http://live.pirillo.om/ – Sometimes it would be nice if you could access your machine through a remote connection. VNC does just that, and it’s free. VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. This lets you access any computer that’s running VNC software from any other computer. So, Chris could have a VNC server running on OS X, while he runs the client on Windows: this lets him control is OS X machine from inside Windows, without having physical access to the Apple hardware.

Some folks in the chat room recommend Chicken of the VNC:

Chicken of the VNC is a fast, lightweight VNC client for Mac OS X. A VNC client allows one to display and interact with a remote computer screen. In other words, you can use Chicken of the VNC to interact with a remote computer as though it’s right next to you.

Chris recommends Vine Server for OS X:

Vine Server is a full featured VNC server for Mac OS X providing remote access to the GUI, keyboard and mouse using Vine Viewer or any other VNC client. Vine Server offers a rich and unique feature set among Mac OS X VNC servers including:

• Flexible port assignment for multiple VNC servers on a single computer
• System servers that run independently of user accounts
• Outstanding clipboard sharing; Exchange of rich text, images, files and applications when used with Vine Viewer

Plus, Vine Server is a full Universal Binary For Improved Intel performance and it is offered by Redstone for FREE!

And UltraVNC for the Windows platform:

UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location.

VNC: it’s very cool, very useful, and very free.

As great as VNC is, it is not as secure as it could be, and it’s not recommended that you run VNC over the Internet without some kind of secure tunneling.

Check out the OS X VNC Client video on YouTube and subscribe to our channel.