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PalmVNC

Mon Jan 29, 2001 - 5:28 PM EST - By Scott Hanselman


Product Info
Details
» Name PalmVNC
» Company Harakan Software
» Fact Sheet & User Opinions
Availability
» Unknown
Pricing
» Free

Good & Bad Stuff

The PalmVNC Client and WinVNC Server work great. I use them to reboot misbehaving servers, check the status of various systems, and generally wow my friends. Since it's all over TCP/IP, I can use my OmniSky or YadaYada wireless modem. Since it's cross-platform I can monitor my Linux boxes and my Macintosh. Of course, I can also use my ThinModem Springboard modem, and hookup to a land line just as well.

Screenshot on Visor PrismPalmVNC supports both color and black and white Visors. It works fine at 1-bit, 2-bt, and 4-bit Grayscale and is surprisingly readable. If you take a look at the screen shots, some of them show the whole desktop, squished into a 160x160 screen, but even at that small resolution I could open and close explorer. The scaling can be changed on the fly, so you can zoom out for a macro view, and zoom in when needed for detail work. The server-side scaling extensions also appear to do some anti-aliases, which smooths jaggy edges, and makes the desktop quite usable at a ratio of 1:2. The hardware buttons are also remapped for scrolling, so you can use the Todo and Memo hard buttons to scroll left and right, and the Up/Down buttons to move up and down. You can also use the menus to send a Ctrl-Alt-Delete in Windows NT. PalmVNC also has password support for a more secure connection.

Bad Stuff

Screenshot on Visor PrismIf I had to compalin, I'd say its fairly slow. Don't be expecting to do any drag and drop operations. If you use the stylus to close an app, for example, you'd need to tap once to move the mouse, then wait a second for the mouse cursor to redraw. Then you'd click again to select the system menu for that window, then select close. It sounds worse than it is. There is an on-screen helper keyboard for thhings like CTRL, and ESC. Sending keystrokes can be a little tricky, but how can we complain?



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