For this article, I am going to discuss the two most popular VNC clients as well as two alternatives to VNC. This means that not only is VNC available on several different platforms, most platforms have more than one version with slightly different feature sets. Fortunately, most of these features can be automatically negotiated during the connection process, so as a VNC user you usually do not care much which specific version of server you are connecting to - for the most part it Just Works.

PC or Linux to Mac connections have been known to occasionally exhibit buggy behavior but in most cases, you will have no trouble getting it to work if your software is up to date.īecause it is based on an open-source project, VNC development was subject to 'forks' where different groups of programmers began with the same base code and then created different versions of the tool to suit their needs. Mac to Mac sessions are probably going to be pretty reliable due to the same version of VNC code being used on both sides of the connection. Of course, the devil is in the details, and not all VNC implementations are 100% compatible. This makes cross-platform remote control a simple matter since a VNC client running on a PC can easily connect to a VNC server running on a Mac, for example. VNC was originally developed for use on Unix systems but has now expanded to include a client and server version for virtually all popular computing platforms. The last two are supplied in an e-mail from MacStadium after you sign up.

All you will need are a VNC client, the IP address of the server, and the password. In a just-out-of-the-box Mac mini this feature is disabled, but since you need a way of connecting to your server to set it up, MacStadium has already enabled the screen sharing feature in the Sharing preferences panel which allows you to make a VNC connection from the get-go. VNC, Generally Speaking, Mac OS X comes preinstalled with a remote control package called VNC (for Virtual Network Computing). This article will cover four popular (and free!) remote control programs as well as the pros and cons of using each of them.

Nearly all modern servers are 'headless' (meaning they have no dedicated monitor, keyboard, or mouse) and are controlled over a network using remote desktop software. The first question on your mind is probably 'How do I control this thing?' So you have a MacStadium hosted server and you're all ready to do something with it.

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