Once you enter the password, you'll see the screen of your VNC server's PC in a window on the machine running the viewer. You can move your mouse over the window, click in the window, enter text, or perform any other activity you would normally perform on your computer. There are some special key sequences that you can send from the viewer's context menu, shown in Figure D, most notably Ctrl-Alt-Del. It also lets you refresh the entire screen, which is sometimes necessary.

FIGURE D


The VNC viewer's context menu lets you send special key sequences and run other commands. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Setting up PalmVNC
PalmVNC is a standard Palm OS application and installs the way you're used to. If you HotSync from a machine you installed the Harakan distribution on, you can also choose the "Transfer PalmVNC to Palm" menu item in the Start menu. When you first run it, you'll see the splash screen shown in Figure E.

FIGURE E

This is the PalmVNC splash screen.

Configuring PalmVNC
You first want to set up a connection. All of the basic connection controls are located in the Server menu, shown in Figure F.

FIGURE F

The Server menu gives you all of the connection options.

To set up your first connection, use the Open item and tap the New button to see the screen in Figure G.

FIGURE G

The connection definition screen lets you set up your server connections.

For the moment, we'll assume that your handheld has direct, networked access to your server. Typically this means either that your server is directly available on the Internet or that your handheld has access to your local network. I generally use my PalmModem to dial my ISP (Internet Service Provider) and connect to my server, which is available through my cable modem. I'll give some tips on this later, but for now we'll ignore the details. I'll also defer the setup of the ISP dial-up to Palm's documentation.

In the connection definition screen, the first field simply gives you a readable name. The program doesn't care what you enter here. The server address is the DNS (Domain Name Server) name or IP (Internet Protocol) address through which you access your server and is the same as the <host name> used with the basic VNC viewer. The display by default is set to 0. Read the documentation for more details on screen numbers.

The final field lets you define whether you want to enter the server password in advance or whether PalmVNC should prompt you. The default is Prompt, which provides the most safety. If you assign a password, the security of your server may be compromised simply through the theft of your handheld. You can safely ignore the Details button until you feel like exploring later on. Tap the OK button when finished.

Once you've set up your connection, tap the Open button to test it. Figure H shows the PalmVNC view of my server's screen.

FIGURE H

My server desktop through PalmVNC with Whole Desktop scaling.

Figure I shows the same screen as seen from the standard VNC viewer on my laptop.

FIGURE I


The VNC viewer from my laptop shows the same screen without scaling. Roll over picture for a larger image.