macfidelity

…called: JollysFastVNC

Description:

AIM to become the best VNC client on the Mac. BACKGROUND When I started ScreenRecycler I thought that there are enough VNC clients out there to support it. When the program started to get useful I realized that the VNC clients available on the Mac were pretty slow and people were complaining about the speed of ScreenRecycler. I was using VNCThing at the time which proved to be acceptable on PPC Macs but does not run on Intel Macs. Without a proper viewer people can’t access ScreenRecycler in a way I imagined. So I started programming JollysFastVNC to enable people using ScreenRecycler. As I got a few mails about the VNC capabilities of JollysFastVNC I decided to enhance the program to be a fully functional VNC client. It’s still in the early stages of development, even though somewhat usable and fast as you can see here.

Usually we use ARD on Mac to Remote-control other Macs. Unfortunally a full ARD-Server-license is quite expensive….but Apple has included a nice feature into the free ARD-client-service of each Mac.

Basicly you can configure the local ARD-Service to be connectable by random VNC-clients.

Short description howto enable this feature

• Open System-Preferences
• Goto Sharing
• Select the Service-tab
• Enable Apple Remote Desktop
• Select Access Privileges
• Configure the service itself and enable the VNC options

Well…thats it. I am not 100% sure if all VNC clients work, but i.e. TightVNC should work. Mouse-buttons can be handled a bit confusing…but thats the only real issue i had.

As the ARD-service seems to run before you login to the Mac itself it should be able to access the Mac at pre-login stage.

Advantages:

• ARD-Service is installed by default
• Easy to deploy

Disadvantages:

• Mouse-buttons 2 and 3 are changed if i remember correctly
• doenst offers all options ARD itself offers