In the last article, I introduced Hamachi, a free software to easily create a VPN. Hamachi works even when computers are behind a router, so you can easily use it between office, home and anywhere.
UltraVNC is another useful remote tool and it is open source. If you have use tools like PCAnywhere, UltraVNC is something like it. UltraVNC allows you to connect to and take control of a remote computer.
Used together with Hamachi, you can connect to a computer behind your office router without having to set up special port forwarding in the router. (In the UltraVNC website, there are some other solutions to accomplish the same thing. I have not tried them since Hamachi+UltraVNC works for me.)
The advantages of using UltraVNC with Hamachi are
- Encryption. Hamachi already encrypts all traffic by default. So UltraVNC traffic are encasulate within.
- Private IP. Connect with private IPs and not available on public IP network (for computers behind router).
Let’s take a quick look at how to use UltraVNC.
Continue reading ‘Remote Control with UltraVNC’
So you have a LAN in office where you share documents between a few computers. Now suppose you are at home and one of the files is on another PC at work. What do you do?
One solution is to get Hamachi installed on both PCs.
Hamachi is not open source but the free version is very usable and I have used it on occassions between office, home and client’s location. (Hamachi had just been acquired by LogMeIn Inc in August 2006, it seems like the free version will continue to be available.)
There are a number of solutions available to achieve remote connection, even Windows XP comes with Remote Desktop. But what makes Hamachi stands out is the ease of use. Once installed, you just have to follow the few guided steps to get it up and running.
Continue reading ‘Share your LAN with Hamachi’
This is not exactly open source or free softwares but wireless LAN is becoming a must have in the office and very small business should (or at least consider) have it installed.
Recently we added another office one storey above our existing office. The new office is not directly above but a few units away. So the question arises as to how should we connect the 2 offices?
We started with a few options:
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Installing a new ADSL for the new office
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Using the existing wireless LAN
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Linking the 2 offices with a network cable
Installing a new ADSL was dropped since it would mean additional cost that we are not prepared to pay.
Using the existing wireless LAN surprising is an option. The wireless signal was able to reach up to the second floor. However we wanted to cater to users that do not have wireless connection.
This leaves us with the third option which is to connect the 2 offices with a network cable. The resulting network looks something like this.
We could have used a wireless Access Point (AP) on the upper storey. Much to my surprise however, a wireless AP cost 2 times as much as a wireless router. I have no idea why. The retailer hinted that AP are used typically by offices, therefore costing more.
So we added another wireless router on the upper floor and connect its WAN to the wireless router on the lower floor which in turn connects to the ADSL modem.
The wireless router has 4 network ports built-in. In order to connect more than 3 (one taken up by the router above) network cables, a 8 ports switch was added.
Setting up the network this way, we now have all network going through a single Internet connection.
The only drawback is that we now have 2 separate segments that cannot inter-communicate. Any suggestion of softwares or setup to solve this?
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