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Salty · May 18, 2006, 12:41 AM

OK, so my optical drive in my PowerBook is all jammed up and because of all the dents and what not I probably can't get it fixed under AppleCare (despite the fact that I'm incredibly non convinced the dents have anything to do with the fact that the drive failed!) anyway. So I bought a bunch of CDs today, and I've been ripping CDs lately on the Mac mini I bought my mom, but one CD was making strange noises in her combo drive and I didn't want to risk it. So I ripped them in my iMac. And I recently got sick of switching my mouse over between the two, so I decided, well this is as good of a time as any to try VNC.
VNC is fun! OK maybe it's just gimmicy right now for me but still this is a lot of fun! I love being able to use just one mouse and keyboard, and for basic stuff it works fine! I could actually see this being useful for a couple things even just as home user.
I'm using OSXvnc as the server and it seems to be good. I'm then using an App called VNCviewer as the client. Anyway though I was wondering what your favourite client app is... I'm a little frustrated that this doesn't allow me to book mark different machines. I don't like the idea of having to type out the names of the different Macs in the house. Anyone know of any clients that do have book marking features?
Oh and yah... just... uhh... share your fave stories cool things whatever involving VNC. I honestly thought VNC would run a lot slower than this!

goMac · May 18, 2006, 12:50 AM

Chicken of the VNC isn't bad. For prank purposes I modified the code to disable mouse control so I can just sneak in keyboard presses.

waxcrash · May 18, 2006, 01:09 AM

I use Chicken of the VNC on a daily basis with my Mac. I work in downtown Chicago, but have a Windows box up in the northern suburbs at a remote office I have to control.

Salty · May 18, 2006, 01:24 AM

I can't get chicken of the VNC to work for some reason. Every time I try and connect it tells me it timed out as soon as it tries... any idea what I'm doing wrong?

sabrejim · May 18, 2006, 07:59 AM

I use chicken as well. If I ever get any time outs, it usually freezes for a while, its not an immediate timeout. And thats always because I pick the wrong port or type the wrong ip in.

macroy · May 18, 2006, 09:27 AM

I like RDP. I like the "session" type as oppose to taking control of a PC. This way, someone walking by can't see what your doing. But RC software is good if you're trying to help someone...

zmcgill · May 18, 2006, 11:57 AM

gimmick. i use CotVNC for VNC, but we use Apple's Remote Desktop here at work. If you can get your hands on a copy (2.0 is outdated now so it should be cheap, but it works very well still) I'd highly recommend it, it leaves normal VNC in the dust.

olePigeon · May 18, 2006, 12:10 PM

I use Cisco for Work.

turtle777 · May 18, 2006, 01:45 PM

VNC Thing. Although it hasn't been updated in a while, beats CotVNC for me.

-t

gururafiki · May 18, 2006, 02:20 PM

VNC rocks. I use it in my classroom to monitor what my kids are doing on their computers...and if I don't like what I see, I just take control of their computer while never leaving my desk.

Todd Madson · May 18, 2006, 03:50 PM

Gururafiki: you could also drop down random text "I AM WATCHING YOU."

Re: VNC. I keep meaning to set this up because in the house we
have four Macintoshes and two PCS (well, one is a Linux box) and
they're all over the house but I keep running into other things I want
to do.

I may just give it a try and see how I like it.

Salty · May 18, 2006, 04:01 PM

It's a lot easier than I thought! All you need to do is have the VNC server going. Anyone know if there's a way to make sure that this doesn't appear in the dock so the user could quit it for exampe?

gururafiki · May 18, 2006, 04:16 PM

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

Gururafiki: you could also drop down random text "I AM WATCHING YOU."

Yes, I supposed I could. But it's more fun to see the confusion on their faces when they don't know that I am controlling their computers. And they almost never complain because they know that they are doing something they aren't supposed to.

Salty · May 18, 2006, 04:18 PM

Ha, well I made the icon for Chicken of the VNC into my old Superchicken iMac one, and then made a ducky version for Cyberduck

zmcgill · May 19, 2006, 12:05 AM

Originally Posted by Salty

It's a lot easier than I thought! All you need to do is have the VNC server going. Anyone know if there's a way to make sure that this doesn't appear in the dock so the user could quit it for exampe?

That would depend on what you're using as a server. I think before I had RD I used OSXVNC. Once you open it you can configure it to start the server at startup, then it will appear nowhere but the activity monitor. It's so stealth, in fact, that I forgot I left it running and my roommate kept taking control of my iBook even after I turned off RD. It took me a while to figure out I still had that server running.

Salty · May 19, 2006, 01:29 AM

oh seriously I don't need to leave it running in the dock? That's good. I'm using OSXvnc

ShotgunEd · May 19, 2006, 02:32 AM

I haven't used the mac version but Citrix is pretty good.

I RDP to my work computer from home as well, having full outlook access is Much better than using OWA.

besson3c · May 19, 2006, 08:23 AM

Originally Posted by Gossamer

gimmick. i use CotVNC for VNC, but we use Apple's Remote Desktop here at work. If you can get your hands on a copy (2.0 is outdated now so it should be cheap, but it works very well still) I'd highly recommend it, it leaves normal VNC in the dust.

Normal VNC? Apple's Remote Desktop uses the VNC protocol. All of the additional remote control features included are for Macs only. The dynamic screen resizing feature leaves artifacts on non-Mac desktops (as of 2.0). Unless you need to control several Macs, why should anybody shell out for ARD?

qnxde · May 19, 2006, 10:12 AM

I don't like CotVNC it seems slow compared to most of the others.