You’ve woken up in the morning, you turn on the computer and you fire up your torrent client to download all your favourite TV shows, films and music. You then head off to work smiling at the fact they will all be ready for viewing/listening when you return.
Trouble is, when you get home you find all the torrents are stuck on 3% because you used a dodgy tracker.
This is where UltraVNC comes into play. 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.” [source]
This basically allows you to sort out those torrents from the comfort of your work, friends, family’s computer.
Setting It Up
- Head over to the UltraVNC site and download the setup file. Install the executable. This will save two shortcuts that you will need to use: UltraVNC Viewer and UltraVNC Server.
- As UltraVNC allows you to connect over the internet, you will have to allow permissions on your router and/or you firewall so other computers can access it. UltraVNC typically uses port 5900 for incoming connections, so trigger this port on your router ( a good guide can be found here) and your firewall.
- Fire up UltraVNC Server. you will be presented with a screen like the one below:
- So that you don’t have every tom, dick and harry connecting to your computer, give your UltraVNC Server a password in the VNC Password box. The rest of this can be left, so click “Apply” and then “OK”. Your server should now show on the right hand side of your taskbar next to your system clock. This means it is running.
- As you will be connecting to your computer from an external source, you need to know the computer’s IP Address. This is as easy as going to www.whatismyip.com and copying the set of numbers they display (for example - 85.234.123.111). Keep a note of these numbers, you will need it when you try to connect to your computer from your destination (I always email it to myself so I don’t forget).
- Once at your destination, you will need to install the same set of programs as you downloaded before on your home computer, but this time only using the UltraVNC Viewer. Fire that up, enter the IP address you had saved previously and you should be away!
After a little time setting it up, it becomes the easiest thing to do. You will never know how you lived without it! (talk about cliched!)
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