Screen Sharing, the new VNC
VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It is essentially a means of controlling another computer remotely. It can be done on a LAN or over the internet. People use it for all sorts of things, but offhand, it sounds like it would be great for tech support, right? Assuming the problem isn’t a network one, you could just VNC into Grandma’s computer and fix the problem. Unfortunately not. VNC usually requires a bit of configuration, most of which if not all needs to be done on the client-side. And since Grandma is the one who needs tech support in the first place, she’s probably not going to be capable of forwarding ports through her firewall. Even if you managed to set it all up in advance, invariably an IP address will change or you’ll need some type of information that Grandma just can’t give you.
UltraVNC tried to solve this problem by reversing the process with SingleClick . The problem is a firewall will let just about any information out, but will restrict information coming in. That’s why Grandma’s network needs to be configured to allow a VNC connection. So what UltraVNC did is they made a small program that Grandma can run to initiate a connection with you. This means that her network need not be configured correctly, only yours.
I thought that was totally brilliant until I tried it out and it failed miserably. I tried multiple setups and it never worked. Perhaps you might have better luck than I.
So the whole reason I’m talking about this is I’m really excited about a new feature coming out in the next version of iChat. Screen Sharing. Say it with me, Screen Sharing. This is basically a zero-configuration VNC session. This means you’ll be able to help Grandma, Uncle Ben, and little Timmy with the click of a button, providing they have Leopard and use iChat.
This also has vast implications for tech support. This would allow agents to help people much more quickly. It would be easier to explain how to do certain things by showing rather than awkwardly describing. Complex information could be looked up by the agent rather than the client. The possibilities are fairly endless.
March 13th, 2007 at 7:03 am
I was doing a blog search for “VNC” and came across this. I’m about to do a blog entry on our tweak of UltraVNC and I’m gonna have to quote you on the description of the connection problems, very well stated. Our tech guy did have a version where Macs and Linux (I think) users could connect through a browser, but he didn’t think it was ready for prime time. So it’s only for Wind’oh!s users right now. Anyway, this is good news for me as a 1-year-old Mac user.
Patrick
April 10th, 2007 at 1:55 am
[…] Original post by Brandon and software by Elliott Back […]
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Interesting. I’ve been researching this for help desk purposes and so far have only found Mac Help Mate, the commercial software that is a zero-config screen sharing tool (among other utilities). I’m going to now test SingleClick too, but the iChat advance will probably be of use only to people with Leopard or better, I presume.