over VNC. While VNC is not as feature rich as TeamViewer or LogMeIn, it is readily available on Ubuntu. All you need is an IP address and optionally a password to be able to connect to a computer via VNC.

In Ubuntu you need to enable remote desktop connection. Open System > Preferences > Remote Desktop and place a check against “Allow other users to view your desktop“. Optionally you may also specify a password that would be required to access the computer remotely via VNC.

There are a number of clients available that allow you to connect to a VNC server. You can find out more about them here.

Free NX

Yet another way to access your computer remotely is to use NX. You would need a FreeNX server on the machine that you want to be able to connect to remotely. You can use the freenx-team ppa to install freeNX on your computer. It is a bit more involved to set up on earlier versions of Ubuntu. This Ubuntu Help page has more step by step instructions for different versions of Ubuntu.

NX clients are available for Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris systems that let you connect to a computer running a NX server. You can download the one for your computer here.

LogMeIn is a great tool to access your computers remotely and perform a number of other useful tasks. While the above mentioned alternatives don’t offer each and every feature offered by LogMeIn, they certainly come close. TeamViewer is arguably even better than LogMeIn. In any case if it is remote desktop access you are looking for all three of the above have you covered. If you want something a little more feature rich, try TeamViewer.

Have any suggestions to add to the list? Share them with us in the comments below.