VNC Client
From time to time, I work out of my house; I've got a suite of software packages that help me punch through the office firewall, connect to shared resources and even view and use my office computer as if I were sitting right in front of it.
That last feat is pretty fun, and is the basis of a new program I just finished for my cell phone: a VNC client. The idea is, with two clicks on my cell phone I can now connect to my desktop machine and see its display right there on the phone; I can type and the remote computer sees the keystrokes, and I can roll the trackball and watch the mouse cursor move. Basically, if you don't mind the brain-numbing latency (1-5 seconds for a full screen refresh), you can take over a remote machine very nicely.
Here's a few obligatory pics:
I've just submitted the application to the makers of my cell phone, as the first step in getting their business development and QA departments to look the application over. The quality of the application is very high--I'm pretty proud of it, actually--but I'm guessing there's only about a 50% chance that the app will get approved. There are two likely hangups: it doesn't work on older versions of the phone (requires a trackball, and old phones don't have one), and it uses a lot of network bandwidth (something carriers don't like--and if carriers don't like it, well, it's dead in the water).
On the other hand, having a good VNC client brings the Sidekick closer to feature-parity with other data-targetted PDAs out there. Who knows?
That last feat is pretty fun, and is the basis of a new program I just finished for my cell phone: a VNC client. The idea is, with two clicks on my cell phone I can now connect to my desktop machine and see its display right there on the phone; I can type and the remote computer sees the keystrokes, and I can roll the trackball and watch the mouse cursor move. Basically, if you don't mind the brain-numbing latency (1-5 seconds for a full screen refresh), you can take over a remote machine very nicely.
Here's a few obligatory pics:
I've just submitted the application to the makers of my cell phone, as the first step in getting their business development and QA departments to look the application over. The quality of the application is very high--I'm pretty proud of it, actually--but I'm guessing there's only about a 50% chance that the app will get approved. There are two likely hangups: it doesn't work on older versions of the phone (requires a trackball, and old phones don't have one), and it uses a lot of network bandwidth (something carriers don't like--and if carriers don't like it, well, it's dead in the water).
On the other hand, having a good VNC client brings the Sidekick closer to feature-parity with other data-targetted PDAs out there. Who knows?