I love VNC.  I’ve been using VNC for years.  Back when I was working at the University of Essex as the Chaplaincy Assistant I used VNC pretty much every day to use my computer.  These days I don’t use it quite so often, but it still has its uses.

For those not in-the-know, VNC is basically a screen sharing protocol.  When I was ChapAss I would load up my VNC program, tap in the IP address of my computer at home, and VNC would show me my own desktop and allow me to use the computer as if I was physically sat in front of it.  The benefit for me at that point was that I could use all the programs I was familiar with (which were far better than the ones the uni computers provided) and keep all my files in one place.  It worked really well, apart from when my computer crashed – then it meant phoning the house to see if anyone was in who could restart the computer.

Now, working from home, I have no need of VNC in quite the same way.  However, I do have two computers and only one monitor, so it still comes in handy sometimes.  My Mac is my main computer, on which I do pretty much everything.  But I also have a PC dual-booting XP and Ubuntu, mainly for testing purposes – it’s good to know that my web sites work on ‘normal’ computers too.  And Linux.  So rather than connecting a keyboard, mouse and monitor to my PC, taking up valuable space on my desktop, I VNC into the machine when I want to use it, using both computers from one monitor and set of controls.

Of course, there is one small problem that needs to be overcome for this to work properly, and the root of that problem is that traditionally Mac mice have only one button.  With only one mouse button, how do you right click on an operating system that depends on it?

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