CONNECTING
Q. I can't connect remotely (internet).
A. First check that your host machine is in fact open to VNC connection via the internet. The best way to do this is set up your PC/Mac for VNC connection over the internet and check that you can connect to it from a VNC client on a remote PC/Mac. If you can’t connect then you need to check that there are no firewalls or other security software preventing access over the port and that your router (if using one) or routing software is routing TCP/IP over the VNC port to the local IP address of the PC running the VNC server.
If you're absolutely sure you have the relevant software and hardware configured correctly but can’t connect from a VNC client on a remote PC/Mac then it's possible (but very unlikely) that your PC's ISP is blocking the VNC port/s - in this case the only solution is to either get them to unblock one of the ports for your account or use an alternative port that isn't being blocked such as port 80. Also if using ports other than 5900-5909 we recommend using UltraVNC on a PC and Vine on a Mac.
If you can connect remotely from another PC/Mac but VNC Pocket Office is not finding the host then it is quite possible that your phone provider is blocking the port that you're trying to use - again the solution is either to get them to unblock the port on your account or use an alternative port that isn't being blocked such as port 80.
Also when connecting remotely you must remember that if your host does not have a static IP address then after disconnection/reconnection of your host to the internet then it's IP address may change
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Q.Why are updates so slow over a 3G connection ? What can I do to speed it up ?
A. 3G is inherently much slower than either direct WiFi or using WiFi to access a broadband connection - some studies have shown that standard 3G is actually 13* slower than using WiFi/broadband (this speed issue is common to all networking software, not just VNC). The short answer is use a WiFi or WiFi to broadband connection instead but when that’s not possible there are various things you can do to work around the problem. Probably the most important change you can make is have the server/host display set at the minimum useable resolution for the tasks you wish to perform over VNC. Secondly ensure you are using the best possible VNC server and VNC encoding - here the best encoding to use is ZRLE and the best server to use on a Windows PC is UltraVNC and the best server to use on a Mac is Vine VNC (see below for links to these). Thirdly in your VNC Pocket Office connection settings turn ‘Update Full Screen’ OFF and if you need to read text set the Server Scaling to 2:1, if you don’t need to read text then set Server Scaling to 4:1. If you still want updates to be faster then you could also turn ‘Full Colour’ OFF.
Q. After being connected over WiFi and losing the connection when I try to reconnect (in WiFi range) the connection messages say connection is being attempted over 3G and connection is not made, how do I reconnect ?
A. Simply exit VNC Pocket Office and then run it again, if connection is still not made over WiFi when it should be then quit PT Pocket Office again and go into your iPhone settings to verify that WiFi is indeed reconnected (to a suitable network). If connection is still not made simply try again after a few minutes as sometimes the VNC servers take a while to recover after losing a connection. If things still don’t work then the VNC server may require “hands-on” resetting/restarting.
Using Wake up On Lan (WOL)
In VNC Pocket Office the WOL option is implemented by sending a WOL message over a UDP port.
If you don’t give a specific port for the WOL message then it will be sent over the same port as specified for VNC (only as UDP rather than TCP/IP).
This means that to use WOL remotely then in addition to routing TCP/IP over the VNC port to the machine running the VNC server you also need to route UDP over the port for WOL to the same system.
The WOL message requires the MAC address of the network card on the system running the VNC server.
On Windows systems you can find this by entering “ipconfig /all” in a DOS shell (by running “cmd”) and the MAC address of your card will be given in the “Ethernet adapter” section as “Physical address”.
On a Mac simply load “System Preferences” then select “Network” then the “Advanced” option then select the “Ethernet” tab and the MAC address is given as the “Ethernet ID”.
Note that for WOL to work the system running the VNC server must be connected to the local LAN via Ethernet not via WiFi and the hardware and software on the server system configured to enable/allow WOL to function.
On a Windows system you will need to check (in Device Manager) that the ethernet card has it’s “Wake up Capabilities” set to “Magic Packet” (or “Magic Packet and Pattern”) and that the ethernet card Power Management has “Allow this device to wake up the computer” enabled.
On a Mac to enable WOL then select “Energy Saver” in System Preferences then select the “Options” tab and enable “Wake for Ethernet network administrator access”.
Note that if your server system is a Mac and it goes to sleep while you are connected then if WOL is enabled you can wake it up by tapping on “Full Refresh” from the VNC Pocket Office Options Menu i.e. you do not need to disconnect/reconnect in order to wake the Mac.
If your server system is a Windows PC that requires logon after going to sleep then the VNC server must be installed as a service in order make/remake the VNC connection from sleeping (the same is true if you wish to connect/reconnect after a logoff).
You should note that for a WOL to wake up a machine via the internet when the machine has been asleep for more than around 15 minutes then the local routing on the destination LAN of messages from the internet on the WOL port must be set to broadcast the message on the local LAN. Alternatively the local routing ARP table entries for the target VNC server system could be made permanent.
Known Issues
When connecting to the in-built Mac VNC using screen sharing if you disable ‘Update Full Screen’ in VNC Pocket Office then the screen does not get updated correctly from the server when moving the display or increasing the display area. In this case you need to either always have ‘Update Full Screen’ enabled or use the Vine VNC server instead - see below for the Vine website.
If the connection ‘Update Delay’ is set too low then tap/gesture responses may be affected, in this case simply connect with a larger update delay (0.5 recommended).
Note that if connected over 3G then setting the update delay to the maximum of 2.0 is probably a good idea. We are working to improve this problem so that even zero delay will not affect tap/gesture responses (at least not when connected over WiFi or WiFi/broadband).
Currently when connecting to the in-built Mac VNC using screen sharing you need to set the screen sharing to “Allow access for: All users”. We are working to change this so you can connect using VNC Pocket Office with screen sharing restricted to named user/s.
Currently if a server screen is larger than 2048 pixels in either dimension then VNC Pocket Office will only work if you use Server Scaling to reduce the transferred screen size to less than 2048. Unfortunately that means that you may be unable to view multi-monitor systems if the VNC server system is a Mac since currently the in-built VNC does not support server scaling and Vine does not support multi-screen.
This is an issue we are working on and it will be resolved in a future update i.e. so you can view screens of any size (memory permitting) without having to use server-scaling.
If your iPhone ISP is AT&T in the USA (and maybe in some other cases) you may find that trying to connect over GPRS/Edge will not work if the interface is asleep at the time. This is a known issue generally and the usual cure is to run Safari and go to a website then try to connect again. The solution in VNC Pocket Office is fairly straightforward, simply go to the main VNC Pocket Office help and tap on the Parys Technografx logo at the bottom of the help home page. Once the Parystec site has loaded exit the help and you should then be able to make a connection.
Points to Note
If connecting to a PC then make sure you have ‘Host is a Mac’ set to OFF and if connecting to a Mac then ensure that ‘Host is a Mac’ is set to ON. The main difference this makes is the way that some characters are sent to the VNC server when typing, typing with ‘Host is a Mac’ set incorrectly may produce unpredictable results. If you are connecting to a system that is neither a Windows PC nor a Mac then some experimentation is probably needed to see which setting of ‘Host is a Mac’ works best with your system. For Linux using ‘Host is a Mac’ ON is probably better.
USEFUL SITES
For the latest UltraVNC server software for your PC goto :-
http://www.uvnc.com/download/index.html
For the fastest VNC server for your MAC goto:-
http://sourceforge.net/projects/osxvnc/
For Smartphone / Symbian VNC client software goto:-
